The Neon Pink Backpack.

About seven or eight years ago, I was diagnosed with a life threatening illness. 20% of Canadians will be diagnosed with this in their lifetime. 100% of Canadians will be affected either by friends or family who will be diagnosed with this. It's one of those illnesses that doesn't discriminate based on age, economic status, gender, or culture.

Treatment is pretty simple. Medications control the illness and its symptoms. Effective treatments and consistent follow-up with my medical team help keep the illness in check and avoid major complications.

But there is one huge difference.

People run away from people like me.  No one is lining up to offer me or my family support, keep my kids busy, visit or call or bring meals.

If I had cancer (and this is not at all to say that cancer in and of itself isn't serious), the amount of support my family would be offered would be immeasurable.

But I don't have cancer.

I have depression.  It can affect every waking moment of every single day.  It can leave me exhausted by simply getting out of bed in the morning.  There can be days where just getting a shower or making a meal feels like a gargantuan feat. 

And there are the good days.  The days where I practically spring out of bed, ready to face my day, fight the good fight, and feel like bedtime can't come soon enough because I have been so busy and productive that I have exhausted myself, but I feel ready for more. 

Thankfully, there are more of those days than the former.

The thing is, the stigma of mental illness is such that while 100% of Canadians are going to be affected by this disease, those that are lucky enough to not have the disease do not understand what their actions do to those who do. 

When you have a friend who is diagnosed as depressed, deciding that it's too hard for you to deal with is probably the most selfish and hurtful thing you can do.  Depression is isolating.  Depression can be all consuming.  The person with depression might come off as angry and rude, but the reality is, they are - they are angry that they are feeling so low, and they (we) don't know how to handle it.  We push people away because we don't want to be with ourselves.  When you have a friend who seems to be pushing away, you should be pulling them in closer.  Not accepting that they are pushing you away.  Once you've isolated that friend, or rather, once that person has isolated themselves from you, your response, or lack of response, simply solidifies in their mind that they are the worthless piece of junk their brain has told them they are. 

When a depressed person feels abandoned by her friends, not reaching out simply tells that person that she is indeed abandoned.  That the people she thought cared, really don't.  Because if they did, they would not have abandoned her.

It's a state of mind and it's cruel.  Chemical imbalances that require medical intervention are cruel. 

Imagine, for a minute, that you had a 100 pound weight on your back.  You cannot put that weight down for anything.  It's already on you when you get up in the morning, and you can't take it off to shower, use the toilet, brush your teeth or cook breakfast.  You can't take it off to drive to work, or do your grocery shopping.  You can't take it off at work at your desk, and you must absolutely carry it around everywhere you go.  It goes to bed with you, too.

But you can't tell anyone about it either.  Because people don't want to know about your 100-lb  backpack.  They would much rather ignore it and pretend that even though it's neon pink, doesn't match with your outfit, and sometimes even has a flashing light and siren that will go off at intermittent, unplanned intervals, we just don't talk about pink backpacks.  Your pink backpack is your problem to deal with.  No one else wants to know about it. 

Chances are, they have their own backpacks.  Some of them are heavy, but match well with their outfits, so they're hardly recognizable, and often, they are someone else's burden, that they are carrying for that person.  Or that they have taken on of their own accord.

Sometimes, the backpack looks like your neon pink backpack, but it also has a sign on it that says "cancer", and people are drawn to helping them with their backpack.  Or trying.  They'll offer to take a few things out of their backpack in an attempt to lighten their load.  Sometimes, their backpack is much bigger than yours.  Sometimes, their backpack is so big, it's only a matter of time before the backpack takes them away.  And those people struggle if not just as hard, sometimes even more than we do with our intermittent-siren-and-lights backpack.

Sometimes, people have a big pink backpack, but all they carry in it is one or two small things.  They think their backpack is the same as your backpack, but they need all the attention.  They've found a way to trip the siren and the light so it goes off all the time.  They get the sympathy you crave, even though you haven't told anyone about your backpack, and have tried to hide it by covering it with something that makes it look like everybody else's backpack.  You force yourself to stand taller and not bend over the weight of your backpack, so you can look like you're not carrying a 100-lb noisy and light emitting backpack. 

And just when you think you've got a handle on the weight of your backpack, something inside shifts and the weight is once again unevenly distributed.  Now you have to find your balance again with this shift.  See if you can figure out what shifted and whether or not you can get it back in place, or if you have to find a new way to cope with this new distribution.  There are professional backpack packers.  They can help you pack your backpack in new ways and even help you get rid of some burdensome items.  Buy they won't come to you.  You have to find them.  And sometimes you may not like the way they pack your backpack, so you have to try another one who will help you, and not tell you how to pack your backpack.

