I feel like a malingerer, and I feel like others think so too
October 11, 2015 3:11 PM   Subscribe

How do I stop feeling like my depressive symptoms are just character flaws, and how do I convey this to others? Is it possible that I am actually subconsciously exaggerating?

This is kind of weird, but I am internally convinced that I could really just buck up and feel better, but that has never shown itself to be the case. I feel like I am always inching towards an all time low, but I also feel like no one (family, therapists, school admin etc.) is really taking me seriously and I know for a fact that a lot of people think I should be dealing with things better than I should. I don't really know how to get past this, and it really hinders me from making progress in any direction (whether I am "legitimately" depressed or not). I have been diagnosed by therapists but they all seem so tepid about my problems that I wonder if I'm just being a drama queen, and my family members have pretty much out-and-out said I am undisciplined and lazy. Has anyone else felt like they are just "faking" being depressed, and if so, how did you determine it in either case? I don't feel like I can get through this, but I and everyone else seems to think I should be able to get through this.

For an example of subconsciously exaggerating: if I take some sort of inventory, like Beck's Depression Inventory, I almost always get the most severe category, but I still feel like I am lying to myself or something, even though I am trying to answer honestly. If that makes sense.
posted by hejrat to Health & Fitness (12 answers total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's not actually weird, this is what depression does.

You might want to peruse The Bloggess's depression lies tag, or check twitter for the #depressionlies tag. The concept tackles all the kinds of lies depression tells: the lies about your worthlessness or purposelessness in life, and the lies about how you're not sick and you should just stop being depressed, and the lies about how everyone hates you, and the lies about how you don't deserve help and treatment.

You deserve help and treatment. Have you told your therapist about these feelings? What have they taught you to do about managing them? (If the answer is "nothing", tell your therapist you need to know what their plan is for working on your coping skills, or find another one who does that kind of therapy, because it kind of sounds like you're not really getting value for your money.)

And if your depression is feeding you a lot of excuses about how you shouldn't take medication, please consider at least getting some first-hand knowledge about whether it works before you decide that. When things are as bad as you describe, it sometimes requires medication to give you a foothold for making some real progress. (Medication plus exercise and appropriate food and sleep, which you may also need some medical assistance with.)

Depression, just like viruses and parasites, has self-preservation mechanisms to try to stop you from getting better. That's what you're feeling.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:31 PM on October 11, 2015 [12 favorites]


This is common for me and I can only really see it for what it is when I'm not depressed. Part of the depression is that you're a fraud and you're just faking it. Other people may want you to "buck up" because they're uncomfortable with it. I'm hyper-competent normally and when I get depressed I think people get agitated because of their own feelings. And, like Lyn Never says, the depression also tells you that other people think you're faking.

When I'm depressed I feel like if I could just get my shit together I would stop being depressed. I feel lazy and like I lack discipline. The truth is I need to stop being depressed before I can get my shit together.

My husband has ADD and I started going to his sessions with his psychiatrist because he would really downplay what was happening and his psychiatrist would think he was doing fine. Are you downplaying it with your therapist? Is your therapist an asshole?

There's no real benefit to faking depression. It's not like you want to be unproductive and feel like shit.

I would suggest reading The Noonday Demon.

I would also suggest trying CBT around the thoughts that you're faking it and some assertiveness with people who are telling you that you just need to pull it together. "That's not helpful." It sounds like you're doubting your own reality and being questioned from the outside. Not good.
posted by orsonet at 3:44 PM on October 11, 2015 [4 favorites]


Ugh, don't ever listen to that depression voice in your head. For what it's worth, I hereby validate your depression as real. Your character is not flawed, but your brain is. My brain is, too. The important difference here is that the flawed brain is not a choice. Find a new therapist and keep on dealing with things as best you can. Feel free to MeMail me if you need to talk.
posted by Ruki at 3:52 PM on October 11, 2015


Yup, this is one of the most common symptoms of depression - the feeling that you should just be able to pull it together and that you're just too lazy/inept/whatever to do so. Tell that voice to shush - it's not helping you feel better, so it's useless, even if you (incorrectly) think it's true.
posted by judith at 5:00 PM on October 11, 2015


How would your life be different if you were somehow, magically maybe, able to accept that yes, you have depression?

If the answer is that you'd go easier on yourself, treat yourself with more compassion, then I suggest that you just start doing that. Don't wait any longer.

Is sounds like you've already spent a lot of time trying to figure this thing out, and you haven't made much progress. You can keep spending an awful lot of time trying to figure this thing out, but I don't think you'll make much progress doing so. Maybe you'll *never* resolve it to your satisfaction, and this will all be wasted time.

