The ‘Paralyzed in a Wheelchair’ Analogy – Regarding: Clinical Depression – Also: The Cynical or Victimhood Filter

The ‘Paralyzed in a Wheelchair’ Analogy – Regarding: Clinical Depression – Also: The Cynical or Victimhood Filter

How accurate is it for the clinically depressed, or those who think they are allies to them, to use the “paralyzed and in a wheel chair” comparison to explain how supposedly helpless and incapable the depressed are? I will discuss this topic as this post goes on.

I was diagnosed with clinical depression at a young age by a psychiatrist, and proceeded to see three more psychiatrists until my early 30s.

(I had to move often, which is why I had to change psychiatrists – as to my next- to- last psychiatrist, I dropped her for a new one, because she was terse and grouchy, which I did not like.)

During those years, and even now, I do see a lot of people who have never had depression and who don’t understand what it is.

A lot of mentally healthy people think that clinical depression is the same as regular sadness, and they believe most people can “snap out of” every day, regular sadness within hours or days – which I’d say is probably true.

When people have clinical depression, however, they can’t just “snap out of it” in days or weeks.

Depression doesn’t just dissipate on its own over time, and depression is not always triggered by a single, identifiable event.

If you’d like more background about clinical depression, what it is, how it can be treated, and some information about  its symptoms, I invite you to visit this page about it at the Mayo Clinic:

(Link, from Mayo Clinic): What does the term “clinical depression” mean?

As for me, clinical depression (as well as suicidal impulses) run on both sides of my family, and anxiety is on the maternal side, so I take it that it’s genetic in my case, and not purely situational or due to personal shortcomings, sin, etc.

I lived with clinical depression for 35+ years.

I saw psychiatrists and took doctor prescribed anti-depressant medications for it, which never helped.

During the years I was a devout Christian (I’m not altogether sure what my spiritual beliefs are now), I prayed, read the Bible, had faith God would heal me of the depression and anxiety, but God never did.

Doing good deeds for others, attending church, etc, and so on, never did take the depression or anxiety away.