Depression: The Invisible Illness

Did you know that approximately 8% of all adults experience a major depressive episode in their life according to the Canadian Mental Health Association? You might be one of those people who’s depression is more obvious and can be more easily picked up on by loved ones, acquaintances, colleagues, etc. Alternatively you could be like myself and many other Canadians who have what we in the field like to refer to as “high functioning depression”. This is not a diagnostic label and although the experience of high functioning depression is very similar in terms of impact, you may go unnoticed and untreated for potentially far longer than someone who’s symptom are more blatantly obvious (not going to work, getting out of bed, letting relationships go, etc).

I wanted to take a moment to share my experience with “high functioning depression”. I have three beautiful little girls (4, 2, and 6 months old) and I experienced some pretty nasty post partum and situational depression after the birth of my second babe, Liv. You might say that she came at a somewhat inconvenient time as my husband had just lost his father unexpectedly at a young age.  So here I was a couple months post partum raising a toddler and a baby struggling with post partum mixed with the difficulty that came with being in a relationship with a partner who was experiencing also some pretty nasty depression throughout the grieving process. So like my biggest mentor always says mental health is like blood pressure, sometimes it is managed and sometimes it isn’t. Well to say the least, this was the point in my life where my mental health has been the least managed. I had started reaching out to family for support but I truly felt invisible, because of one reason. I am fantastic at hiding it (as are many of us)! I ensured that I was still upholding my home, my work, my relationships, my social life, my self-care, and my hobbies. Although it appeared I was balancing this heavy grief and huge life transition from the outside, inside I was screaming! So what the heck did I do to combat everything that was going on inside when my outside looked so normal? Well I got a great couples therapist so that I could learn how to support my husband through such a tragic time in his life, I spent more time learning to just be kind to myself, and I started intentionally engaging in some pretty uncomfortable vulnerability. I made a promise to myself that I would just start simply telling my supports about what I was going through and although it was hard not to feel shame, I would push through that discomfort knowing that it was part of healing. My purpose was never to rid myself of shame but rather to sit in it and just let myself experience it and then move on, knowing that every emotion I feel in a day is temporary. I can do temporary! I sometimes think of it as the hilarious scene from Kimmy Schmidt’s Unbreakable series on Netflix and the I can do anything for 10 seconds crank in the bunker (it’s pretty hilarious if you haven’t seen it). So if you are struggling with high functioning depression or any other mental health issue, believe me when I say that you can do temporary, we all can!