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Do you want to be cheered up when you’re depressed?

When you’re depressed, do you want people to say things to try cheering you up? Or does that make you feel invalidated? Sometimes it can feel like they don’t understand the depth of what you’re going through. Like, if they knew how bad you felt they’d know you needed validation and not just cheering up. I need to feel validated when I’m really down.

Does it work for you when they try cheering you up? Does it work sometimes but not others? What works for you? Please let us know in the comments below:

Joyce

June 30, 2014

Editorials

depression, Validation

6 responses to “Do you want to be cheered up when you’re depressed?”

Tina The Mess

June 30, 2014 at 5:30 pm

When I am depressed, really down, I surely don’t want anyone to cheer me up!

That kind of behaviour makes me even more depressed, and finally angry.
Because I perceive their cheering up like complete underestimation of my mind state.

In that kind of situation I reply in two different ways: either I start yelling and throwing things around like a child who is not understood, or I completely shut down into myself.

The worse version is shutting down. After that I’m able only to harm myself.

I have asked once would they say someone with the broken leg: “Oh,come on it’s nothing, cheer up and heal your leg. You can do it.”. Of course, they wouldn’t.

But nobody understands. If you are depressed, you are not simply sad.

It’s much deeper and complicated.

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Joyce

June 30, 2014 at 5:39 pm

Thank you for your comment. What an excellent analogy! I agree that I feel like people are belittling how bad I’m feeling when I get depressed, which can make me feel very frustrated and angry as well. Then I feel like “Why bother telling anybody, because they’ll just tell me it’s not that bad anyways. They don’t understand at all!”

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sensuousamberville

June 30, 2014 at 11:10 pm

When in a panic attack and told to calm down.. it has the opposite effect, when in a rage.. told to calm down… it has the opposite effect, when depressed and told to snap out of it, you just realize how hard that is to do.

So to be cheered up… That will not happen, cheering up must come from within. Depression lies though and keeps you in its grasp, you have the ability to “cheer” yourself up but depression hides this from you. If it were only so easy to be cheered up, or not to panic, or to calm down.

So yes invalidated, because of lack of understanding on the depth. Like it is your fault you are panicking, or anxious, or depressed… or emotions have brought on rage.

They are trying though, mostly, so a smile and thank you before you smack them with a big club.. 😉

*hugs*

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1. Joyce
  
  July 1, 2014 at 11:51 am
  
  I know that people mean well when they tell you to “just cheer up” but it does have the opposite effect. Thanks for commenting!
  
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Mandi

July 1, 2014 at 4:01 am

When someone tries to cheer me up normally it makes me feel invalidated. Logically I know their heart is in the right place so I try not to show my frustration. With those I’ve known awhile I feel more angry because I’ve explained how I feel and what I’ve learned and don’t feel like they’ve listened or believed what I’ve said.

I feel like depression with BPD is different sometimes. I wasn’t diagnosed with BPD for awhile. People who had experience with depression encouraged me often to push myself to get back into things because though it was hard, it’d worked for them. I believed what was said and tried to force it. When that backfired I saw myself as even more of a failure. I felt like I hadn’t tried hard enough, was weak… It took being diagnosed and actually listening to professionals to understand that at least in my case, forcing wasn’t good. For awhile I tried to explain what I’d learned if someone tried to cheer me up… now I just try to avoid any conversation all together because I seem to come off looking negative and unwilling to try. Many times I don’t write about how I feel because of that.

Great question! I wondered what others would say, I can definitely relate to what both Tina the Mess and sensuousamberville wrote.

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Joyce

July 1, 2014 at 11:56 am

Depression with BPD IS different than “normal” depression. Before I was diagnosed, I was told I was just depressed. I tried as hard as I could to get better – I went to counselling, I took my meds as prescribed and things just got worse. I felt like such a failure. And we all know that with BPD, we already feel like we’re flawed and don’t need to feel any worse. Then people tell us to “just cheer up” Wow, why didn’t I think of that? It’s so simple! (Insert sarcasm here) I know they mean well, but they don’t understand. Maybe someday we can raise more awareness and make them understand. There will always be people who don’t want to understand, though. Just ignore them and concentrate on the ones who do.

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