Are the depressed just irresponsible?

For whatever crap that life hands us (rape, molestation, sibling rivalry, verbal abuse, years of inferiority conditioning), are we just people who sit and whine and complain instead of taking charge and being responsible? ARe we just simply emotionally fragile or too lazy to figure out healthy ways to cope with our problems?

I ask this b/c I am also a depressed person (suggested by a doctor) and now I'm off to see a psychiatrist pretty soon.

I don't know what to reply to your question's but to the depression problem I can say from a personal perspective it's mind altering so it jack's with everything that's not sopposed to be jacked with so most of us really can't controll much more than the next step on what were going to do & even that is greatly influnced by the mind alteration attrabutes of depression - it's like unwillingly being injected with some drug & then haveing people look at you disgracefully while you have no more an explination for your behaviour than believeing your lazy & pitafull while those depression induced thought's are inforced by those around you because who is going to think of you as a lier when you say your lazy, they don't know it's the depression jacking with your body & mind so there going to enforce those faulse beliefs makeing life all the more missorable for you - unwillingly but intentionaly thinking there helping (idiots) set them straight. I look at every one with a harsh eye any more because i'm tired of seeing people turn rotten & i'm tired of being used so yeah watch out for your self because no body else is ment to I soppose that go's for all of us.

Everyone has a different tolerance for what life throws at them, same as a pain threshold.
Some can't deal.
I know a lot of the time I can't.
I'm not even a depression person.
I'm BPD.
Depression comes with that, in the form of feeling empty...
Life feels meaningless...
You want to cry until there's nothing wet left in you...

That's not being irresponsible...
That's being human.

It Really isn't as simple as Lazyness or weakness...

Think of it this way, A current study reviled that 15% of people Suffering from Major Depression will kill themselves.

Major Depression has a Higher Mortality rate than Breast cancer...

Try to keep that in mind, this isn't just getting off the couch and taking a shower, you are in a life and death struggle with a horrible disease that no one will ever give you any sympathy or support for. Hell Most people will look at you like a pathetic looser.

Sorry to say it, but if you want to live longer then a year or 3 with major Depression you better start to realize that you are the strongest person you've ever meet. Your either that or one foot in the grave. And considering that A: your not dead yet, and B: your getting help... You probably fit in to the:

Tough Mother F%ckers that will Survive this catagory.

Wow CarmenRose23 that is the best thing i've read today awsome!! 99redballoons I hope you get the same impact I did from that, wow! (applaud's).

I'm sorry if I offended anyone, I was just curious what people thought...(whether or not they make up excuses and such). Hm.. i can't say that the writing had a HUGE impact on me but it is something worth acknowledging. I am also betting if I were not a depressed person I would probably get a lot of angry responses. I've never seen depression as a life or death situation (in other words, I didn't recognize its serioiusness until you mentioned it or I simply don't agree that you are one foot away from the grave or you are the strongest person you know). I can't decide which one it is...

One thing I realised about a lot of depressed people though or at least those in my physical environment (myself included) is that they tend to realise the truth of things or that they see their shortcomings so strongly and have no idea how to fix it.

Unlike happy people, they realise their shortcomings and thats what is causing the sadness. What even causes furthur major depression is that if the person focuses on fixing their shortcomings but still end up failing over and over despite their persevering nature. And after many years the problem isn't fixed or they still feel like a failure, depression hits. Tolerance threshold has been broken. This is one of the possibilities in my personal experience. And then it becomes a cycle of hopelessness where they fix. And then you get criticised for being a self pitying, irresponsble, lazy, wreckless loser who needs to take action and fix things... the problem is you are trying to fix things (mind you, with different approaches when a solution fails and you try to fix the problems to the best of your ability). But what if your best isn't enough to solve it? You fail.

It's similar to a fat person who goes to a gym (this is me as well) and gets made fun of for being fat at the gym by the fit person. Or when I buy a self help book and get laughed or criticised at by my sister after she tells me to take action for my life. It's degrading and discouraging in so many ways.

