Of the war veterans I meet with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, do you know what they value most in their lives? Not finding a “cure” for PTSD and depression, but just appreciating and being able to be with the people in their lives. They accept very courageously – not cowardly – the goals of treatment of these disorders: minimizing symptoms, moving forward from the last exacerbation, and decreasing the number of further exacerbations. They don’t seek a cure, though of course if it were feasible, they’d pay any price to have it. But why fight futile battles? So, I say again that they very courageously choose to expend their energies on the things that matter instead: love, productivity, enjoyment. But before you assume that I am making a claim such as “there is no cure for depression”, let me clarify that that is not the broad statement that I am making.
I used to think, naively, that once I fell in love, once someone loved me and I had someone to share my life with, I’d be happy. I wondered why the people I met who had the things that I thought would bring me happiness weren’t happy. How could they be depressed when they had a partner, children, a job they didn’t hate, generally good physical health, etc.? Why hadn’t the love they had in their loves not cured their depression? Because lack of love didn’t bring about the depression, nothing that was correctable did. Yes, they had love; but completely unrelatedly they also had a mental disorder. Finally I realized why people give flowers to sick relatives in hospital: the flower isn’t meant to “cure” the illness, just make it more tolerable by giving you that warm feeling inside that you’re not alone and reminding you that people care about you.
In persons who have become depressed or suffering PTSD as a result of some psychological social trauma, there is nothing in this world that can erase the memories and/or the cognitive processes that get programmed into your brain. Remarkably, though, a human being can go about their lives being perfectly functional and socially involved despite these demons we carry around in our head. When you have a chronic depression or PTSD of this kind, the best you can wish for is not being “cured”, but having people around you who understand you and stick with you on the journey. Not even “love” can erase the inner hell we experience with these mental disorders, but love can motivate the people around us to give us the all vital support and understanding. Conversely, if you find yourself in a relationship with a person who has depression or PTSD or a similar complaint, you will only hurt yourself by believing that your role is to bring about “cure”; it’s not. Your role is no different to that of anyone else who ever loved: to love, to give (including understanding), to receive, and to share life together.
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