And people wonder why there's a stigma...

So I foundthis while scrolling down the front page of the main site:

An Experience of Depression | Relationships in Balance

I don't necessarily have an issue with the article: it's quite familiar, really, crawling out of bed late then becoming absorbed in some useless activity that distracts you from how awful you feel. I"m totally guilty of wasting entire days, years actually, hiding in my room online.

But, viewed from the outside, it does sound supremely lazy. "Oh, I just don't have the energy to work, so I'll sit and watch Netflix all day because I'm sad." How, to a typical person, does that not sound like a character flaw rather than weakness or laziness?

Not too long ago I mentioned something in a Youtube comment section about how medication and various medical conditions can cause weight gain (in response to someone basically blowing those claims off as excuses). Someone then shot back that "There's no disease that makes you shove cupcakes in your mouth all day." I think a similar mentality can easily be put here: "Wanting to sleep and watch TV all day doesn't make you helplessly mentally ill." I suppose I'm a little concerned here - things like credibility?

To outsiders looking in this can appear to be laziness. When I was depressed, I used to call and consider myself lazy. But depression isn't about wanting to watch netflix all day or wanting to get a few more hours of cozy sleep. At least not for me. It's a mind and body stealing thief which tries to get me to commit murder upon myself. I watch Netflix when depressed but I don't understand the show and would need to rewind it and watch 5-6 times just to understand some basics but I never rewind. It's just background noise to go along with all the thoughts of hopelessness which pull and keep me under the depression waters and zaps me from any interest in living at all. I used to think this was normal and that all people felt like this if they were honest so I hated myself more and wished for my own death more which didn't get me anywhere. Guess what, depression (real clinical depression and hating yourself and fantasizing about ending it all are not normal) they should not be accepted as facts of life and people told to get over themselves and stop being so selfish. This is some people's reactions but they are incredibly ignorant and non helpful and better off staying away from depressed people.

Some people stay in bed with the covers over their head, some people play games obsessively and some people plot their own death. I don't look at outside behaviors when accessing someone's laziness, I look at what's going on in the insides of the person. This is where the truth lies. I know a few genuinely lazy people (no depression, just lazy) and I know a few over achievers and sometimes the lazy person is much nicer, more kind and helpful believe it or not. We can judge ourselves and others anyway we see fit. Whatever makes us comfortable. I've been through so many types of depression from dysphoric delusional to non verbal catatonic. None of them were built on the stuff true laziness is made of and calling myself lazy never helped anything. If calling yourself lazy helps you (as it does for some people) then I'm happy for you.

(((Hugs to anyone who is depressed whether they are in bed watching Netflix or at work saving the whales)))

I've been struggling with this also - the fact that from the inside, things get me depressed and I act/feel despondently paralyzed, but from an external perspective it doesn't make any sense because it doesn't solve any of the situations I feel depressed about in the first place.

I have concluded that the desirable thing is to encourage ourselves, as we might try to encourage someone else in a similar situation. People who just complain that "depressed people are acting lazy" or the like are not showing the slightest inclination to empathize or understand, they are just conveying what they see and assuming what causes the behavior.

I ask myself, is it understandable that something genuinely bad makes me feel bad? Yes, I wouldn't possess emotions, opinions or preferences at all otherwise. The problem comes in me seeing a bad situation as permanently fixed or as extremely threatening, and that causes the negative state to persist and cause paralysis.

i don't know if i would be considered lazy, but it seems to be a side effect of my meds. i was trying to rationalise my need for 16 hours of sleep today, that is how much i needed to get awake a bit. i don't want to be lazy and feel guilty about it. i need a med to up my feelings, but it would mess with what im on now i was told. uppers and downers dont mix, i could cause my own death. well i hope your depression lessens and remember i'm in it too and will pray and do every day that it doesn't consume me or others here.

Depression is not laziness, its a disorder in the brain, in many cases it is a chemical imbalance. People who think its laziness are ignorant and dont understand the disorder. And yes they are not only ignorant, but lacks understanding and empathy with the sick person as well.

In my case, being/feeling depressed/sad, I wish I could do things I once enjoyed, but I cant get myself to do it. Not because I dont want, but my body and mind dont get myself to do it. Its like a wall hindering you from doing the things you once enjoyed. You cant seem to get through the wall and onto the other side. Your mind can think "I wish I could do this", but if the rest dont follow then it wont help no matter how much you wish you could do those things. Before I got sick with depression I did so many things, I was free and I enjoyed life and had no sadness or sorrow. I did not lack any motivation.

I would say for you, Scienta, that if you feel or think your depression is because you are lazy then I would have to say that is most likely not the case. If you really are depressed as in being clinically depressed then its not laziness.

