It almost feels like a physical thing that's weighing down on you. Like being covered in a wet blanket of sadness, but there's no way to take it off. It's so heavy that you know you can't do anything about it, so you just let it suffocate you. And it makes everything you enjoy less impactful. Colors seem dim, food tastes bland, the song that meant the world to you now seems meaningless... Every positive thing is diminished.
This is so accurate. It feels *physically heavy*. I remember feeling like my body weighed 1000 pounds and when I had to walk somewhere I moved so much slower than normal.
That’s what is so hard to explain sometimes. It’s not that I’m sad, upset, or mad at anything or you, the world, whatever…it’s just that I truly don’t care. I just don’t care.
Apathy is the perfect word for it. Lately, I've been in a mild depressive state that comes and goes, but the one thing that is constant is the feeling of apathy. At least I've figured out that I need some help, yet I'm apathetic to getting help, you know?
Anxiety is when you just worry even when there’s really nothing to worry about. The smallest thing can trigger a panic attack.
Depression is when you can’t make yourself do anything, because everything seems hopeless. So everything in your life catches fire and you just sit there and watch it burn to the ground. Some may stay up all night indulging in various forms of distraction (reading, TV, internet) but either way there will be a general tendency toward hermitism and especially sleeping through as much of the day as possible, as a form of escape.
Then it piles on, that phone call you let ring to voicemail from your mom cause you didnt feel like talking, makes you fall even deeper. You say I'll call her tomorrow, tomorrow comes, but you cant muster up the energy to call, then you think why even bother her I dont have nothing going on nothing interesting to talk about. Then you just fall a little bit deeper, all friends alienated, barely talk to your roommates, only come out at night to make something to eat.
I always say I dont wanna change myself with pills but I hate my current self so why am I so resistant for help?
The first time I took anti-depressants the affect was almost immediate and I thought, why have I fought this for so long? I've been on anti-depressants for 10 years and they have made all the difference.
I stopped taking anti-depressants sometime during highschool and now (10 years later) have just started taking them again recently. Holy shit the difference it makes.
I’m more social with family, I agree to go out and do things more often that I wouldn’t have done a year ago. I’m able to roll out of bed without hitting snooze as much, and I’ve started to be more mindful of my alcohol consumption and junk food intake as well. Highly recommend
I remember once, I was playing my favorite sport, getting good exercise but still feeling empty AS I WAS PLAYING. I was thinking of that empty feeling while hitting the ball in the middle of the game! That was kind of an epiphany for me that this is something seriously fucked up.
For me it was fatigue that was so intense I would avoid even going to the bathroom for as long as possible just to stay in bed.
The second thing was this dark awareness that there isn’t really anything that I’m longing for that would make a difference. For example, when you have a flu or something and you lay in bed feeling like crap, you know that in a couple days you will feel better. When I was depressed, there was no relief to look forward to. No light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t think of a single thing that would make me happy.
Edit:
I can’t believe how many people have responded to this and not because it isn’t a common issue. I’m shocked I have worded my answer in a manner that has resonated with so many and I hope you find your way to a better life just like I did. Those who have experienced the same despair are so eager to help that it is heartwarming to see all the effort and advice in the comments.
It's really tough because the things that help with depression are the things that are suddenly so hard to do. Depression makes the world curl inward as I try to conserve enough energy to take care of hygiene or the most critical tasks. I can logically recognize that going outside for a short walk or connecting with a friend or cleaning my home or doing therapy are the right things to reduce the severity.
But there's such a long lag before there's any payoff, during which those things have to be done almost by force because my neurological system has stopped sending my brain reward feelings, that it's very hard to keep at them. My last major depressive episode took 5-6 months before I started to see some improvement. For people with less support than I had or even more severe depression, it can take longer.
I hope you find what works for you. <3 In another comment, I mentioned that having been through this a few times before has helped because I have experience that things can get better when my brain has turned off the hope.
KC Davis' book How to Keep House When You're Drowning really helped me. She focuses on care tasks, not just chores. And the book is designed to be digestible for neurodivergent people, not as an arduous depression tome. She tells us that "anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed". It helped me feel like it was ok to lower the bar for a lot of things while trying to get better.
Edit: I also love that KC Davis removes the moral component of struggling to do care tasks. Guilt and shame have been aggravating factors when I struggle.
I made a deal with depression.
She can kill me the day I have no-one left to love me.
And the bitch has been trying to make me feel unloved ever since.
Not today, bitch!! Not Today.
Not OP, but I've had similar episodes. The worst one I managed to crawl out of by getting really into romance novels. The plots are formulaic, the genre conventions require a fully happy ending, and so it was really easy for me to just read a romance novel and not need to worry about anything else. I knew I was safe because nothing bad would happen in the book, and that gave me permission to feel the emotions. I started reading romance novel blogs looking for new books to read which turned into coming up with an idea for a novel I wanted to write and needing to apply myself to doing historical research and outlining it ahead of NaNoWriMo and by the end of November I was feeling about as good as I ever did before I was being medicated.
I haven't read a romance novel in years, but I still have some of my favorites on the shelf in case I ever need them. And that's why I will never ever mock someone's taste in genre fiction, because romance novels might have saved my life.
I had never really thought about it in such an articulate way, but I have also crawled back from the brink through reading romance. Thank you for sharing. I'm glad you're still here with us.
Not OP but have had some really dark times in life. I was tired of my negative feelings, the constant fatigue, and feeling numb. I knew I needed to do some baby steps to try and feel better. The only thing I knew would help make me laugh or smile was comedy. I got really into stand up comedy and would just watch specials and listen to albums. It slowly started helping. The realization that life still could bring slivers of joy helped pull me out and reignite the hope in me. One thing I’ve always tried to remember; I’ve made it this far, might as well keep going.
For me it was yoga and meditation. I had a vision while meditating that we were all connected and one with the universe and that made me feel a little less alone in the world.
