Published on 12, July, 2020
I've been wondering about this for a while...I used to be very depressed but when I looked up the diagnostic criteria, my symptoms never really matched, I used to look up different types of depression too but none of them sounded like me. I went to a professional too and they also said I probably don't have it until I talked about suicidal thoughts, then they gave me a prescription. It all made me feel like an imposter. I had many symptoms but either they fluctuated too greatly and were not as persistent as the criteria says, or I never had the right combinations of symptoms or my experience didn't match with the described experience of that type of depression.
So, was it autism that was doing this?
well what was your version of depression?we know you said suicidal thoughts, but what else did it feel like?generally depression is a sadness or even a longingness, a void, a itch you cant scratch.you can be sad, you can be angry with it too. and tired, definitely tiredness and fatigue in there.theres probably alot more i missed but its just a very basic common feels.... what did your depression be like to be seen as different or stealthy?
The main things were fatigue, hopelessness, feelings of guilt, crying frequently but never had sleep or eating differences. I think the thing making it different is how my mood would get improved either randomly or when good things happened, and there's a type of depression like that but I believe the symptoms of it didn't match mine. When I talked about it with the professional, about how I sometimes felt better, they told me that depression doesn't work like that.
i dunno, it can still be depression maybe.... chronic depression would likely be always there but with gaps of feeling slightly better, or feeling in between. also could be a chance of some sort of rollercoaster style bipolar in that if not.
yeah i often feel sad thinking back on things. and also thinking forward to when i inevitably lose those things, such as thinking of when i may lose my mother. then thinking of how i will think of a place i went with my mother in the future when i lose her and be thinking back then to when i had her and how i would feel in the future lol i havent even lost her yet but my mind always thinks fluidly in time, thinking forward and thinking of how in the future ill be thinking backward and contemplating the loss thinking backward in the future.suppose its more of a thing people who are lonely more likely do as in my case without my mum id likely never see or speak or bond or share/make memories with another person in my life again.i felt hopelessness when i was at parents with nothing doing nothing and having no future, i guess i was like that due to no motivation to do anything or something, probably more to it than that as that seems to run common in people with autism. the not doing anything and staying in parents. although i lucked out in life around the back end of covid and now made myself a successful life, job and my own owned flat with mortgage paid off. so hopelessness is now gone. i guess the want of routine and sameness locks us into this depressive hopeless no motivation life where we dont do anything different, change requires luck of something falling into our lives.
Those were some of my guesses too back then. Thankfully I don't consider myself depressed anymore and things are better now but I sometimes think about my memories and with my new knowledge of autism, thought that they might have been connected.