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I’ve heard the same from others as well. I think most people who don’t live with depression, simply don’t understand. People may live adjacent to depression in their associations with us, but if they don’t have it, they don’t “get” it. And people just say stupid things sometimes :)

Not wanting to live (with something) is distinctly different from “wanting to die”. Which is also often misunderstood.

Depression, or BIID (and countless other conditions) are not a teeny tiny part of us, with a manual on/off switch. Depression is something that is hard-wired in us. It is impossible to separate the “depression” or the “BIID” from the other parts of what makes us who we are, our essence or soul or spirit or however it can be labeled. Just as someone with paraplegia cannot separate out the paralysis as a different part of themselves. It is a part of the whole.

Personally, I know when I’m going through a good time and my depression is in order, I am STILL a person who is living with depression, and I always will be. When someone says “thats just the depression talking” I know they are wrong. Because it’s *me* talking, and it’s all of me, the depression AND all the other crap :)

I choose to think it is good that so many people don’t understand, because in order to understand they would have to suffer too. With my whole heart, I do not want that:)

I tend to agree with you Ada, though one of the ‘groups’ that have said that to me were people here, who have both depression and BIID :)

I can only think in terms of “when” I become paraplegic. It would indeed scare me witless to think in terms of “if”. It would drive me (more) insane.

Ada, that’s a really good point about living with depression, even if one is not currently experiencing a major episode.

…I often find myself thinking ‘Why?’ more often than ‘When?’ or ‘If?’ when it comes to this topic when I’m on my own.

I agree with Ada, too, and think it is very well said, and was the very thing I was going to mention: ‘I cannot continue to live like this’ is very different from ‘I WANT TO DIE!!!’, and unfortunately I think people are a bit too alarmist at times to see the difference.

I found myself recently having the same sort of thought…I find that I can usually ‘ignore’ BIID’s effects upon me mostly well; it tends to be like a persistent pain that eventually I’ve gotten used to that becomes just a soreness…unfortunately, sometimes like bumping into something injured, I ‘bump’ my BIID, turning it into a throbbing pain…and I’ll be sitting there staring at a pair of scissors, and I’m not usually thinking ‘irraitionally’, but for a moment I don’t know whether I want to jam them in my ear or take them to my throat…merely to take the pain away.

I’ve found myself thinking about BIID more than usual, probably because of school. Last year, the only people in wheelchairs at my school were the ones who were handicapped/disabled/whatever enough that they could not function. They don’t trigger my BIID for some reason, so I’m cool with it. However, THIS year, I alternately dread and look forward to next semester, because one of my classmates, who was paralyzed in a car crash, will be coming back to school. Also, it seems there are wheelchairs everywhere. A girl in the room next to mine during 1st hour is in a wheelchair (for diabetes or something), a girl in my English class had a wheelchair for a day (I don’t remember why) and a guy is in one for a broken foot! I don’t think I’m quite as bad as you guys yet (probably because I’m younger) but it sure makes it hard to concentrate on my schoolwork. :/

Yep Tara,
Whenever my school had a “Disabled for a Day” awareness event, I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight all day. You never knew when you would run into someone experiencing their first (and only, usually) day with mobility impairment, blindness, or whatever.

Sadly, the student who started the program, who was quadriplegic, was going downhill in his electric wheelchair, ran off the sidewalk, into a drainage ditch and died.

Tara: Since I started “pretending” at school this year (it’s not possible to sneak my chair out every day, so I use a walking stick to make a wheelchair more plausible on days that I *can* wheel), I’ve noticed an increase in disabled people around me too.

And every time I go out in my chair, there’s always a 50% chance of running into someone who’s also in a chair (including a day trip to the next town, when I literally almost ran into a girl my age in a wheelchair).

It’s interesting how that happens.