Last updated on November 26, 2023
“You need to smile more.” Professor in graduate school.
“You need to stop seeing all the negatives around you.” Colleague at a university.
“Why are you always depressed?” Teacher at a conference.
The perception that autistics are depressed is a common stereotype.
Commenting on things I want to fix, noticing when things are out of order in some way, that’s a normal state for me. I do not comment on the good things often because those are obvious. I comment when things bother me.
Clinical depression is nothing like my state of being.
When I am frustrated, I fight to change things. When hardware or software isn’t working, I’ll spend hours trying to solve the problem. When something isn’t right with what I’ve written, I’ll exhaust myself trying to improve the words. My natural state of being is “fight mode” with an unwillingness to walk away from challenges.
Depression and exhaustion, almost a state of surrender, seem to go hand-in-hand. The depressed people I know have slept through days or even weeks. They are unable to fight against whatever bothers them. They feel hopeless. They sometimes lack the energy to be angry. There’s a sad resignation in their words.
I posted to Facebook:
Everyone I know (or have known) with depression has sought help. They know there are friends and family available. They KNOW all the things that are available to them, from services to friends.
Depressed people know there are hotlines. They know there are support groups. They also know about medications, diets, and other treatments. They aren’t ignorant of the options.
When some have given up, there were no additional, special, sudden signs. There were none of the stereotypical acts of giving away items or writing letters or anything. One person seemed fine right up until the afternoon of his death. His routine was the same it had been for a year or more. He even bought tickets to a basketball game.
That person, someone I had only talked to once or twice, simply stopped his car and drowned himself. There were papers in the passenger seat, tickets to a Warriors game, and some items belonging to his children in the backseat. He just didn’t make it home from work. Nobody knows why, but some have guessed it was financial or related to some work with professional sports teams. He seemed okay, though. And then he wasn’t.
I’ve lost several former students, some coworkers, and many acquaintances. It wasn’t that we missed signals. If anything, we might have said, “We’re here for you” more than was necessary.
Losing students is traumatic. It doesn’t make any sense. You tell the student about services. You file the reports with counseling departments. You do everything a teacher can, but it isn’t enough. Why didn’t the supports work? Why did the student still see no alternative? What could have been done differently by the school? By the parents? There are no answers.
Depression isn’t like on television or in movies. It’s a constant state of existence and resistance.
It doesn’t go away. It isn’t cured. It’s a life-long condition. It is a disability.
I do know autistics with depression. Often, this seems to be accompanied by a desire for social contact, a desire to bond with other people and one failure after another in relationships.
Yes, I get down. I have normal self-doubts and low self-esteem. But, I never don’t want to wake up in the morning (except when I was prescribed antidepressants for seizures and ADHD). Though I do have anxiety and stress, I do not find being alive less appealing than the alternative.
I love my wife, our pets, our children. Even when I’m disappointed that I am not the perfect husband or father, I realize that I’m at least as good as most people and doing my best to improve.
Depression is so much worse than a “bad day” or temporary sadness. It isn’t a passing mood.
I only crawl into bed when I have a headache or my body isn’t working. I don’t crawl into bed to forget the world. In fact, I usually have music or radio programs playing while I rest and recover. My bitterness, grumpiness, curmudgeonliness — those feed the rebellious impulses that keep me fighting when my body is tired.
Do not assume someone is “depressed” because that person sounds angry or frustrated. That’s not depression. Stop assuming people who aren’t outgoing extroverts are at risk of suicide. Being a crusader for change doesn’t make someone depressed, either.
I don’t have any solutions. Depression is often invisible. People with clinical depression learn to hide it. They learn to deny it. They don’t follow the checklists and they don’t always call hotlines.
With more than 40,000 suicides a year in the United States, and far more cases of clinical depression, this is a healthcare crisis without easy solutions.