What's with all these bi-polar people?

[Conrad]

When I was in my early 20's and very immature my fiance at the time suffered from depression, so much so she tried to take her own life at one point. At the time I just didn't understand the whole depression thing as there was nothing for her to be depressed about. My advice of 'You just need to snap out of it' or 'FFS just cheer up' certainly didn't help.

Coincidently at the same time a work colleague who I was very good friends with suffered from depression and anxiety attacks as a result of losing her brother in a car accident a few years previously. Again, my similar offerings of advice were no help at all. At the time I just couldn't comprehend what it must be like for them to have something like that. Or more to the point, I plain just didn't believe any of it - "it's all in their head" I wrongly thought. I was 100% positive it could never happen to me as I wasn't 'built' that way...

Fast forward a few years and I had a very messy breakup with a new girlfriend who'd been fuckin somebody behind my back. Unless you have actually experienced something like this yourself it's very hard to explain the pain and hurt you feel. I was basically a wreck and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Unfortunately for me the pain I felt and my obssesing over what she'd done went on for the best part of year. It was during this time when I was at my lowest that I began to understand in part what my fiance and friend had been through.

I don't think I was ever actually depressed even though I thought I was at the time. But after the way I felt I'd never now judge somebody who suffers with depression or anxiety etc in the same ignorant way I did when I was younger. I also realised that no matter how confident you are that 'something like that couldn't affect me', you never know how you'd respond mentally to a tragic event like losing a loved one like my friend did...