Dealing with Demons: Understanding Clinical Depression from a Survivor's Perspective

By Tracilyn George

Do you or a loved one have a mental illness? Have you ever wondered what you can do to help? This book is your answer! To fully understand depression, you must listen intently and attentively to those of us afflicted.

 

It is important for anyone with mental illness to be treated with kindness, respect and dignity, not with stigma, bias and scorn for we are fighting a battle beyond one's vision and comprehension. Just because we don't look sick, it doesn't mean we aren't. The purpose of this book is to look at mental illness from the inside out from one survivor's point of view.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clydesdale Books
• Release date: Oct 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9783755457459

Book preview

TITLE/COPYRIGHT

Dealing with Demons

Understanding Clinical Depression from a Survivor's Perspective 

By Tracilyn George 

©2016 Tracilyn George

INTRODUCTION

We, each of us, all have to deal with difficult situations, but for those of us who are also battling mental illness, difficult situations become impossible situations. We feel everything so much deeper than those who have a healthy mental state. We take everything personally — things that normal people would not even think twice about.

Our perceptions are often skewed because our illness affects how we process information. It does not mean we are unintelligent. On the contrary, even the most intellectual of individuals have dealt with inner demons. If you take Edgar Allan Poe or Ernest Hemingway as an example – two of the most astute persons in history – both had battled with depression.

Many of us who are afflicted with mental illness resort to drugs or alcohol, and sometimes both, in an attempt to quiet the voices. I am not referring to the voices attributed to schizophrenia, but to the voices of the inner dialogue of those of us with other mental illnesses. These voices manipulate the words and actions of other people to validate how we feel about ourselves.

It is difficult for those who have never had to endure the torture of psychological disorders to understand how mental illness affects the mind, the body and the soul. Your entire being is overcome with despair – it’s not just in your head. You feel as if you are drowning in the murkiness of depression.

The feelings of despondency can be so overwhelming; you believe the only way to escape the pain is to commit suicide. It is unfair to accuse those who commit suicide of being weak or selfish. This is simply untrue. Those of us who have been suicidal have fought the battle for years and feel there just isn’t any other alternative. We just want the pain to stop.

It is my intent to help those who have never personally experienced mental illness -and I am not referring to dealing with a loved one with mental illness but have had it themselves – to understand how we see the world around us. There will be a lot of repetition within the chapters, but this is to help show how the intensity and the seriousness of the illness can be. Sometimes, repeating oneself is the only way for people to understand the complexities of a subject.

The following is purely from my perspective, the perspective of someone who has dealt with the demon for decades and survived. It is not meant to include how others with mental illness view their affliction.

COURAGE IS NOT LIMITED TO THE BATTLEFIELD. THE REAL TESTS OF COURAGE ARE MUCH QUIETER. THEY ARE THE INNER TESTS, LIKE ENDURING PAIN WHEN THE ROOM IS EMPTY OR STANDING ALONE WHEN YOU’RE MISUNDERSTOOD. – CHARLES SWINDELL

People with depression are often misunderstood. While acceptance of mental illness has come a long way in the past couple of decades, people still do not fully comprehend it. They also do not understand how to deal with people who have a mental illness.

It isn’t always what is said, but much more important; it is how it is said. We take things personally even the