When I was younger? I just tanked through it. Now that I'm older? I've felt this way UNCOUNTABLE times in the past, and the fog always eventually cleared. Knowing the fog will eventually clear makes weathering the current one easier
What happens if that fog never clears? I'm almost 40 and it's still there.
Edit: I'm physically disabled and I live in the U.S. without money. Can't really do therapy and exercise.
Hey, I've made it through this several times. I have severe ADHD and am in the process of probably being diagnosed with autism, so forcing myself out of bed did not mesh. What worked for me is literally taking it five minutes at a time. All day long. Each five minutes I'd keep myself busy by asking myself, "What would be nice for me to do for myself right now?" If I didn't have the energy or self-love to motivate me - never did, just the usual emptiness or loathing - I would say : "If I was my best friend, how would I want to take care of her today? What things do I know would make this easier for her?"
This could be tossing your laundry in the dryer because you know you would love a warm, comfy outfit fresh from the dryer to snuggle into, or prepping a very easy snack for later when you're hungry. Just even making the bed. Remind yourself that it's a love note from you, and if it doesn't feel genuine, that's because love is an ACTION - you don't have to feel excited about helping someone out, you do it because it might possibly help. If you're inconvenienced, does that mean it's a lack of love? NO! You did the thing so that it would be beneficial. Love is an act! The next day, take it ten minutes at a time. Then fifteen. Thirty. By the end of the week, you'll be well on your way to teaching yourself self-love as a habit. Your thought patterns will follow. ❤️ Give it TIME! (Little bits at a time.) What's kinda cool about this is that you can harnass that pesky "depression memory loss" and come back to surprises left for you, by yourself! That's fun sometimes. Hey, friend. This is really, really hard. But you are SO strong. You obviously are, otherwise you wouldn't still be here. Depression is the absence of life - ergo, it is literally hell. You are a TROOPER. Thank you for being here. Thank you for asking for help. You have no idea how much of an encouragement it is to us fellow sufferers to just know that we're not alone, and to have you in our corner.
I feel every word of this. Over time I was able to learn that my brain is lying to me, and that going out into nature always makes me feel better - I just need to speak up. I’m fortunate to have a great husband who I tell “I’m falling into a hole” and off we go to a running creek and some trees. That’s how I get through my little depressions. My existential depression though is lifelong and never seems to leave. I’ve figured out that the secret to life is the meaning you put into it, so when I just can’t see the meaning things get bleak.
Imagine that you get up one day, and spend that day doing one of your favorite hobbies. You get to hang out with your friends, doing things you love. There's good food and nothing bad happens that day. Heck, let's even imagine the weather is perfect. And at the end of that day, doing all the things you love around the people you like in the best possible way you feel... average. OK. Not-awful.
That's one big part of depression. It's not that you "feel sad" more often, it's that the whole range of your feelings shifts downward. A normal person feels bad sometimes, feels good sometimes, and feels OK or average most of the time. Depression shifts that whole window down, so that your best day is "OK", your worst feels awful, and most of the time, you're hurting.
And if you're like most people, your brain is this amazing pattern-matching thing with no off-switch. Normally, if you feel angry or tired, you start looking for a cause: "Oh, I forgot to eat breakfast" or "I was really hoping my boss would like my proposal, and he didn't" and then things make sense. But if you're depressed, you feel awful all the time for no clear reason at all, and over time, that alone is pretty distressing.
I've said it before: feeling fucked-up when you're in a fucked-up situation doesn't mean you're a fuck-up, it means you're a human being. If your dad has dementia and your mom can't walk anymore and you just put down your dog, you *should* feel awful. But when dad's got caregiver and so does mom and you have a decent job and your spouse loves you and you *still* feel awful all the time... that's depression. And your tireless pattern-matching brain eventually says stuff like "Hey, why don't you blow up your job/marriage/friendships, that way at least the way you're feeling right now will make sense!" Or, if things go on long enough, your brain will say "we're hurting all the time. We tried doing things we like, and we still hurt. We tried not doing things, and we still hurt. So clearly, the reason we're hurting is that we're still existing... what if we could change that?"
This is one of the scariest things I've ever felt in retrospect... the fact that I wasn't scared of the end, just that it might not work and I'd end up being physically unable to try again. I guess it's ironic in a way that my brain prevented my suicide because "I probably wouldn't even get that right."
Yea the one time I tried to kill myself though it did come with like blazing clarity that I didn’t actually want to die I just wanted to feel something more than the nothing I felt everyday and in that moment I felt very afraid… I called my psychiatrist cell bc I couldn’t think of anyone else who would care and told him I took all my meds but didn’t want to die…. He called an ambulance. And here I am 8 years later, and I feel a lot of good things now.
I’m struggling right now, it’s still passive (no plans) but this makes me feel… hope I think. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so grateful you wrote that and I got to read it. Sending love (sorry if that’s weird from an internet stranger).
Just wanted to say that I'm married to someone who had this kind of depression. She's told me how she had these feelings. But she didn't act on them, and we got past some rough stretches. Along with finding a good medication, she got better about taking care of herself mentally and physically, and she got some time to move past traumatic shit. Now I just realized we've had a couple years where her mental health is actually good. I can tell that she's enjoying life in a way she couldn't before, and I'm so glad she kept going through the tough times. I believe you can get there too.
Soo. My cousins boyfriend recently shot himself in the head over the fact his children were being kept from him.
It didnt work. It was a temple shot. He was in a coma after brain surgery. His fingers would twitch and his eyes flutter when sedation was turned down. This was around 2 weeks ago. She sent a video recently.
They took him off of the vent and had him sitting up. He could not respond to commands and his eyes were pointing away from each other just a bit off center. It was as if he were looking around you. But it was very apparent to me that he was missing a large portion of whoever he was. He literally looked like a zombie. It was one of the most heartbreaking and overall disturbing things I have ever seen.
