Depressive Blogs on Depression

I have been looking at blogs/social sites that are dedicated to depression to see what others write about it and to learn from them.

For most of those blogs/social sites, I read repetitive entries from the same people over and over again and I am ready to go and slash my wrists. My energy collapses and I feel 'depressed' in the every day sense of the word.

I don't need to be told that suffering from depression is tough. I do however also think that whinging, whining and wallowing repetitively in all that "poor me" stuff doesn't do any good to:

• The person who writes it - besides, someone who is in the darkest and deepest part of depression is incapable of writing anything. You have to wait until you have resurfaced a bit before you can tackle writing, sometimes before you can even tackle speaking . So those chronic whingers can't be that bad.

• The person who reads it - because, aside from occasionally recognising yourself in the other person's writing which always helps alleviate the terrible feeling of isolation depressed people often feel, it makes you want to run a mile in the opposite direction to get away from all that negative energy.  Let's face it: waves upon waves of negative energy coming from others is not what you need when you feel like you are drowning yourself.

This is going to sound strange - I realise that - but in my view those blogs/sites feed depression: they don't relieve it. They give it energy: they don't diffuse it. They don't encourage self-awareness - they encourage self-obsession. They don't stimulate learning - they encapsulate negativity.  They don't help expansion out and away from your pain - they keep you shrinking within it.

The contributors write for 'me, me, me' without any thought for others and the effect their writing can have on them. For anyone dealing with depression, I would not hesitate to issue this health warning: beware of which blogs and which sites you get involved in. Choose both or either carefully.

I feel very strongly about that which is why I make every effort to write about my depression and bi-polar in a way that is authentic, honest, descriptive, learning-oriented, I hope occasionally helpful, and amusing even, because the alternative is just not worth considering.