Also I understand what CarmenRose23 said, the feeling of being seen as a pathetic loser and lazy may actually trigger a self fullfilling prophecy. I can't stand it when my siblings tell me that i need to try harder in school yet they always treat me like the stupid one and once in a blue moon when I do succeed, I feel happy for maybe a day that I actually have succeeded on my own but then my sister actually starts to feel sad and starts comparing me to her. The sad part in that success was that I needed to make twice the effort / dedication she ever did. It's a huge slap in the face! It's basically saying, "I'm suppose to be beating you."

Sorry, it's night time, i need to vent. I feel the most depressed at night. I made a decision that I no longer give much of a damn for my siblings' life anymore and I don't want to be close to her. I'm through with it all. FINISHED.

I understand what you are saying. I do sometimes feel like a failure and while I realize my problems and shortcomings it still isn't enough to take the proper action to correct things. I suppose what it comes down to is that yeah we depressed people may have to work twice as hard as those who aren't depressed, but the motivation can be difficult to get sometimes when the problem hasn't been fixed for years.

If your sister gives you that much grief try telling her how she makes you feel and if that doesn't work limit your contact with her. While she doesn't necessarily sound abusive some of what she is saying is just plain mean.

OK Get ready for another Wopper…

Everything you said about Depression is wrong. Everything. What Causes Major depression isn’t controlled by the victim of the disease… That’s like saying You got Aids because your pessimistic… WHAT NO we are talking about a Disease. Sure things contribute to it, but the Cause of Depression, (clinical abnormal Depression) is a chemical imbalance in your brain.

So here you are with your brain not working right trying to justify your emotions which are completely irrational… you’re a smart guy so you come up with some things that make since.

But your wrong.

Your Depressed… as strong as you are all you can do is eeck from day to day… you Can’t fix a problem, you can’t deal with issues… Your sick man!

Fix the Physical problem THEN deal with the mental one.

Oh not mad by the way.

But I think I am right, in the context that what I have said is simply ONE possibility or cause for depression. To be honest, I never used to be depressed.

" What causes major depression isn't controlled by the victim of the disease"
-I don't believe this is true for EVERYONE wo is depressed, that's pretty much saying people have no control over their lives. Even if you do get AIDS or you were born with diabetes, for example, their are ways to manage. An alternative situation to getting AIDS if someone doesn't use protection during sex. In this case, the person still has choices - he or she can abstain from sex or have sex or find a condom. The choice is theirs from the safest choice to the least safest. It's possible to manage and break free of depression, it's just hard. However, AIDS and diabetes is not something of a mentality but more so because it's biologically based. Mentality CAN be changed more easily than contracting a non-curable illness.
-If you state that depression is not controlled by the victim, then that's pretty much saying why bother with trying to cope with it if your dead anyway?

I also don't see anything wrong with trying to fix BOTH problems at the same time. for some fat people, sometimes their physical selves are interwined with their mentality.. I am one of them. For example, being depressed to begin with might cause emotional eating. But who chooses to eat? No matter how depressed you are, you can always have some control your physical actions. Some one with AIDS would take a cocktail of meds.

" all you can do is eeck from day to day" - if that were the case, why bother to get help? There's a contradiction in what you say.
There are people who just get depressed even if their lives are not out of the ordinary or their year has been great, and there are people who eventually get depressed b/c of environmental factors or is giving up with being persistence in solving their problems, there are people who get depresssed b/c they are born with clinical depression.

I can't speak for everyone, there is no way I can understand everyone's case and it would be impossible to. But it's very possible to find common elements in a depressed people from their actions, to their sadness, etc.

I am talking about Clinical depression… not a person having a bad day/week/year.

Can this person manage their sickness? Absolutely WITH medication they have to first get the Serotonin up to a level where they aren’t compulsively thinking about killing themselves… then they can start making mental process changes… and MAYBE one day they can quit the medication.

But without professional help, without medication…