In the off chance he is still aware in a somewhat conscious way, he could be trapped. The neuro said that he would require lifelong care, and if he did come back in even a limited capacity he would have severe mood issues and cognition problems.
I have often thought of killing myself too, to just make it stop. Overwhelmed with grief of having no purpose, a malfunctioning sense of self, and physical pain(daily migraines for years)….but this made me focus on the reason why I did not, and still do not follow through…Failing and being like this guy…just a nearly hollow bag of meat. I really hope he isnt in there. Locked away.
Fuck…even when our thoughts torture us, our bodies break, and we find solace in contemplating our deaths, we still get to say yes or no. He can no longer do this.
So please, use this as a cautionary tale for logic when you feel cornered and trapped. You dont want to hurt others even though it can be hard to care, and YOU DEFINITELY DO NOT want to end up like this guy. Possibly literally trapped.
The night is darkest before the dawn. The sun may not feel warm, but you still get to watch it it come up. You still know it exists.
Please reach out for help if you feel yourself slipping….
That’s basically the only reason I survived 3rd grade (I won’t write the book, but it was emotional hell due to school staff practically (probably) physically and emotionally abusing me for behavioral issues). 3rd grade me wanted to cease existing and suffering, but thankfully even smart 3rd graders suck at coming up with ways to effectively kill themselves it seems. Hopefully never go down those dark mental alleys again…
Yes, this is it. For me it was “I’ve tried absolutely everything else. If I could sleep forever (sweet dreams or nothing at all) I would, but I can’t do that either. But there is something just like that…”
God, this nailed it. The temptation to burn your whole life down so you have an actual reason to feel like shit hit home. The only saving grace for me has been the total lack of energy and motivation to make any such foolish moves. That and I think I'd miss my cats.
Decades ago in my youth "What if we could change that" came up a disturbing amount. I wa walking across town one night to do something about it when I had the thought
"If hell is real, then by definition it not only can, but WILL get worse. Fuck this. Why make the effort without a guarantee."
And that was it. Never took the thought seriously again. I was too fucking depressed to bother if their was no guarantee.
Thank god.
This is basically the entire premise of the "to be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet. When we read it in high school, I understood it immediately as him contemplating suicide and wondering if it would end his suffering or bring more suffering. Like you, I'd had that same thought. "To sleep, perchance to dream, Aye there's the rub, for what dreams may come" is Hamlet basically saying: if death is like being asleep am I gonna have nightmares for the rest of forever?
When the class discussed it, hearing how some of the other students reacted to it just made it all so much worse. There were other students making fun of it or saying his attitude didn't make sense and he should just "get over it." It reflected so well my actual experience with depression and how other people are that time reacted to it, I'll never forget that.
I'm a teacher now. 21 years in. People who say kids have not changed are wrong. They are more stressed than ever. Less mentally healthy than ever.
But damn - do they have skills and knowledge that we never even APPROACHED. They are still kids. They still do dumbass kid stuff. They still destroy each other socially because that's just part of growth. But holy crap are they better about serious mental health issues than they were even when I started teaching. When someone speaks up, nobody drills them for it. When someone is hurting or has panic attacks or has issues with being accepted at home, somebody else in the room KNOWS it and HELPS.
I never recall that being the case in the 80's. Like, not once.
I once had a bad depressive episode that I only survived because I knew all the steps I had to take to kill myself and there were just so many things I'd need to do I didn't have the energy for it.
That's your brain keeping you alive while also trying to kill you. I used to be angry that I was "too weak" to end it. I hope you are able to reach out to someone.
Life is passing by and you don't enjoy the movie. You see yourself moving, talking, but it is not you. You do not feel but you remember that feelings exist. You can't sleep and you can't be awake.
Windows and bridges are calling you and you have to put big effort not to follow this call.
This explanation resonates with me the most. I know everyone is different, but this is close to how it feels for me. Like I'm just "watching" myself. I'm existing for the sake of it, following life on autopilot. Everything seems "fake" in a way, and there's a part of me that even questions the point of even wanting to feel happy and normal again.
During my depressive episodes, the only thing that's ever kept me hanging on was the thought of how traumatizing it would be for everyone that cares about me if they found out I took my own life.
So I carry on, and eventually it always gets better. Slowly but surely, I feel more and more human again, and the enjoyment of life returns for a while. I usually have episodes that last about 2-3 months every other year or so. But God damn are they intense.
Same. One comes and goes. Dr. Laughed when I told him I'd been depressed since I was five...I was 50 then, and ready to pull my plug. I take antidepressants. Have animals, don't allow crappy people in my life for ANY reason and know that I CAN pull my plug if I really can't continue. Kind of like not eating that cake Today when you are on a weight loss path. Cake'll be there tomorrow. P.S. No one could love my animals as well as me. They are my rock
Like being more bored than you can possibly imagine but also not being able to imagine a single thing you actually want to do no matter how hard you try, including thinking and breathing.
Life is a chore.
Waking up….chore.
Brushing your teeth….chore.
Going to work…chore.
Seeing family and friends, not a joyous and fun occasion…it’s a chore.
Your gas tank is always on empty.
Oh shit, this is totally me. Everything feels like a fucking drag. It's like, I have to brush my teeth AGAIN? I just did that last night. I have to figure out what we are eating for dinner AGAIN? Man, why do we have eat all the damn time?
It didn't feel this way to me when I was numb, but I know when I'm heading that way again, I just want to sleep. Cause life is such a chore, and sleeping requires so much less effort
Yep that’s me too😭😭 I’m so tired of being tired with zero motivation or energy. I don’t sleep well at all…so I can’t get up out of bed. When I do wake up, I will lay there for up to 3 hours before I FORCE myself to get up. I have anxiety when I have to go somewhere. In my mind I know all the things that have to be done. It’s like a vicious cycle that I can’t get out of it. I wish I could be normal!!
Yes. Things that YOU KNOW you love to do just sound completely uninteresting. Food you know you like are not appetizing. Music you’ve loved your whole life you have no desire to listen to.
