'Falling in love' will not cure your depression

Movies portray falling in love as some kind of Heaven on earth. For instance, in Disney movies, a princess is saved by a prince, they get married after only three days of knowing each other and they live happily ever after. The end.

This couldn't be further from the truth.

Some people fall in love with the idea of love. They have these grandiose ideas of it -- searching their whole life for it and thinking that it will solve all of their problems.

After all, isn't that what "Happily ever after" means?

But, if you don't love yourself, having a boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancee or even a husband or wife won't make everything all better. And, if you're suffering from depression, love won't cure it. Sometimes it makes it even worse because you're giving one person the sole responsibility of solving all of your problems…which isn't healthy and is a load that shouldn't be put on another person.

On top of that, the feeling of "falling in love" is called "falling" for a reason. And sometimes that feeling of uncertainty, wondering if you'll land safely, feels a lot like depression.

I remember as a kid, watching the movie "It Takes Two," where love was described as "Can't eat, can't sleep, World Series kind of stuff."

But, honestly, not being able to eat or sleep isn't very fun. And, for someone already suffering from depression who already has a hard time sleeping or eating, instead of curing this, it makes it worse.

And then there's the mind-parasite of "When will he/she call me back?" or "Did he/she find someone better than me?"

Love can be a scary thing. After all, it's opening yourself up, letting someone else in and giving them the ability to hurt you. And, if you innately don't like yourself, that makes this process even scarier.

As writer Alice Williams writes on the website stuff.co.nz, "The thing about love and depression is that they share an awful kinship. Both are insidious and consuming and tend to make you drink more than you should. Both steal your sleep from you and mess up your working life, and both make you feel like nobody else could possibly have ever felt this way before, ever."

Williams describes falling in love as having "to actually open yourself with a zip, right down the front of you and let the other person see all the gross bits inside. … You will challenge their feelings about you because deep down, or even not so deep down, you have such a low opinion of yourself, you're suspicious of their feelings."

But, just because you suffer from depression, it doesn't mean you don't deserve to be loved. It doesn't mean life will always feel like this. And it sure as hell doesn't mean you're destined to be alone forever. But it does mean you have to start working on yourself and stop treating love like the cure to all your problems.

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