Rising Up When You Are Feeling Down

You can tackle depression with comedy. They are an unusual combination, yes, but the humorous side of depression can show us that we need to move the discussion from being purely medical or pity-based to something more useful...

- Rhys Knight

When this writer was diagnosed with depression, people either wanted to understand or support him. This sounds great, except he didn’t want to be treated like a patient or a lost puppy. He just wanted to do something that would help him feel anything.

The book Little White Helpers was written to show that depressed people are neither damaged nor dying; they’re just people. Depression is an illness, but that shouldn’t be the only way we talk about it. Everyone experiences it differently and there’s no one solution for everyone. We all want a simple cure, but each person has their own, unique journey.

This writer’s own experience with mental illness involved being diagnosed with ‘severe depression’ when he was working in a corporate role. First, he wondered why the word ‘severe’ was necessary, then he thought how depressing the diagnosis was, then he burst out laughing—because depression was really depressing.