Living with Depression While Doing a PhD

I stumbled into this blog post on PhD(isabled) accidentally, and found it very relevant to PhD students nowadays. I feel deeply for the PhD student who wrote the article... This part of the article hit me harder because I am going through similar hurdle, though it didn't start off with having depression.

Any form of health problem could slow us down in PhD progression. But it shouldn't be a reason why we are being told we are not capable of doing a PhD just because our health isn't great or that we take longer time than average to complete a task. If one has dyslexia, one will be given special aid so that they can do a PhD. But if one has hormonal problem or depression which slows us down, one is told by those normal, healthy people that we're incapable of doing a PhD. Academia has become such a sorry state at the moment. Equality? What's that? Until I see justice in my case, I don't believe there isn't discrimination...

An excerpt from the blog post I found interesting:
My own experience is that it takes time for medications to kick in, and only with the right medication can I start to do any kind of working through the issues causing the depression. My last severe episode was mostly spent sitting around waiting for things to get slightly better. That sounds a hell of a lot more fun than it was. I don’t know if people who haven’t been there can know how it feels. It really is a fight to get through one day at a time. Depression impairs your thinking. It is harder to reason like usual, or be creative, or whatever it is you’re normally good at. My memory goes completely to pot. I get times and dates muddled up, miss appointments and stand up friends, which is mortifying. So if you start trying to create a new model of some important theory or other when you’re under par, its going to be even tougher than normal.

Is there a problem with people (supervisors and students) seeing that as a sign they’re not actually capable of doing the PhD work when in fact its just a sign your health isn’t great just now? Can it magnify the anxiety if you think if you can’t think yourself well then you’re also not capable of doing the PhD? I wonder if blogs like this one have an important role in getting this crucial, fundamental message across to supervisors, departments and funding bodies.

I’ve tried to get involved with causes like this before. I found I didn’t have the resources to keep up.

I’ve seen friends take on enormous responsibility for campaigns and causes at the cost of their health.

I had serious doubts about writing anything about this. I can only claim to speak from my own experience. I worry enormously about anyone reading this and feeling misrepresented, but at the same time it feels right to say something.

In the end my constant mantra is to put my health first because everything else depends on that.

I can only be politically active within the limits of my health.

I can only be a researcher within the limits of my health, and not even the PhD comes before it.

Excerpt taken from https://phdisabled.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/living-with-depression-while-doing-a-phd/comment-page-1/#comment-1159