I dont understand, by the way, why there is stigma around depression. I dont get it. Who came up with that and who was that first person to say so? A person in some centuries ago or someone. Who is he/she? Does anybody define us? No they dont. I am saying this because in truth we all being born here on earth and we have a Father in heaven who loves us. So who is that person who came up with its wrong to be depressed. There is no reason for people to stigmatize it. Its just people being ignorant and thinking its ok to make it a stigma.

I think that people do what they do because they choose it...however, depressed people don't have choices. It just IS.

We all know (here, anyway) that depression robbed us of the ability to DO (including choose).

Don't expect people to understand what we go through.

I do so called lazy things when I am Depressed not because I wish to do them but out of habit, need, or boredom.

Yes, my tv will be on. It is the noise that I need. It means somehow still being even a fraction in touch. I need to hear a human voice. Ask me what I have watched and I likely couldn't tell you.

But, yes, I've had people say things like "I wish I could stay home and watch TV all day."

Scienta, I think I have misunderstood you. I am sorry for that. I thought I read that you thought you were lazy. But I see now that it was a view how outsiders may think of us. Yes outsiders think we are lazy, but its not laziness.

I think if you are lazy, you can be happy; but if you are depressed, you aren't. If I'm lazy, I can eventually persuade myself to do something, but if I'm depressed, I can't. Sorry if that's an oversimplification for everyone.

Little cat is right.i can understand that way of explaining it,

No. I think you are "right"

Cat is right. Lazy and depressed are not the same.

Normally I'd be inclined to say that "laziness" is a symptom of many mental illnesses, but since "lazy" has such moral baggage attached to it, I avoid describing it like that.

In writing or talking about similar problems, I've used descriptions such as, "It's basically like being really lazy, except when people are lazy for normal reasons, they can stop being lazy whenever it suits them," or, "It's like being lazy, except laziness normally comes with some expectation of benefit, and this does not."

It's certainly a public relations concern, so I recommend people choose their descriptions carefully if they're publishing something....

But if someone is devoted to being arrogant and hateful, there's not much you can do. Take that person who said, "There's no disease that makes you shove cupcakes in your mouth all day,"--um, yes there is. I bet the person who said that has never felt a soul-crushing, mind-consuming compulsion to eat on any kind of chronic or frequent basis. They just feel normal-person cravings, and they are patting themselves on the back for being able to resist those cravings, while looking down on other people for failing to resist what they assume are the same level of cravings. (Plus, if that discussion was about obesity more generally, many medications and medical problems make you gain weight without increasing your calorie intake or decreasing your physical activity. And I feel like it should be pretty obvious that lots of health problems will interfere with physical activity, thereby reducing calories burned.)

I feel like wanting to sleep and watch TV all day does make someone mentally ill, especially if they want to do it on a regular basis. (Normal life-related weariness would cause that kind of behavior occasionally, but something's wrong if you want to do it all the time.) If I even try to imagine that, it sounds really unpleasant--who the heck would want to do it if they weren't mentally ill?! Okay, if you have some good TV shows, I can understand numerous hours of TV-watching, and things like Netflix will be much better than broadcast television. But sleeping? Sleeping is boring. Once you get whatever amount of sleep your body wants, you can't even keep sleeping; you'll end up laying there just trying to sleep and failing. Booooooriiiiing. And if you're vegging out on Netflix really often, it's eventually going to start running low on new shows you actually like. You will either have to watch reruns or lower your standards. (I used to veg out with the internet rather than TV, and I remember thinking, "I know I must be depressed because the internet has run out of captioned cat pictures.")

It sounds boring to me even though I'm introverted, but extroverted people (about half the population) tend to dislike large quantities of solitary activities, so I imagine it's even worse for them.

Laziness is a luxury for those without an MI. How many people work like rats all week and just crash on the weekend?

People don't understand MI in general. They don't realize that even getting out of bed is difficult when depressed. We are so wrapped into thinking that you have to work hard to be anybody. When one can't work because of a MI, that person is looked down upon as lazy and unproductive to society. Sadly, a lot of our culture is based on what you do and how much you do, not as who you are.

I dont care what other people are thinking of me or if they should think something of me, why I dont work or if I have a mental illness and if they should happen to know why I dont work, then they can think whatever they want..I really dont care. I dont care just because I know they have no understanding. I would encourage everyone who struggles with depression or other mental illness to just think **** those who think its ok to look down on people with MI". Who are they to define us or anyone for that matter. They have no clue what we are struggling with or they just dont want to understand, maybe dont want to understand with purpose so they can HAVE a reason to look down on someone so they can feel better themselves. I say so they can HAVE a reason since having a reason just because one have a MI is ridiculous! It really is. Remember that people who look down on others ARE having problems themselves. The same goes with obesity. If people had some empathy and understanding you wouldnt look down on obese people.

