The Color of Depression
Does Color Matter? What do you think of when you think Red? Green? You may have thought of feelings or senses like, love, growth, life, anger, envy, excitement or more. We have favorite colors and others we prefer to wear. Colors remind us of sports, changing seasons, a friend’s features or favorite memories. We even care about the color of the foods we eat. Our word “vibrant,” meaning both “brimming with enthusiasm” and “bright or colorful,” connects color with emotion, positive and negative. Color presupposes emotion to be good.
We desire vibrancy in our lives, our relationships, and our work. Likewise, we naturally know something is wrong when someone has “lost color.” Think of someone sickly, terrified, or lifeless. Each is “drained of color.”
The Tough Part
Depression drains color from experience. As what is vibrant fades, everything becomes dull. Depression is marked with sadness, heaviness, or simply no feeling at all. Lethargy and fatigue, mind fog, pointlessness, nihilism, and hopelessness cocoon your body and mind. It begins to sap every thought and feeling of their color. Even what you loved doesn’t connect anymore with you. No reason.
It feels like it knows you. To an extent, it is you. Other people cannot seem to quite relate. Why are they even trying to help what cannot be helped? Thoughts and feelings like this are common.
In 2017, 30% of United States’ highschoolers interviewed reported feeling depressed for two or more consecutive weeks at some point that year. 9% of North Carolina highschoolers admitted to having attempted suicide in 2017. 1 in 5 American adults will experience some form of mental illness each year, and depression is among nearly every case.
Depression is a national problem. It is more than sadness. It’s not “just laziness.” It can be subtly overwhelming in its effect on well-being and makes all of life seem insurmountable. It is not solved by merely being told to “strengthen up,” “just be positive,” “pick yourself up,” “pray it away,” or even to just let it pass.
As of now, there is no direct “cure” for depression. Positive thinking, movement, action begetting results, and the responsibility and agency of the individual are all powerful tools, yet do not “solve” depression. This is one of the most troubling realities of depression. There is no struggle–or the struggle is so exhausting that any progress “out of the dark” slows to a halt and slides back into the same dullness where you began.
The Good News
The good news is that depression is manageable. Serotonin, a brain chemical, is among those your brain uses to regulate emotion, thought function, and desire. Medicine has come a long way in helping the mind utilize chemicals like Serotonin for longer. This has an effect of fostering mental vibrancy and pointing your mind on a healthy trajectory.
Mental Health Awareness Month
Mental Health America has set aside the month of May to speak plainly on topics like Depression since 1949. In 2013, President Obama made May Mental Health Awareness Month to annually remove the stigma surrounding mental illness. Knowing what Depression is and having the tools and language to describe it can help you and others.
There are many on the front lines who are doing their best to help bring color back to those who need it. New Leaf Behavioral Health and the Foundation of Hope are two organizations who carry out this mission in our local Raleigh area each day.
With connections to organizations like these, resources like Mental Health America’s “Tools 2 Thrive,” and sometimes even giving you a listening ear or shoulder to lean on, you can help bring vibrancy into someone’s world. There is always hope to be found and shared!
And there are always colors after the rain.
Written by staff member Cale Little (MA in Christian Marriage, Family, and Individual Counseling and has been a youth counselor for 10 years) for our Depressed Cake Shop to raise money and awareness for mental health. He and his wife Katie are big fans of comicon events.