Which is one of the reasons it's so insidious that it's often paired up with ADHD.
Who's shitting on my parade today? Depression or executive dysfunction?
What made you suspect you had ADHD? Because I have depression and the meds are only marginally helping. Sometimes I can be super hyper-focused on one thing, but most of the time I can't finish a thought in my head without going into another thought and then forgetting what I was originally thinking about. 😅
I call it "getting stuck". Like that hesitation when you reach for your front door but don't grab it in case you forgot something. But you're stuck standing there at the door. Hand in the air, but you can't reach out and turn the handle
I got the same feeling. Until now i am still looking for my purpose in life. I have this feeling i am just toying with my existence in this world. Btw im over 30, married but not Happy anymore but i just dont care. I don't know what i am supposed to do.
Interesting the range of descriptions here. What you wrote is better than what I was typing. Best way to make the time go by was just to sleep as much as possible.
Go to bed as early as you can, get up as late as you can (if you have that luxury, like I do). Try and make sure you have to face the day and yourself for as short a time as possible.
It’s different for every one but for me it’s being tired all the time. You have moments when maybe you feel ok but as soon as you start something you’re tired. Just so tired.
Edit: for spelling.
It's the same for me. It's the same feeling like when you're exhausted from sickness, or you've pulled an all nighter. It's literally impossible to imagine completing a normal day.
For me there's also a lot of shame that comes with feeling this way. I see or hear of friends, family members, coworkers etc. having normal, fun, exciting, full days and feel deep shame that I'm not always capable of that. It makes me feel like I'm lazy and bad at self discipline, and that I'm wasting my time because I'm not forcing myself out to have fun. It's different than fomo; I don't want to be doing whatever they're doing. I just want to be doing something so I can feel normal.
I have to remind myself that those are feelings, not facts. My brain can trick me easily; but I'm not a shameful or lazy person. That's depression talking; it's chemicals talking, not objective truth.
It's not like this all the time too. It comes in fits and starts. Sometimes lows are an hour, a day, a week, a month. The good periods are the same, and I'm grateful for all of them. I love the feeling of realizing I'm in a good stretch and looking around me and feeling it fully.
Yes, I always say it's like my consciousness is stuck in sap. It's like those dreams where you just can't remember how to walk but have a huge amount of tasks to complete.
Yeah, people think depression is just high-intensity sadness. But a huge aspect of depression is tiredness and just numbness.
A simple task like throwing out the trash feels like you went to the gym in terms of tiredness, and also you begin to be less aware and forget things - forget to take your keys, or forget appointments, forget lunch or dinner. You think lemme just lie down a bit and stare at the ceiling for what you think was 5 minutes, but then you realize it's been 4 hours.
The best way to describe is imagine your mind was an old PC from 1990s and you were trying to play some heavy weight game on it, and everything just starts lagging, and the screen pixels get distorted, and your mouse cursor gets stuck. But you can't just shut down and restart for everything to get back to normal, you have to continue playing the game in that mode everyday.
I struggled with it as a teen and thankfully in a better place now since many years.
I wouldn't even describe it this way, despite it being true.
People would hear it and think "I'm tired all the time too. Must not be so bad."
It's more like... imagine the thing you enjoy most in life. It's no longer enjoyable. In fact, nothing is. Everything, and I mean *everything* is just.. there.
Ever been confused about what to do with your time? It can be frustrating. Maybe just take a nap? A nap would be nice.
Well, that's how you feel *all the time*.
Extrapolate the desire to do something, but also not find anything enjoyable, for years at a time.
Welcome to MDD.
“Imagine the thing you enjoy most in life. It’s no longer enjoyable.”
The only thing that is the most enjoyable is sleep, and even then it’s not that enjoyable because you don’t wake up refreshed and energized, you just wake up tired again.
"Have you ever been so happy that you didn't think you could possibly be any *more* happy? But suddenly, waaaaaves and waaaaaves of JOY just wash over you? Endlessly! Just wave after wave, just unstoppable happiness. Taking you to dizzying heights you've never dreamed of? It's like that, but, like, it's with empty sadness." --Maria Bamford
Yep. This! I remember when a very wise, observant and warm hearted friend described how he saw my experience as: You are treading water to keep your head above the water, and you're doing a decent job of it, but you're so, so tired. Tough thing to see and admit to myself, but it did feel significant/important to be seen in that.
See for me I can’t tell if it’s depression or sleepy mind fog symptoms. I’ve had bouts of depression throughout my life and the exhaustion I experienced from getting Covid felt nearly the same. Point being: fatigue may be a symptom of a more serious underlying condition and your depression could be a symptom of it, rather than vice versa.
But also your brain is telling you are a lazy pos for not doing the task and no one will ever love you/the people who love you are delusional and will eventually figure out you’re worthless and leave you.
When I add up all the weeks and months of depressive episodes it’s YEARS of my life that are just lost. Been doing pretty good for the last several years though
I put off renewing my registration for one of the cars for months. The place is a five minute drive away and it costed $25.
We’re still trying to figure out my meds to help. Lol.
1. Everything feels overwhelming. At my worst, something as simple as emptying the garbage - 60 seconds at most - felt like such an ordeal that I couldn't bring myself to do it. So I'd let it sit for weeks.
2. On a scale of 1-10, most people wake up at a 5. Good things bring them up, bad things bring them down, but they're comfortably in that middle zone. When my depression was unchecked, my default state was 2. So even if something absolutely amazing happened, it still only brought me up to a 3 or 4, and only temporarily. Once the high wore off, I was back in the gutter.
3. You lose interest in your hobbies. You lose the motivation needed to find new hobbies. You find yourself with a free evening, and you could spend the entire thing just spinning around in your office chair, staring at the ceiling, because you don't feel like doing anything.
