Atypical depression and not being believed

Am I silly for thinking I am severely depressed at the low points of my cycles when I can still smile and get happy? I am also suicidal, but I don't tell people about that. My friends think I'm OK, they even thought I was completely fine one week after my suicide attempt. Is it so hard to believe that you can be very depressed and still smile genuinely when someone says something funny? I wear a mask when I'm depressed, so maybe I never seem depressed at all. My previous psychologist and doctor said I was mildly depressed when I didn't have the motivation to do almost anything at all, and I slept 12 hours a day, I just sat in the couch for the remaining hours of every day, and I contemplated suicide every hour of every day. But I seemed happy, so how could I be severely depressed? I feel like no one believes me. I am in the psych ward now, my contact thought I was happy here. I am not. I hate this place.

Axy, depression doesn't mean you're sad, it means you're depressed!

I kind of feel like nobody believes how bad I am either mate, so I know what you're going through. x

I remember having a doctor tell me i couldn't be that depressed because i had showered and my hair was clean. Totally invalidating.

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I went months feeling suicidal and intending to kill myself before anyone noticed. I could fake almost everything convincingly since a young age. I didn't know not to believe the observations other people made about me until I realized how well I unconsciously act. It still creates problems because I'm unable to communicate effectively (my words and my body language give mixed signals).

This is, unfortunately pretty common. I was literally just about to post about my experience with the same thing when I saw this! People think I can't be depressed because I'm "not as bad as that one time", and can make it to school or work and have friends over still and I'm not cutting anymore. That doesn't mean s**t.

The only way to let them know is to tell them. Still they might not believe you (I had a friend tell me that it was hard to take me seriously because I talk about suicide like the weather), but they might.

Curiosity77, I had a friend go through the same thing, and she hasn't been able to get help since.

I honestly think it matters how it feels to YOU. Some people are still functional yet suffering immensely, and some are not able to function. Doesn't mean the feeling is different. I mean I almost always make it to work when I'm depressed, doesn't mean I don't have a plan in place for the end.

I'm sorry you feel invalidated. Your suffering is just as real as anyone else's.

I can be horrifically depressed, wanting to die and thinking about crashing my car into a tree at 80 MPH, and yet I get up and go to work every day and do what I need to do. It's called "presenting well", and I'm an expert at it. I'll be going totally crazy on the inside, and all that shows on the outside is unusual quietness and being withdrawn.

Mania is not so easy to hide, although I can mask it pretty well in the hypomanic phase and only people who know me really well can tell that I'm ramping up. Some folks have told me they would've never guessed I'm bipolar because I appear so "normal". LOL

I think there are different facets to depression which may or may not be experienced in episodes. But the real suffering is still there. I also think what needs to be kept in mind is part of the professional diagnosis of mental illness depends on how it is impacting a persons basic functioning in life. People can be suffering allot but still perform the necessities of life, including making it to work, eating, washing, and so forth. So to some psychiatrists, they are "functional" and not requiring care.

tucson

I've been wondering about this being able to function thing quite a lot recently. I'm experiencing a prolonged, treatment resistant depression, yet every day I take care of my personal hygeine, go to work, etc etc. I do that because it is actually much less effort than staying in bed all day and having people nag at me or make me go to therapy or put me in hospital. Most of the time, although I'm "present" and presentable, I'm not able to concentrate, have intrusive suicidal thoughts, get no pleasure from what I'm doing, and cannot forsee a time when things will be better or recall happier times. I think that we can develop coping strategies to see us through the bad times and "functioning" is one strategy. So Axiom, it could be your reaction to humour is one of your coping strategies,especially if laughter isn't enough to lift your mood other than in that moment.

I fully understand what you've described Axiom, and it sounds typical of bipolar mixed state.

Thank you for this post. I worry a lot about being judged and not believed, because my hypomania too is rarely visible to most people, even here in the psych ward. They don't notice that I speak twice as fast, that I talk maybe four times as much, that I lack social inhibition etc, etc, because I try not to let the hypomania control my behavior and show so much. I feel like a lightning storm and a tornado inside of me though.

I understand where you are coming from, most of my friends and some family find it really hard to believe/out right don't believe I have bipolar because they've never seen me hypomanic, and with depression I could always hide it. I have spent months suicidal and no one noticed the full extent, likewise I've been really hypomanic or psychotic and while people seem a bit alarmed they don't suspect anything. It's great on one hand as although most of the time it's really hard to hold everything together, I've managed to avoid a hospital, on the other hand it also means most people think it's really mild and I'm overreacting/saying I have bipolar for attention.
I hope you are okay, and that the ward isn't too bad.

Well said, All.

I 'm sure L'Wren Scott"s recent pre-suicide days, hours were quite 'passing' both professionally and personally as well. Same as you, me, everyone here. We're good at keeping up a facade that others prefer to accept as the real McCoy. My friends (long distance now) I *know* do not want to anymore hear how I really am. They can't handle it, they can't fix it, they can't do anything for me (they already sent the cookies and chocolates at Christmastime). So it just makes them feel bad, frustrated beyond belief, and sometimes angry.