“Can’t you just snap out of it?”
MYTH: Depression = sadness.
"Ugh, I'm so depressed," said pretty much everyone at some point or another. And even though most people don't mean it literally, a lot of people still think of depression as an exaggerated form of sadness. And it's not. "The range of human experience includes feeling sad — but the experience of depression, feeling extreme sadness, hopelessness or helplessness is not a healthy range of human emotion," psychologist and author of Living with Depression Deborah Serani, Psy.D., tells BuzzFeed Life.
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MYTH: You can “snap out of it.”
Many people believe depression is a personality trait, characteristic, or mindset, says Serani. "They think it’s a behavior that can be changed with tough love like 'just snap out of it,' or with helpful remarks like 'take a walk and you’ll feel better.'" If only it were that easy. You can snap out of it no easier than you can snap out of the flu.
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MYTH: Depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.
Sure, this is a step up from believing that your depression is mindset you can snap out of, but pinpointing low serotonin levels as the main cause is still incorrect. "Depression arises from an interplay of genetics, biology, environment, social experiences, and learned behaviors," says Serani. "Understanding how your own unique biology and the biography of your life influence each other will help you understand how depression touches your life — and how to treat it successfully."
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MYTH: Depression feels the same for everyone.
Depression exists on a spectrum of intensity and can vary from mild to profound, and everything in between. "Depression is not a one-size-fits-all," says Serani. Resist the urge to compare your experience to someone else's or judge when someone's depression manifests in a way you're not familiar with.
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