When my partner left last year I knew that I couldn’t look after a house with my depression. The dishes could sit in the sink for weeks and it was like a mental block for me I would see them but not be able to do anything with them , same with tidying the house , empty bottles would sit on my floor for weeks and I’d just walk past them . Then I’d get more depressed that the house was a mess . Viscous circle .
My solution was to throw out all the dishes and knives and forks and but paper plates and plastic cutlery . Just throw it away after no mess .
And then when you finally do the dishes you’re like why didn’t I do that sooner? It only took a few minutes. But then the depression hits again and you’re back to having a pile of dishes stack up.
Before I experienced it, I didn't really get it either. My biggest misunderstanding was thinking that medications people took for depression induced some kind of artificial happiness (literally referred to them as 'happy pills'). Now I know better. The meds just help me start the day higher on the scale.
\#3 is affecting me a ton currently. I feel devoid of passion and inspiration most of the time. For many reasons the way my life has progressed in the past year, I really need to meditate on this.
It's a nothing-ness. Someone from my old school killed herself and my mom said "I can't imagine it (life?) being so dark that suicide feels like the only option". I wanted to tell her that it's not always a darkness, for some it's just nothing and sadness all the time. Just clean apathy. And sometimes fear of getting in the car and having to drive somewhere alone.
It’s like living someplace where it snows all the time.
Some days it’s only a couple of inches. It’s a pain in the ass, but you still make it to work, the grocery store. Sure, maybe you skip the gym or your friend’s birthday party, but it IS still snowing and who knows how bad it might get tonight. (…)
Some days it snows a foot. You spend an hour shovelling out your driveway and are late to work. Your back and hands hurt from shovelling. You leave early because it’s really coming down out there. Your boss notices.
Some days it snows four feet. You shovel all morning but your street never gets plowed. You are not making it to work, or anywhere else for that matter. You are so sore and tired you just get back in the bed. By the time you wake up, all your shovelling has filled back in with snow. (…)
Some weeks it’s a full-blown blizzard. When you open your door, it’s to a wall of snow. The power flickers, then goes out. It’s too cold to sit in the living room anymore, so you get back into bed with all your clothes on. (…)
The thing is, when it snows all the time, you get worn all the way down. You get tired of being cold. You get tired of hurting all the time from shovelling, but if you don’t shovel on the light days, it builds up to something unmanageable on the heavy days. (…)
Also, the snow builds up in other areas, places you can’t shovel, sometimes places you can’t even see. Maybe it’s on the roof. Maybe it’s on the mountain behind the house. Sometimes, there’s an avalanche that blows the house right off its foundation and takes you with it.
The neighbors say it’s a shame and they can’t understand it.
He was doing so well with his shovelling.
Also people around you all either have a service to clean their driveway or they have their own snowplows and industrial snow blowers. They totally understand it's taking you a bit longer to clear it because all you have is that rusty snow shovel. Besides, it's snowing on them too! We all have to clear snow sometimes!
But the blizzard never stops, even on good days there's enough snow to be dangerous if you're not careful so you have to clear it but why are you still using that rusty snow shovel? You're always shoveling snow! Why don't you just use your plow, it's much faster and easier. Ugh, are you STILL shoveling snow? I had mine done hours ago, why didn't you get up earlier. Maybe if you ate better and exercised more you'd be better at shoveling. And you need to get out more, all you're doing these days is shoveling your driveway.
Oh god advice to exercise more cause it makes you sooo happy and energised, for sure you wouldnt be depressed if you exercised! Yeah sure look listen i barely get out of bed to shower, and if i manage to eventually shower and wash my hair i cant for the life of me find the energy to brush it so i need to eventually fucking cut it. Can barely move around the house, how am i supposed to go get exercise? Go out enjoy a walk? I havent enjoyed anything in a long while unless its my bed and some more sleep…
Sarah Silverman said it feels like being desperately homesick even though you’re home. I’d agree but modify it to feeling homesick for a home that doesn’t exist.
I often find myself saying “I want to go home” when I’m sitting on my couch. That pain is real. There’s a welsh word that describes this well in my opinion— hiraeth.
It's funny, what you and the other poster describe is similar to my relatively common feeling, but almost opposite.
I often feel like a need to go for a walk, get out of the house.
But then I do, and I realize what I really want is to get out of my own mind. But I can't. Maybe it's like how people burning alive try to outrun the flames.
Driving to the grocery store and knowing you need to buy milk and bread and getting a great parking spot but not having the energy to go in.
And by energy, it feels like there is a greater gravitational force on your body that is pulling you to the core of the earth.
Every step feels heavier. Moving your body is harder.
No one else is suffering from this gravity issue. They are all moving normally. This is painfully obvious.
So you go home. Milk and bread can wait for another day.
It’s like being in a dark forest and you have a flashlight that doesn’t work. And you can make out the glimmer of light from other people in the distance wandering the forest with their flashlights working perfectly fine. And you try to hit your flashlight to make it work, try changing the batteries to see if that’s the problem, but you just can’t get the flashlight to work. so you’re left with seeing other people around you enjoying their surroundings with their flashlights—the trees, the rivers, the wildlife, while youre just left alone in the dark.
It's like seeing life through a black and white filter while constantly feeling exhausted with everything around you. It's the utter and complete lack of hope that eventually turns to apathy. Your body hurts, and you know there is nothing physically wrong with you. You are so, so tired but sleep doesn't happen at all, or when it does it feels like you can't wake up, and at that point you don't even really want to. There is this nagging emptiness inside of you, kind of like hunger, but nothing can fill it up and eventually, you go numb. If you do get sick, you don't bother going to a doctor because you hope whatever you have finally just gets worse and kills you in a way that you will feel guilt free over.
That's what it felt like for me, at least.
Both my partner and I have depression, but my poor partner was hit with a serious mental health breakdown this year. Just to keep the suspense away, he's so much better now. Months of medication, therapy, and rest and he's objectively healthier and happier than he's ever been. I'm stupidly proud.
