The Loneliness Of The Depression Blogger
Jul 18th, 2008 by zania
Blogging About Depression Can Be Isolating
I know people read Fraying Edges Depression Help. My stats tell me so. But apart from someone asking me to credit his Flickr pic on Why I Call This Depression Help Blog Fraying Edges (I already had credited it), a nice thank you from Marcie Vargas on my post on The Human Condition, and a very nice comment from Cosmo, owner of the excellent Walking The Black Dog, on my post on Can Blogging Help You Cope With Depression, no one ever comments here apart from people simply trying to spam links to their websites.
Spamming your links for Depression Help is fine, as long as the page you link to is relevant and truly helpful for depression sufferers. But I am not that desperate for comments that I will allow your hastily written advertising blurb for a one page website to make the light of day on Fraying Edges, without you leaving a relevant comment first.
But back to Lack Of Comments On Depression Blogs. Why does this often seem to be the case?
I guess it’s difficult to comment on a depression blog, especially when some of the entries are so personal and sad, and if you are suffering from Depression yourself.
And I must admit I am a little remiss about commenting on other people’s blogs about depression, so I certainly cannot complain about the lack of response here. It is ages since I commented on Walking The Black Dog and yet I have had a sneaky look at the Black Dog Helpful Links On Depression And Stress, but am yet to write a thank you note. There again, just lately I have found it quite a struggle to comment at all.
Nevertheless, Blogs About Depression are often crying out for understanding comments, or just for acknowledgement that they exist.
The author of Am I Still Ill often bemoans the lack of comments on her blog about trying to recover from depression. I read the posts. I feel her Depression Anger And General Fall Out and feel her pain. But I have yet to comment. That’s not really fair, is it?
The Loneliness Of The Depression Blogger amounts to a number of things:
- Blogs about depression are sometimes too gut-wrenching and personal to comment on.
- Blogs about depression talk about sadness, loneliness, anxiety and grief. How do you offer support to the sufferer, without sounding as if you are offering an insincere cliche? For this I would say, grief and depression produce comments which sound like cliches, because we find it hard to put our support into words. It doesn’t mean that your support for our grief will not be welcome. We understand that you care.
- Blogs about depression are written by bloggers who are depressed and for others suffering from depression. Depressed people are often not very good communicators so they do not comment very much.
- Blogs about depression are up against the ’self-help’ community, which is hell bent on ‘being positive‘. Many ‘positive people’ simply do not understand what it is like to suffer from depression . For them it is just a case of ‘finding something which works’. They have no understanding of the mind set of someone who suffers from Major Depression, Bipolar Disorder, or full blown Anxiety.
- In this scenario, the blog about depression becomes an embarassment to the ’self-helpers’. It demonstrates that their self-help tips do not work for everyone. So even when you comment on one of their blogs (as I did recently on Zen Habits ), your comment that you are not in a fit state yet to follow a list of self-help tips is soundly ignored.
- Blogs about depression are often angry. Being depressed can make you hate the world. It could even make you paranoid. Your blog will be full of cynicism and negative thoughts. Sometimes you may rant like a child. Some readers may think you are ‘crazy’. Others will think you are attention seeking. Very few people will actually ‘get’ the point that these are manifestations of your depression and you are spewing out your thoughts to help you cope. So they will read… and swiftly move on.
So, given this scenario, the depression blogger will continue to write within a vast universe of silence, only punctuated by the occasional, and very welcome, comment which becomes a tiny whisper in a seemingly endless lack of noise.
Do you agree that blogging about depression can be isolating? Your comments are always welcome… 
Part of me doesn’t want anyone to know I am depressed, but on the other hand I want to scream it loud and clear so the world will know why I am the way I am.
On other types of blogs it seems because of the anonymity of this medium, that people have no problem giving their opinions and sharing their stuff (sometimes especially hate….hmm….I bet a whole lot of people are more depressed than they know). When Heather Armstrong of dooce.com talks about her depression, she literally gets thousands of responses. She has readers chime in about their depression how brave it is for her to talk about it. Heather and even her husband are very open about depression.
