As a young teen (around 14 or 15) I was told that I was not depressed, that it was in fact, just my "hormones". Looking back at this, I should have researched depression and given the symptoms to my parents, but in their defense, they already had a lot on their plates. Its no secret that I was a difficult child and teen, I mean, it was no cake walk for me either, so we moved passed it and I learned to mask my symptoms.
At 25, I've been on depression medication for going on a year, and it's been the easiest transition of my life. Yesterday, I had an appointment to discuss how I'm doing and how the medication is working, and my depression scored moderate to severe, again, so she upped it. Today? I feel a difference. Even if it's a placebo effect (affect?), it's appreciated.
I'm finally after several weeks of progressively losing interest in everything, taking my hobbies back up, such as animal crossing. Living with autism can be rough, it can be downright miserable, but having depression coupled with it... I don't have a metaphor for it, but lets leave it at "it can make me want to poke out my ear drums with a fucking pencil".
Now, I'm not using the word depressed to describe sadness, it's more extreme than that. My depression periods are when I am hopeless, dull, I sleep a lot, don't stim during the day or partake in any of my special interests. It's a dangerous period of time for me, as I've attempted suicide a couple of times (4 years have passed since I last tried, which I'm proud of. This is the longest time I haven't thought of ending my own life). David is always (understandably) afraid for me when I enter these. Much like anyone who has suffered from self harm, or eating disorders (which I have), there's always the chance for relapse.
Many autistics have described these periods as Burnouts. First of all, what is a burnout? A burn out is when an autistic brain cannot continue the charade of being neurotypical. It goes into revolt. Stimuli become harder to experience, change can throw the person into risk of meltdown, and something they were able to accomplish the week before is now impossible. These periods are different for everyone, unfortunately. For me, I get really depressed, I tend to overeat (trying to rekindle the feeling of happiness), I don't stim as often as I should, I cry a lot more than usual, it's harder for me to get out of bed, and I tend to throw my special interests to the sidelines as they don't give me that feeling of fulfillment as per usual. Thankfully depression medication is helping with that. Aromatherapy also helps greatly, but when things get really bad, aromatherapy just isn't always enough. Thankfully, that's what it's meant for. Like almost anything in this world, it's able to be coupled with something else to achieve the desired goal.
Not every autistic individual has depression or an anxiety disorder, although it's extremely common. Having depression does not automatically equal autism nor does autism automatically equal depression. Being mentally ill does not make you Hannibal Lecter, nor does it mean you're the villain in your own story. There are going to be moments in your life where you're given the opportunity to be the hero, or the villain, unfortunately there are a lot of times when you need to be both.
