This is a piece about depression, little understood by those who have not experienced it. Most people go about their lives, not terribly happy, not terribly sad - stability. They simply cannot imagine the actual hell of clinical depression. There is a tendency to be judgmental or critical of the sufferer, or belittle their suffering. This even extends to helplines specifically set up for the suicidal! If their was education of mental health workers to teach them that it is like living in a nightmare, that NOTHING helps, that a person is not their normal self while in this state, and that it bears little resemblance to ordinary depression then things might be better.

This still leaves the question of how to deal with it. I myself am a firm believer in medication. Before I was put on lustral I literally was incapable of hope, this emotion came back when I had been on the Lustral for a while. I was fobbed off at first by a psychiatrist who obviously did not believe or understand what I was saying and it took over a year and a new psychiatrist to get what I needed. It's not simply the intensity of the emotion, it's also the way it can last for so long - after years of it you are a changed person. Time can be a great healer however, it's funny how you can gradually come out of it together with the right medication and environment. Admittedly the perspective of the depressed person is warped, but that perhaps is the problem, that there is nothing they can do about it. That is why statements such as "you've got a lot going for you" or even worse "everybody is unhappy" either don't help or just make the sufferer feel ten times worse.

Another problem is relapse. The natural though of the depressed person when this happens is that he/she is back to square one, that all the good work has been undone, this is when morale boosting *can* work. A fact that isn't widely understood is that what appears to the "normal" outsider as nothing much to be upset about can be more than that, the clinical depression has been switched back on, and the nightmare returns. Thus instead of saying that there is nothing much to be upset about, it should be treated as what it is - a mood swing.