There is still a stigma with depression. Gosh it just seems sad because being depressed isn’t really anything all that new. I honestly would take depression over some other diseases any day.
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for commenting. Much appreciated
And good point. How could I forget about Dooce!
Yes, it’s true that Dooce gets loads of comments when she talks about her depression. Perhaps her readers think she is braver than many of us, talking about her personal depression on her blog, because her blog is so popular.
One of the things I didn’t mention in that post, is that I have many other blogs. Many with comments disabled for a reason… But the others all get comments and stumbled, etc. My readers know I write a depression blog - I link to it and mention it now and again. And I know many of them come across here.
But they never comment.
Could be that stigma…?
And agreed. There are much worse illnesses than depression.
But somehow it’s accepted as perfectly ‘ok’ to have them.
Strange…
Hang in there. Tomorrow is another day. The grass is always greener on the other side of the septic tank. Keep up the good work. How are all those for insincere cliches? Keep your eyes on the prize. I’ve been online since 2001 and have had my site up and down. I think once I forget about stats and comments, I might actually be able to enjoy writing and having a little corner of the Internet. If people like it, and it helps, good. If not, its something I need to do anyway. If I get stressed about stuff, then I’m defeating my own purpose; aka, my diabolical plans backfire. You’ll probably get one comment for 1000 visitors and that ratio can be fairly consistent with other sites too. Many people would rather observe than participate, so first do it for yourself, then do it for other people. I’ve gotten discouraged many times, and no doubt will again, but I swear the stats thing just keeps getting in my way. I’ve been on-again-off-again since 2001 and this time I think is gonna be the winner. This time I’ll learn to forget about stats, not care if I get comments or not. Then I can just relax and enjoy myself and know that once in a while I”m helping someone, or helping myself who I consider to be someone sometimes. You can test me… visit my blog but don’t leave a comment. Then come back here and gloat, taunt, and molest my ego. It should be an interesting social experiment.
Hi Andy,
Nice list of cliches
Yes, it’s true that constantly watching your stats can stress you out. Most of the time I look at the stats on my other blogs, to see if I should be using extra keywords. At the outset, constantly following stats can be an ‘upper’ one day and a real ‘downer’ the next. Best to just let them be and carry on writing the blog.
But as I said to Lisa, I have many blogs and Fraying Edges gets as many hits as some of the others which do get comments. This struck me as a little strange and sad, because people writing about mental health are usually depression sufferers themselves and could well do with some encouragement.
I’m just going over to your blog now and if there is something to comment on I will….
Hey! There’s loads to comment on.
Looks like I won’t be taunting you after all
Thanks for commenting!
Hi again Andy,
)
The problem I found with your blog is that I had to sign up for an account with Wordpress dot com before I could comment. (just as well I needed that account anyhow
I understand why you have set the comments this way, but it may be that some people who want to comment are simply going away because they don’t want to sign up for wordpres.
Just a thought…
I’m fascinated by my own foolishness sometimes. So after 7 years of being discourages, you’ve given me insight I previously had not had. Less comments and feedback because of the demographic of my visitors. Very interesting, and very enlightening. I’ve taken my site or blog down several times so now after seven years I get about hits a day. Different URL now to, than when I started. Oh well, I think I’ll just leave it up now, forever, and forget about it. As for your comment about my comments, I don’t want to feel obligated to log in every day, or even every week to approve or reject comments. I may just turn them off at some point. I cancel my Internet sometimes for a while to work on my pain issues (tendinitis mostly) so I don’t like to get too tied to the Internet. I even only email one or two people on a regular basis, the rest of the time, I use a phone or face-to-face time for communication. Thank you for the feedback though. Under “normal” circumstances, I would have taken your suggestion. Have a happy week.
And thank you for linking to me! Hopefully some of my old fans will find me again and click over to get to Fraying Edges. Good luck to you.
Thanks Andy and good luck to you too.