Everyone has a backpack.  They're all different sizes with all sorts of different items in them.  You can ask for help, but your friends should realize when your backpack might be getting too heavy.  As people with depression, we need people who will be there when our backpack gets too heavy or the load shifts.  We already recognize that other people's backpacks are also heavy.  And because we don't want to add the weight of our backpack, we pretend our backpack isn't as heavy as it is.  We carry ourselves and hide the weight of our packs.  Just so our friends, the people we are supposed to turn to when our packs are heavy, won't feel burdened by our loads.

Don't be that sort of friend.  If you have a friend with a neon pink backpack that intermittently sounds a siren and flashes lights, ask them if they need help with their load.  Sometimes, that's all they need.  To know someone recognizes they have a heavy load and are willing to help.   Don't stop calling and inviting them or excluding them because their backpack is a garish shade of pink.  Remember, they didn't choose to have this neon pink backpack with the lights and sirens.  This is the backpack they were given. 

#BellLetsTalk day

January 27 is Bell's annual "Let's Talk" day.  It's a day in which Bell donates money for every tweet with the hashtag #BellLetsTalk and raises money for Mental Health initiatives.

Many people who know me, know that I have, and sometimes suffer from, depression.  Someone once said that depression is often worse than terminal cancer, because people with cancer have people who rally behind them, have support, and have people who bring up their self-esteem.

People with mental illnesses are often shunned, abandoned, misunderstood, and not rallied behind, not supported, and often, their self-esteem suffers.

I know this all too well.  People don't want to support the person who's always down, who sometimes bails on plans because the thought of getting dressed is simply too exhausting.  People stop inviting, stop calling, stop checking in. 

I said in a post today that if I had cancer, I'd have friends.  They'd rally around me and my family.  They'd be there with food, with ideas, with ways to engage.  But because depression - and mental illness in and of itself - is unpredictable, people don't know how - or perhaps don't want to - deal. 

It's much easier, I guess, for them to just turn their backs and walk away, using the excuse "well, I tried."   All I can say is if you truly are a friend - try harder.  Just because one person in your life has suffered from depression, doesn't mean any of the other people you know who do suffer the same way.  Just because one person was an ass, doesn't mean the other person is.

I found, after this summer, that the group of friends with whom I though I had a decent relationship, were not the people I thought they were.  I have cut the toxic relationships out of my life - for the most part - and am focussing on meeting new people, strengthening the relationships I have (interestingly, the people I have known since high school are still in my circle of friends, despite my diagnosis.  The ones I've made since marriage and kids, they're the ones who are no longer in my life).  I'm deepening friendships with people I had lost touch with and meeting new people. 

I also have an awesome job that I love - but makes me go to networking events and be outside my comfort zone frequently.  So that's always interesting. 

I'm learning what it takes for me to realize when my depression is trying to take hold, and when I'm heading into a spiral - either up or down.  I have people I can rely on who will tell me when they think they see a trigger starting something.  And I have people - some I know in real life, some I only know on Facebook - with whom I can discuss my hopes, my dreams, my fears and my feelings of either euphoria or abandonment - depending on the issue, the time of day and whatever other factors are at play.

I would say that I miss those friends with whom I am no longer friends, but as time goes on, I realize I don't.  If they had been true friends, they'd still be around.  They'd be rallying.  They'd be checking in to see how I'm doing, and I would be able to check in and see how they are.  It's a two sided road, I realize. 

I think what some people don't seem to realize, and what isn't always well defined, is that depression is tricky.  It makes you seem selfish.  It makes it seem like you think everything is about you.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  It's worse than that.  It's realizing that you are coming across as selfish and that nothing but your own problems matter.  It's realizing that people perceive that, but you can't articulate that you know it's not about you.  It's knowing that you should be asking people how they are, but hurting so much inside, that you don't want to ask, because you know they will ask you, and they don't really want to hear the truth. 

I think one of the stigmas of mental illness, and depression in particular, is that we may come across as selfish and self-centred.  The fact is, in a lot of cases, the only person we've learned we can rely on, is ourselves.  And we feel completely betrayed by the fact that we can't even rely on ourselves because when depression takes hold, you can't even rely on yourself to pull yourself out of it.

I have described the feeling to my husband, who sells flooring (carpet, etc), this way:  Imagine you have a bale of carpet (they weigh 100+pounds) that you are carrying around everywhere.  You can't put this bale of carpet down.  Not to eat, not to go to the bathroom, not to drive.  You have to carry this bale everywhere.  Imagine how exhausted you would be long before the end of the day.  THAT is depression.  In its most simplistic description. 

But not everyday is like that.  And now, having cut out the toxic relationships, having a job I love, friends I'm becoming closer to, and new friends, I have many fewer days where that black cloud - or bale of carpet - descend on me.

I just wish more people would talk - and I wish that "how are you?" was really an invitation to say exactly how you are.  I wish I could say to someone "I'm a little depressed today, but I'll be okay, thanks for asking."