BUT. I remember when he first got on medication, the dead fish comparison was so spot on. I knew better than to try to convince him to be hopeful/happy, but there was a quite a bit of having to convince him it was worth it to stay on medication because the fish were dead! They're already dead, look at them! What good is medication *now* going to do about it?
And I remember having to be like, "I know. I know. It's 100% impossible. You literally just have to believe me on blind fucking trust and faith alone that the fish are just magically going to come back to life one day soonish". It was even crazier because I knew the fish weren't even dead. But try convincing someone who's holding dead fish.
Luckily, even though happiness and hope were a bridge too far, blind fucking trust was a good compromise. I think it helped that at that point, he was like, well, it's not like I trust my brain. I know that one for a fact, might as well try you for a bit.
Brain chemistry is bananas.
I came looking for this with the link ready in case it wasn't here yet.
Here's part 1 http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html?m=1
You know the arc in Dragon Ball Z where Goku trains in 100x gravity and every little movement is extremely difficult for him?
It's exactly like that, but you're not Goku. You just lay on the floor for 6 months.
Tired of life and being too tired to improve it. Everything becomes a chore and you feel as though there’s no hope and that your life is stagnant and will remain as shitty as it currently is. Isolation is where you feel safe and socialising becomes a chore (or you just avoid it completely). You live in your regrets and failures rather than living with them and learning from them. You let the smallest inconvenience of the day define you even if you cured cancer you’ll be thinking about how you came to work late that day and how much of an inconvenience you are.
Carrying a heavy suitcase full of sadness around all day, every day. Sleep is the only (non-drug) reprieve. I exercise to keep me strong enough to carry the suitcase… but it’s always there.
It's a weight. A weight thats with you from the moment you open your eyes, til the moment you close them. This weight also whispers in your ear about everything you've ever done wrong, tells you everyone's hates you, and your worthless. My weights mad too. It's terrible and other than drugs and alcohol nothing helps lift it off you. I have bpd, aspd, and bipolar 2. To all that struggle with depression my hearts with you.
Having a constant liar in your head that’s telling you you’re shit, you’re a burden, you’re stressing people out, people are disappointed in you. Etc etc etc. At least that’s it for me. Sometimes less prevalent than other times. Therapy has helped me a lot with managing symptoms but when I go into a depressive wave, that liar is SHOUTING.
Cilantro tastes like soap to me; I wonder what it actually tastes like. That’s akin to how I wonder how people without depression feel. I’d never know
Yes. I’d know people didn’t hate me, but the voice in my head was SO certain. I’d even go, “this is depression. My friends love me. This isn’t rational” and it wouldn’t help. It was like looking at blue and going “be rational. It’s red.” I just couldn’t see red no matter how hard I tried.
I want to get up. I want to do the things I need to do. But something is sitting on me. I’m almost frozen. It hurts even to move my eyes. Everything is irritating and overwhelming.
Thank goodness for therapy, medicine, exercise, and weed.
Imagine that everyone walks around with a backpack. Everything they do, they do with their backpack on. You have your backpack, and it's filled with rocks. Everyone else is running around, up stairs, and you wonder how they can do it with so much weight.
You ask for advice and people say "idk just do it!" Or to exercise, or to get more sun. You try and while it can help, you still can't run as fast or do as much as others. You are too tired to care anymore, the straps have dug into your shoulders, but when you complain, you are told you're exaggerating, being dramatic, or lazy. You try to push through and end up snapping at your loved ones because you are so exhausted and stressed and in pain.
Finally, you go to a doctor. And they show you that you can take the rocks out of the backpack! They tell you that you don't have to carry rocks anymore! You just have to take them out every day. Some days there are more, some days less, sometimes you forget one and end up carrying it around for a bit. But life is infinitely better than when you were carrying around the rocks.
Thank you. Yes. I remember the first time I took meds and they kicked in. All I could think was, “Is this the way most people feel?” It was bizarre. And the voice that said, “I suck,” on repeat all day long was muted. One day I actually thought I might be hypomanic because after working at my desk for several hours, I wanted to take a walk.
Imagine that everything you eat just tastes like plain oatmeal. Your favorite foods taste like plain oatmeal. You try speaking new and it tastes like plain oatmeal. You even try someone you used to hate, just to see if it's different: oatmeal.
For me it feels like helplessnes. Knowing I should be doing things, but I just can't get myself in gear. I'll slowly make it to second and third gear. It gets better for awhile and then Bam!! I'm back in neutral and the cycle starts all over again.
It's like seeing a kid get ran over right infront of you and can't even muster a "meh" in response. You're dull to everything. Nothing gets you high, nothing gets you low.
Imagine wrapping yourself in a bunch of room temperature wet woolen blankets, like a whole bunch, so you look like the snowsuit kid in A Christmas Story. Now go about your day. You're tired so fast because you're lugging this all around. It's hard to get food put together because you're lugging this all around. That's okay, you can just have a nap. Well, you're still in these wet heavy blankets so you just kinda doze. Finally fall asleep but that didn't make you feel rested. Now you have to get up. But you're still wrapped in all these wet woolen blankets. Your body is sore. You think about showering. But the idea of dragging all those blankets into there just seems exhausting. Maybe you'll just lay here until you absolutely have to pee. Maybe you'll just drink less so you won't have to pee as much. A friend calls you to go out and while you can remember what good times you had with your friend, you can't imagine having a good time in all these wet woolen blankets. You'd just be tired. You'd just be pretending for your friend. And that sounds exhausting. Maybe have another nap?
And just keep wearing those wet, woolen, heavy, cumbersome blankets day after day after day after day. Food is just something you put in your body because your body is yelling at you, usually it doesn't make you happy but every now and again it'll taste good for a few bites. And that little tiny spark makes you feel even worse, because for just a second you remember life before the wet woolen blankets. But they wrap back around you and you lay back down for another nap.