Don’t leave your blog. I like it. It’s something a little different in the blogging world and I like the irony in your humour too.
Sometimes I wish I wasn’t as tied to the internet as I am, but it’s my job you see…
Zania, first of all thank you for referencing my blog in your text and also linking to me under your recommendations. It is good to remember that often one does have readers who appreciate what one writes even if they don’t necessarily comment.
Your discussion of this topic, and the comments on the discussion have also given me some extra insights to go with. I have gone through agonies over my lack of comments at times, especially when feeling at my most depressed and isolated, but at the end of it all I realise that my desire to write the blog exceeds any concern about comments or stats.
I’ve become more philosophical as time goes on, though undoubtedly I will always be affected by comments or lack of them to some degree. As you say, better to just carry on writing, knowing that statistically only a small proportion of readers will comment and that you never know who might be helped by reading what you write, if only because they can identify.
I also reason that I am very much a novice at the blogging game and it is an art like anything else. So I am also learning by doing, and no doubt my illustrious, well-read blogging days lie ahead of me!
And it is also true that, even though we are depression sufferers ourselves, it is devilish hard to know how to comfort someone in the throes of the Big D without sounding platitudinous. And that might account for the relatively low number of comments on some depression blogs.
Just to round off I don’t think of my blog as a depression blog, more of a recovery blog. Although I have recently had an episode, so it might have looked more that way.
Anyway, I will make a point of commenting more here from now on, and thanks again.
Hi Zoe,
Thanks for the great comment and sorry I listed your blog as a ‘depression blog’. I have read quite a few of your posts, without commenting (sorry!) and I knew your blog was all about your road to recovery and that, apart from some setbacks (which are to be expected) you are doing great.
It was just that your mention of not receiving many comments in some of your posts made me ask that question, about why blogs which talk about depression usually receive so few comments!
I also wanted to make sure people read the post and thought about the points I had made (and maybe commented on blogs like yours more), which is why I gave it the title and emphasis it has - more people are likely to search for the term ‘depression’ rather than ‘recovery’ (sad but true) even if they don’t comment that much.
Of course, that could simply mean that there are an awful lot of depressed people on the internet, looking for ways to help them recover, and that’s why they look for blogs on depression. I hope so anyway.
Thanks very much for commentating. Much appreciated!
But don’t think you have to comment too much. I know you want to get on with writing your own blog and that’s as it should be. It’s just nice to know someone is there sometimes. No rush
Take care
zania
Zania, I have site suggestion for you now. Edit the RSS feed settings to display summaries instead of the full post. In the meantime, a person can read entire posts in a feed reader without even coming to your site. Unless that’s your intention…
Yes, I’ve been thinking about that one Andy, but I’m still debating it for various reasons.
It could work to get me more comments, it’s true, but I know myself that I sometimes skip part feeds altogether if I’m busy and the subject doesn’t immediately attract my attention.
Personally, I like to read a full feed in my feed reader or email box (I usually subscribe by email - to remind me) and, if I want to say something on the post, I visit the blog.
The reasons I like full feeds this way is because we are on a slow broadband connection speed here (Spanish rural - it sucks), and feed posts load much quicker than a post on a blog. It’s my thinking that others may have the same problems with slow speeds.
So, I’ll give it more thought.
)
(I may even make a post about it and ask
Thanks!
I’m on dial-up right now. Feeds that have whole articles take a while to download into my feed reader. Usually it’s not a problem, and for heaven’s sake, it’s not that big a deal that I’m implying you change your setting just for me! No, I see your point. For speed, I turn off the displaying of images in my browser. Your pages load in a few seconds for me. I doubt you really need to make any changes if you’re happy with it.
All that debating will cause confusion and headaches. 
Actually, I’m still thinking on this one Andy - no headaches yet
I tend to write long posts… so I’m thinking of making the posts on the blogs partial, to open on a separate page.
Trouble is, I have a few blogs to organise, so Fraying Edges will probably get left for a while.
