Assignment 2 planning (part 3)

Since my last post regarding emotions and feelings, I am leading a new project at work. This has re-introduced me to an old college (M), somebody I have not worked with for the past 6 years. My college is a manic depressive and takes medication to mange the mood swings. Working with this disorder can be very challenging for the individual and the team.

Six years ago, I spent time with our occupation health nurse to gain an understanding of the disorder and M gave me a book to read about 'the black dog'. Of all the books and videos I digested, I would say the black dog communicated the 'depression' side very effectively (for me). The link is to a You Tube video telling to story in the book.

The definition of depression is given as "Severe, typically prolonged, feelings of despondency and dejection".

Synonyms: melancholy, misery, sadness, unhappiness, sorrow, woe, gloom, gloominess, dejection, downheartedness, despondency, dispiritedness, low spirits, heavy-heartedness, moroseness, discouragement, despair, desolation, dolefulness, moodiness, pessimism, hopelessness;

Interestingly a lot of these words are also used to describe sadness; in addition, I would suggest the vast majority of people have also felt all of those feelings at some point in there life. This is possibly one of the reasons that depression is very difficult for none-sufferers to understand or appreciate.

Last time, it was a real eye-opener for me working with M - trying to keep up with intense highs and then trying even harder not to get sucked into the depths...

This situation made me think about how depression could be communicated in images. Surfing the web turned up a very limited selection of images, the majority of which were very sad looking teenagers and the remainder felt like stylised advertisement images for clinics. Considering how accessible information is regarding depression, it surprised me that no one had really thought about it or tried to communicate from the individuals point-of-view.