Like one said here about depression, healthy people dont even understand getting out of bed is difficult.

Stigma of Mental Illness. I think many talks about it without knowing about it much, it sounds to me, the words are overused. If it's personal in nature, that's just resentment or something, lacking empathy and understanding on the part of who's saying it. "You don't understand what I'm going through, and you're treating me unfairly.". That's just not stigma of anything, professional are studying how badly the stigma works against mental health professionals and patients alike, my point is that poorly defined words and uses of the stigma accusations are unfair, losing credibility on their own.

I understand the concern mentioned in the OP though.

Clinically depressed or not, the article was selling something, it belongs in this whole ridiculousdom of this system, which someone denies. Are you a good talker? This complicates matters understandably to me. The lines are always blurry, a doctor might ask "What seems to be a problem today?", some gets asked questions that goes along with the symptoms, words describe them. It's a conversational dance between two people, not everyone can handle tango like Obama, not classy enough I suppose. Seriously, you don't know what's on doctors minds, asking the same level of professional courtesy on friends and family may work, it's just that money don't exchange hands, so the conversation may fail, and it's not stigma if someone finds any mental illness related lack of understandings outside of professional settings.

The issue that I'm talkins about here overlaps between normal people and people who are supposed to learn about the mental illnesses such as care takers or maybe your dentists or something, they are still the same. The blaming game, the accusation of calling bad reactions from people a stigma seems fishy on a lot of threads on PC. "Do I open up about it at workplace?" The consensus would probably be answering no to that question. Has anyone informed them enough? Who's the criminals... talking on the same level of human characteristics on any situations is vital. Let us all be awaken, grant us the opportunity to gaze into the Multiverse.

To me personally, whoever saids anything is he/her own experts of their own brain, others talking about it sounds like undervaluing of human brain capabilities, devaluing it, flexing the expectation accordingly would do anyone a favor. Exaggeration also works if the listener believes it. It's a convincing technique, isn't it? It'll always be a tough proposition without proper evidence.

Ordinary folks fight against each other verbally, demands things on another, someone claiming "I'm like this", and be demanding what's not acceptable to another party will end badly. It don't look right. It goes both ways. Mental illness are not something to be valued in people's character, the decision making of what to say and how to say things come from whole another part of the person, disabled cranky person is a cranky one, I wouldn't mind being mean to that person, I hold the lines of acceptabilities. The mental struggles too are happening on both ends.

People are smart enough to find weaknesses and it's just human evolution, we owe ourselves to that a little. Prove it, the procrastinations and tv watching and stuff, ain't gonna happen with me, at least. I believe every mind states are reality to them, unless it's noticeable from the outside, even if it is... One simply gotta behave for the acknowledgement, drop the correctness of your knowledge, be advantageous with what you have, with every tools available. Aim for the master's degree of human mind(s).

All the directions and coordinations of our brains, followed by breaking and rebuilding of comprehensions of little things, one will get insightful, I don't see myself 'up/high', I could spit on that sort of unfit explanation. I'm not fan of categorizations inside of my brains, it's only possible probably because there's no big scars there, wounds heal, I just know it can be pushed further a little more towards healthier and usable state, that'd be an upgrade, something to look forward to.

Something's overlooked on both sides like between Mental Healthcare people and patients/citizens. One can see red chicken pox spreading to everyone, if one were to see far and wide like as a world health, we realize that there are few flaws in ... at the doorstep, and we welcome our new members with our knowledge, I try to take care of my feelings my way anyways.

Red chicken pox reference comes from the music I found yesterday, I posted about it. The artist is from the hood, supported by evil, unlike other type of artists supported by easles. A simple structure of what make me me, is probably what I can present on top of it, I do it for myself. This is just an additional thought.

I understand what you're saying entirely. When you explain your symptoms to someone who doesn't have your problem, even if they're otherwise mentally ill, I find they often look at you like you're ridiculous. For example, my friends with GAD and depression are puzzled by my counting rituals (thanks OCD) and often think I'm just wasting time unnecessarily so I have to do less on what we're working on. It's unfortunately a symptom of the world at large from what I've experienced, and not everyone tries to be empathetic.

Paralysis of Will & Executive Disfunction are both devastating symptoms of Clinical depression...They are not choices, and are for the sufferer such heavy crosses to bear.

That was a good way of describing how depressed people lack the ability to get stuff done. To have "paralysis of Will". Its not our choice to not do stuff, we just cant seem to do it. I wonder if my therapist understands this.