Hadn’t thought about even full feeds taking time to load in a feed reader. Hmmm…
I’ll go and get a headache pill now
this is a great blogger, to be able to say what we really would like to say without being flamed or laughed at by someone who doesn’t “get it”.
I’ve been Dx with Major Depression for over 20 years and waited so long to get help before that, I ended up with “recurring psychosis” as well. I did not know what was wrong with me, I thought I was lazy or something was physically wrong with me. I did go to the MD to rule out anything physical, naturally, I didn’t think it could be my “mind”, not that it was. When I was given this Dx, I dug deep and researched it as much as I was able at the time. I found out why I had some psychosis and why I had depression and what some of the things were that I could do about it. I took as much positive action to help myself as possible and that alone helped the depression somewhat. But eventually depression - and mania slipped back into my life extremely and my pdoc gave me a new Dx - Schizoaffective Disorder. I guess because I was somewhat bipolar and was having schizophrenic symptoms - probably due to abuse by my ex’s, he gave me this new Dx. Oh boy.
Well I’ve been on many meds in twenty years and have tried and tried to work many jobs to be like other people - functioning members of society. I fail time and time again. Stress makes everything worse and if I’m not stressed I’m depressed. It’s a horrible cycle and there’s nothing much I can do in my life to make it go away, believe me I’ve tried it all.
If anyone thinks they MIGHT be depressed, please go to a recommended psychiatrist to see if you need meds or if you can get by with some psychotherapy for a while. It is very important because for some people depression can turn into a nightmare and worsen to the point of never being able to recover to function normally again. (as in my case). For someone with a predisposition to a chemical imbalance, one trauma, such as losing a parent or a spouse, or getting in a debilitating accident, or losing their job, etc. could set off a snowball effect of chemical imbalances that may not be recovered without the help of meds. Most people’s chemistry balances itself out following such a trauma, they go through a period of grief and then their chemicals get back in line and they are somewhat “okay” again. A person with depression has a problem with balancing their chemicals back after such a trauma or stress, and every little stress makes their chemistry more imbalanced so they become more and more depressed. This can go on and on for years, the person can become so depressed that they reach a point where they have a Psychotic Break - which is what happened to me.
This is why it is important to see a pdoc. No matter what people say about psych docs, they know what they are doing and the meds out there are made to help people who need them. If one doesn’t work for you then you have to try a different one. What works well for one person may not work at all for the next.
I’m carrying on too much and probably saying something that this wonderful lady has already posted on her blog site but it’s a passion of mine to get the word out. I see so many blogs and comment areas where people advise others to NOT go to a pdoc and NOT to take any meds! ugh.
I tell people that would be like telling a diabetic to NOT take their INSULIN.
Okay. I’m finished.
(whew)
(my fingers ache from typing). =)
Wow Cyndi! I just bet your fingers ache from typing that!
Excellent comment. It all came out, didn’t it?
You really should have a blog of your own to talk about this (perhaps you do?) Truly excellent. Thank you
And now a long comment in reply, lol!
As to the advice you gave about seeking help. I absolutely agree.
And as to the meds… I use them when I have to and stop when I feel okay. Some would say that is not a sensible thing to do, and for many people this would definitely be the case (your relating this to diabetics and insulin is a very good point), but I have so many bad side effects when I take medication that I am honestly better off not taking it during the ‘good times’.
It’s a body chemistry thing you see. My body just doesn’t take well to meds of any kind; even pain killers - it’s been suggested that it’s another left-over from my anorexia days and my (slightly) lower than average body weight now. I don’t know… but what I do know is that for many of us that medication is essential (I just wish the drug companies would concentrate on perfecting it though, rather than on sales…).
Another truly excellent point you made is about how trauma and grief affects people who suffer from depression. Very true and I have found (very recently) this to be the case.
