donnamcr

Depression takes many forms and has varying degrees of severity. The deepest clinical depression cannot be understood by one who has not had it. It is the blackest, deepest abyss of nothingness. It is a void of thought and emotion. You feel dead. No one can be in it with you. You are utterly alone.

The manic cycle is frightening. You can't think of one thing at a time. Your thoughts are out of control. Sometimes it s rapid cycling, up and down like a propeller coaster run amok.

Clinical depression is definitely not just sadness or feeling blue. It is not "situational depression" that has its root in some unfortunate circumstance of life. Given a million dollars, the clinically depressed will still cycle through the suffering. This type of depression shows in your eyes, and sometimes a person who knows you well can tell that it is coming even before you know it yourself.

I believe manic depression is most often genetic, as some others already said. It can start in very early childhood, and is something you work against until you die.

Getting help is easier said than done. Finding a psychiatrist who will keep trying and adjusting medications through a period of years is close to impossible, but that is what is necessary. Finding a competent psychologist is even more impossible. But you must continue to work at it.

Just surviving with the kind of manic depression that Robin Willams had takes hard work, usually over a period of decades. You just get so tired, and sometimes the effort seems futile, as when you feel close to normal for a few weeks, you know the cycle will come around again. Often the drinking and drug use are efforts to self-medicate the illness.