So how about you just move off this particular puzzle, and instead start to focus on things that are important to a life well lived? If that includes treating yourself with more kindness and compassion, so much the better.
posted by jasper411 at 6:22 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


It would be stranger, honestly, if you *didn't* feel this way, because it sounds like you have pretty intense depression and I don't know anybody who has suffered from it, myself absolutely included, who hasn't felt this way during a large chunk of their lives living wth the problem.

Since you use only the term therapist, I wonder if you have ever been to a psychiatrist? A good one might be able to lay out some treatment options and avenues you haven't yet considered, as well as adding an air of legitimacy that can be important to your sense of self. I know that for me, although my self-diagnosis was incredibly accurate, having a psychiatrist agree with me on all counts and then be very clear on what does and does not currently qualify as specific mental illnesses according to current medical standards was super helpful. It made me feel like I had a concrete starting point.

My family has called me undisciplined and lazy, and I agree with these labels for myself, but my depression is separate from that and my family has a long history of depression and other less treatable mental illnesses. Does your family maybe have a lot of shame about relatives who have had similar struggles? It sounds like you need some support structure and you are not getting any from the default places. Teasing out the aspects of your personality from the parts of you that have developed because of your depression is a huge part of fighting that depression. But it is also really helpful, when you start turning the corner, to have those separate things easily to-hand to explain things to people who maybe haven't been taking you seriously. Including yourself.
posted by Mizu at 6:47 PM on October 11, 2015


This is basically what depression is. If you feel like your therapist(s) is not being aggressive or assertive enough about giving you tools and making progress, you need to confront them about your meds and/or your therapy type.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:20 PM on October 11, 2015


Response by poster: Thanks for pointing out that this is common. I guess I did know that it was a cognitive distortion but I always felt like, it was legitimate for others but I am just being self-indulgent or something. It is really hard to shake that feeling, but sometimes I see people describing people who grieve losses too long as self-indulgent, so maybe it's a cultural thing also.

I think part of why my therapists etc. are tepid is maybe because I downplay a bit but I feel uncomfortable talking about things like suicidal ideation etc. so it probably comes across as "yeah I can't get work done and I'm bummed out." It's also just hard to take myself seriously in a world where the "it could be worse think about the African children!" narrative is repeated often and unironically.
posted by hejrat at 9:14 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


"legitimate for others but not for me" is an equally common cognitive distortion, I think. I've definitely been there.

It's easier to see others' problems as more legitimate and worthy from the outside, because all you see is how they present/behave, and because you might well like or respect them as people. I know that I like and respect myself a lot less than I do other people, so it's easier to see them as deserving of real attention and sympathy for their issues when I'm just a whiny, emotionally immature child. All of this is depression talking! And the other people who seem more deserving when they're depressed likely have identical inner monologues writing themselves off at the expense of everyone else.

The cognitive distortions go deep and arcane with this stuff, is what I'm saying. Your inner monologue is not a maybe-accurate reflection on you that you should consider believing when it's telling you you're no good, it's a facet of the disease.
posted by terretu at 11:39 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think the problem is that the DSM definition of illness is "debilitating." Some of us are borderline ok coping that we don't "by the book" can be defined as actively suffering an illness.

Some days I'm really tempted to "let go" and succumb to being completely mad just to get a definitive diagnosis (even if it's an incorrect one). But being diagnosed as being barmy seems to end up being more annoying than its worth.
posted by porpoise at 12:07 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Part of this is probably that you've coped with depression for much of your life, so you know how to pull it together sometimes, maybe even be fairly high functioning. I think "depression" is that it shouldn't be so very hard to pull it together. I know the feeling you're talking about, the "I'm just letting myself be lazy" feeling. But it shouldn't take intense effort to do certain things, yet with depression, it does. We all learn to cope with our heads, but a good first step is to stop the elaborate workarounds and unsustainable levels of temporary effort and just look at where your natural brain chemistry is leading you. If it doesn't naturally give you the motivation and energy to live your life, then it's worth getting help with.
posted by salvia at 12:34 AM on October 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


I guess I did know that it was a cognitive distortion but I always felt like, it was legitimate for others but I am just being self-indulgent or something. It is really hard to shake that feeling, but sometimes I see people describing people who grieve losses too long as self-indulgent, so maybe it's a cultural thing also.

Well, America isn't the best about helping with this.

For me, the worst part about depression is that it steals every good thing I've done in my life away. So if I help someone, I won't feel good about that or remember it positively. I'll dwell on how maybe I didn't help them enough, or try hard enough, or they actually hate me and it was all a bad idea.

That is what depression is. It isn't being "sad", it's destroying everything that makes us actually human and leaving a husk of nothing but despair and hopelessness.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:34 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


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