When my Mum died in June, I knew I would grieve and I knew I would suffer from depression more badly in the ongong months and so I tried to ‘prepare myself’ for this. But the preparation didn’t really work and, as you will see from some of my latest (rather infrequent) posts, the depression is still there, with a vengeance at the moment, and as you say, it is not helped by stress…
And that cycle you describe: stress>depression>stress>depression, yes, that does kinda fit me very well
Thanks so much for commenting here Cyndi. You have given me loads to think about and I truly appreciate that
[...] couple of days ago, a woman called Cyndi left a very long and eloquent comment on my post about how Blogging About Depression Can Be Lonely. Her post made me think quite a [...]
It’s a strange paradox of my particular brand of digital-cartharsis that I crave comments like a drug addict, yet deliberately have my blog privately listed, and only readable to a list of email addresses, which I leave empty. I want someone to say something about it, because the stuff is really getting pretty messed up, as my condition deteriorates further with each post they are becoming more and more abstract, metaphorical and desperate. To some extent, I could honestly believe that it would be an interesting read to an outsider as a profile tracing the path of destruction depression can wreak upon an otherwise normal life, though I didn’t begin the blog until it started. This sense is overwhelmed though by a strong and sincere fear of identification by peers (the content is personal enough that they couldn’t fail to, my photo is even there). Many of the earlier posts and some later ones are poorly written, and punctuated and difficult to understand because I wrote them at the hight of intense despair when I could think of nothing else to do to sooth my mind, while I’ve never claimed to be a writer, and strange as it may sound, this particularly embarrasses me since I don’t really want people to think I’m a bad writer (I keep the posts unedited when I’m finished to preserve and record the experiences that I’ve lived through since this came to dominate my life.)
I don’t know what I want people to say, what could they say? If I were reading it, I’d just feel sorry for the writer and would not comment because I wouldn’t want to belittle their crises with a single comment as if it would solve anything and I wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing and make it worse, not to mention reading something that sad is a bit of a downer anyway and makes on less inclined to write anything about it.
James,
You are right. I don’t know what to say to someone who is hurting so much. And the reply I am going to give here is not intended to belittle your crisis in any way, but will no doubt read as if it is to some. But what the hell I’m saying something anyway!
That is a paradox I can really identify with. When I first began blogging about depression, it was on a free blog host somewhere (in fact, I have a few of those ‘depression blogs’ all over the internet…). I told myself it was simply a way to ‘get the demons out of my mind and into print’. One of those blogs was private, but the others were wide open for anyone to read. I just never told close friends and family about them.
And then I wondered if I was going to get any comments, but I never did (although the stats on the blogs told me people were reading them). But the depressed frame of mind I was in when I wrote those blogs meant that I probably would have reacted badly to almost any comment made in any case, so probably just as well…
But then my partner found one of those blogs (he’s a bit of a ‘detective’ when it comes to searching the internet) and he was horrified by what he found there. His question was “Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling like this?”
And my answer was, “And tell me, what would you have been able to do about it anyway?”
To which he replied “Well…. something…..anyhow….” And then tailed off…
As you can guess, it caused all kinds of stress…
But back to your point (sorry). Personally, if I read a blog and someone is putting into words just how bad they are feeling, I do comment. I don’t know if it helps; I just have to do it. I just can’t leave the blog without at least letting the person know that, although I cannot be inside their head, I am trying to understand. But I’ll admit, that is just my way of doing things and goodness knows whether or not it’s the right way to do it.
The down side of this is that when I am busy (which is most of the time), I tend to leave visiting these particular blogs until last, because I know I will get involved and not get my work done otherwise… (yes, I know that’s selfish, and I guess I am, but I do try to be honest).
As to publishing unedited posts, I think that’s good and I wish I could just warble on here some times, but the pedantic part of me won’t let me do this. Reading someone’s thoughts when they are at the depths of their particular depression would certainly help some of those who claim to be studying in order to help people who are suffering from depression, as many of them could certainly do with a reality check.
I won’t come out with any cliches about hoping you are feeling better since writing that comment. Although your comment on my post about recession, depression and suicide told me you were not at the complete depths of despair and I really hope that’s true.
Just to say thanks so much for commenting here and giving me more food for thought.