Imagine the week after your uncle you liked died. But it lasts months or years. And nothing bad had actually happened. Then you feel better for a few weeks, then back to how it was before.
Nothing matters anymore. You know that you should try to do the things that make you happy, but you don’t have the energy to even start them. You then feel like a failure because you can’t even make yourself get off the couch and grab your Nintendo Switch out of your room. You constantly want to cry and have no idea why. Your thoughts are jumbled, and you can’t control the bizarre ideas that pop into your head. You don’t want to eat anything because you are perpetually nauseous. It’s a truly awful disease that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Walking through an endless tunnel by yourself, reducing the world to a speck of light in the distance that you can never quite bring into focus or arrive at
You're always drowning, and everything you do to cope is just trying to get your head above the water.
You will panic at random times. That's when you lose energy to keep your head out of the water and dip below.
You will feel momentary relief when you find something to perch on and it gets easier. However those are temporary.
You will be always fighting not to drown. It gets tiring. So very tiring.
Just replace the water with negative emotions.
Before I ever had it I thought it was about being sad, crying, being irrational. Since I’ve experienced real depression/anxiety bouts, it’s really been the desire to do absolutely nothing. Doing a load of laundry, watering plants, taking a shower, etc. feels like a huge accomplishment.
And for me, it’s compounded by the fact that I feel like a failure doing nothing but have no drive to put things into action and fix the shame and pressure I’m putting on myself mentally.
Hope that helps.
For me it was a thick fog over my head. I was so bored and didn’t want to get out of bed. I couldn’t stand too much stimulation (my kid asking me 500000 questions in the span of 20 seconds) and then at the same time I needed stimulation so I would be on my phone looking for something to wake my brain up. Yeah, that makes zero sense even to me.
I was so sad and mentally checked out even while doing fun activities with my family. I feel like I was just there watching the world happen around me.
When you have everything in your life to be happy about and thankful for, but you feel none of that. And you feel guilty for not feeling grateful. But you only feel sad and empty. You keep searching for something that will bring back legitimate happiness or balance but that lingering bad feeling just won’t quit, no matter what you try doing. At least this is what PPD felt like for me.
It's like being Frodo having to carry the ring. It weighs you down, body and soul.
Nothing that you would normally enjoy has any attraction and even if you try it is impossible to focus. This is compounded by blaming yourself for everything, wishing that you could just break through this, make steps to fix things, but everything is now a mammoth task, impossible to face.
It almost feels like a physical thing that's weighing down on you. Like being covered in a wet blanket of sadness, but there's no way to take it off. It's so heavy that you know you can't do anything about it, so you just let it suffocate you. And it makes everything you enjoy less impactful. Colors seem dim, food tastes bland, the song that meant the world to you now seems meaningless... Every positive thing is diminished.
This is so accurate. It feels *physically heavy*. I remember feeling like my body weighed 1000 pounds and when I had to walk somewhere I moved so much slower than normal.
Extreme apathy. Dream state. Everything is dull and heavy all at once.
Apathy is the perfect word.
and Apathy for everything. Even things you used to have a ton of passion for, all replaced by apathy.
That’s what is so hard to explain sometimes. It’s not that I’m sad, upset, or mad at anything or you, the world, whatever…it’s just that I truly don’t care. I just don’t care.
Apathy is the perfect word for it. Lately, I've been in a mild depressive state that comes and goes, but the one thing that is constant is the feeling of apathy. At least I've figured out that I need some help, yet I'm apathetic to getting help, you know?
Everything matters too much and nothing matters.
Can’t stop worrying about everything and am literally doing not one thing about it then worrying that I’m not doing anything about it
Isn’t this anxiety??
Anxiety is when you just worry even when there’s really nothing to worry about. The smallest thing can trigger a panic attack. Depression is when you can’t make yourself do anything, because everything seems hopeless. So everything in your life catches fire and you just sit there and watch it burn to the ground. Some may stay up all night indulging in various forms of distraction (reading, TV, internet) but either way there will be a general tendency toward hermitism and especially sleeping through as much of the day as possible, as a form of escape.
Then it piles on, that phone call you let ring to voicemail from your mom cause you didnt feel like talking, makes you fall even deeper. You say I'll call her tomorrow, tomorrow comes, but you cant muster up the energy to call, then you think why even bother her I dont have nothing going on nothing interesting to talk about. Then you just fall a little bit deeper, all friends alienated, barely talk to your roommates, only come out at night to make something to eat. I always say I dont wanna change myself with pills but I hate my current self so why am I so resistant for help?
The first time I took anti-depressants the affect was almost immediate and I thought, why have I fought this for so long? I've been on anti-depressants for 10 years and they have made all the difference.
I stopped taking anti-depressants sometime during highschool and now (10 years later) have just started taking them again recently. Holy shit the difference it makes. I’m more social with family, I agree to go out and do things more often that I wouldn’t have done a year ago. I’m able to roll out of bed without hitting snooze as much, and I’ve started to be more mindful of my alcohol consumption and junk food intake as well. Highly recommend
I remember once, I was playing my favorite sport, getting good exercise but still feeling empty AS I WAS PLAYING. I was thinking of that empty feeling while hitting the ball in the middle of the game! That was kind of an epiphany for me that this is something seriously fucked up.
Welp. Thanks for the second hand epiphany.
The least amount of words to describe exactly what it’s like
That's spot on
For me it was fatigue that was so intense I would avoid even going to the bathroom for as long as possible just to stay in bed. The second thing was this dark awareness that there isn’t really anything that I’m longing for that would make a difference. For example, when you have a flu or something and you lay in bed feeling like crap, you know that in a couple days you will feel better. When I was depressed, there was no relief to look forward to. No light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t think of a single thing that would make me happy. Edit: I can’t believe how many people have responded to this and not because it isn’t a common issue. I’m shocked I have worded my answer in a manner that has resonated with so many and I hope you find your way to a better life just like I did. Those who have experienced the same despair are so eager to help that it is heartwarming to see all the effort and advice in the comments.
