The Student Room Group

Family and friends don't believe I have depression

Hi,

I wanted to get some advice on how to deal with my illness. I'm finding it very hard to cope with life following the death of my grandmother and then second year of uni topped it all off, and I found myself at the darkest point of my life towards the end of May. It took a long time for me to accept I was suffering with depression (I've only begun initial assessment, but I've also experienced manic periods which point to Bipolar II). Thankfully a few close friends and family understand my dilemma (I spent a good two hours crying with my mum).

However, I'm still faced with a major problem in that some of my friends and family don't believe I have an actual illness. I was really hurt when trying to explain to one friend and them saying "Oh, but you've always been a bit dramatic, are you not sure it's just stress?" I was even more hurt than when I tried to explain to an aunt I thought I was close to, she told me "to stop with the bull**** and stop emotionally blackmailing people". Furthermore she told me I was always the drama queen and mocked me saying "everyone else is always happy except for Hannah (not my real name obviously!)"

My mum told me that I should not have to explain myself to these people, but I've been having such an awful time at university, I don't want to lose the few friends I have. Then obviously, I don't want to cause a rift with my aunt over her behaviour, but my mother said that she won't understand and will never understand because she sees you once a year.

But it's not as easy as that - I don't like hurting people and pushing them away, but it seems like explaining to these people is not enough. It's like they want photographs of medication to prove it's real, when I prefer speaking to someone rather than pump my body full of pills.

Please can someone give me some advice, I feel my whole world is caving in.
Reply 1
Nobody understand us or knows what's going on inside us better than our self.It's pointless to ask of that from someone.I feel depressed all the time and even confided in some close friends & family but ended up criticized.

Like I advised in another thread, the best thing to do is keep busy.Try new stuff like reading a good book,watch new movies,cook a new recipe,anything.

Also try to watch"It's kind of a funny story".It helped me.I hope my advise helps you,nobody usually seeks it.
I went through 18 months of suffering with anxiety and subsequently depression and it wasn't great. The thing with mental illness is that the kind of emotions you feel when you have one are the same as normal emotions that people who don't have a mental illness feel, but on a much bigger scale. If you say to someone "I'm depressed", chances are they'll say they know how you feel when they don't, or they might think you're just a bit sad, not that you're suffering from an illness. I think that's why people struggle to understand mental illness - you can't physically see what's wrong, you can only go on how you feel. People who've been through it themselves are often a lot more understanding.

When I had counselling, we spent a whole session exploring my relationship with my parents and how it might have contributed. I tried to talk to my parents about this, and although I made it clear that I didn't blame them, my mum took it personally (she stopped talking to me for a day because she didn't want to say anything that might upset me and it was ridiculous) and I still don't think she's convinced I might have a mental illness. It does really hurt when someone you're close to is like that because it feels like they're invalidating your suffering and that they don't care.

While it's natural for you to want to tell the people closest to you about your mental illnesses, I think the best piece of advice I can give here is that if someone reacts like that to it, then forget about ever talking about it with them again. You might want their support but it's clear that they don't particularly want to give it to you, and if you keep trying to get their support you'll only end up hurt. You have people who are there for you when it comes to supporting you through this and you need to make sure it's them that you turn to for support when you need it.

:hugs:
Reply 3
I'd print off some leaflets from somewhere like Mind for them to read so that they can see it's a proper illness that many people suffer from, but ultimately it's not your responsibility to re-educate people if they don't care to learn about it. There's then a choice to make about whether you can remain friends with them still if they lack that understanding, which is tough, but it's something you have to do unfortunately. :console: Always remember that it's their problem that they don't understand, not yours. So don't start feeling inferior or anything, cos you're not. :nah:

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