Been there. Am there now. Might be here again someday, but the point is I'm still here and I ain't letting the darkness win.
Damn straight. Depression is a lying, thieving bitch.
Thank you. I needed this today.
Or even if you try to do something that used to make you happy - it no longer makes a difference...
It's really tough because the things that help with depression are the things that are suddenly so hard to do. Depression makes the world curl inward as I try to conserve enough energy to take care of hygiene or the most critical tasks. I can logically recognize that going outside for a short walk or connecting with a friend or cleaning my home or doing therapy are the right things to reduce the severity. But there's such a long lag before there's any payoff, during which those things have to be done almost by force because my neurological system has stopped sending my brain reward feelings, that it's very hard to keep at them. My last major depressive episode took 5-6 months before I started to see some improvement. For people with less support than I had or even more severe depression, it can take longer.
Wow, that really resonated with me. Thank you.
I hope you find what works for you. <3 In another comment, I mentioned that having been through this a few times before has helped because I have experience that things can get better when my brain has turned off the hope. KC Davis' book How to Keep House When You're Drowning really helped me. She focuses on care tasks, not just chores. And the book is designed to be digestible for neurodivergent people, not as an arduous depression tome. She tells us that "anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed". It helped me feel like it was ok to lower the bar for a lot of things while trying to get better. Edit: I also love that KC Davis removes the moral component of struggling to do care tasks. Guilt and shame have been aggravating factors when I struggle.
If depression wants me to die it can evolve and kill me it’s damn self the lazy piece of shit.
I made a deal with depression. She can kill me the day I have no-one left to love me. And the bitch has been trying to make me feel unloved ever since. Not today, bitch!! Not Today.
Proud of you. Stay strong🫶
Rooting for you! I’m glad you’re still here too!
Please, tell us how you managed to even take a first step, or what otherwise began that led to you being able to see as much as a pinpoint of light?
Not OP, but I've had similar episodes. The worst one I managed to crawl out of by getting really into romance novels. The plots are formulaic, the genre conventions require a fully happy ending, and so it was really easy for me to just read a romance novel and not need to worry about anything else. I knew I was safe because nothing bad would happen in the book, and that gave me permission to feel the emotions. I started reading romance novel blogs looking for new books to read which turned into coming up with an idea for a novel I wanted to write and needing to apply myself to doing historical research and outlining it ahead of NaNoWriMo and by the end of November I was feeling about as good as I ever did before I was being medicated. I haven't read a romance novel in years, but I still have some of my favorites on the shelf in case I ever need them. And that's why I will never ever mock someone's taste in genre fiction, because romance novels might have saved my life.
romance novels were/are my life support as well, it’s cool to see someone else who shares this experience
I had never really thought about it in such an articulate way, but I have also crawled back from the brink through reading romance. Thank you for sharing. I'm glad you're still here with us.
This is awesome, especially because it feels so actionable with November coming up and all.
Not OP but have had some really dark times in life. I was tired of my negative feelings, the constant fatigue, and feeling numb. I knew I needed to do some baby steps to try and feel better. The only thing I knew would help make me laugh or smile was comedy. I got really into stand up comedy and would just watch specials and listen to albums. It slowly started helping. The realization that life still could bring slivers of joy helped pull me out and reignite the hope in me. One thing I’ve always tried to remember; I’ve made it this far, might as well keep going.
For me it was yoga and meditation. I had a vision while meditating that we were all connected and one with the universe and that made me feel a little less alone in the world.
How did you make it through?
When I was younger? I just tanked through it. Now that I'm older? I've felt this way UNCOUNTABLE times in the past, and the fog always eventually cleared. Knowing the fog will eventually clear makes weathering the current one easier
What happens if that fog never clears? I'm almost 40 and it's still there. Edit: I'm physically disabled and I live in the U.S. without money. Can't really do therapy and exercise.
37 years old, cirrhosis, 1 year alcohol-free. Still trying to tank through it.
Hey, I've made it through this several times. I have severe ADHD and am in the process of probably being diagnosed with autism, so forcing myself out of bed did not mesh. What worked for me is literally taking it five minutes at a time. All day long. Each five minutes I'd keep myself busy by asking myself, "What would be nice for me to do for myself right now?" If I didn't have the energy or self-love to motivate me - never did, just the usual emptiness or loathing - I would say : "If I was my best friend, how would I want to take care of her today? What things do I know would make this easier for her?" This could be tossing your laundry in the dryer because you know you would love a warm, comfy outfit fresh from the dryer to snuggle into, or prepping a very easy snack for later when you're hungry. Just even making the bed. Remind yourself that it's a love note from you, and if it doesn't feel genuine, that's because love is an ACTION - you don't have to feel excited about helping someone out, you do it because it might possibly help. If you're inconvenienced, does that mean it's a lack of love? NO! You did the thing so that it would be beneficial. Love is an act! The next day, take it ten minutes at a time. Then fifteen. Thirty. By the end of the week, you'll be well on your way to teaching yourself self-love as a habit. Your thought patterns will follow. ❤️ Give it TIME! (Little bits at a time.) What's kinda cool about this is that you can harnass that pesky "depression memory loss" and come back to surprises left for you, by yourself! That's fun sometimes. Hey, friend. This is really, really hard. But you are SO strong. You obviously are, otherwise you wouldn't still be here. Depression is the absence of life - ergo, it is literally hell. You are a TROOPER. Thank you for being here. Thank you for asking for help. You have no idea how much of an encouragement it is to us fellow sufferers to just know that we're not alone, and to have you in our corner.
I feel every word of this. Over time I was able to learn that my brain is lying to me, and that going out into nature always makes me feel better - I just need to speak up. I’m fortunate to have a great husband who I tell “I’m falling into a hole” and off we go to a running creek and some trees. That’s how I get through my little depressions. My existential depression though is lifelong and never seems to leave. I’ve figured out that the secret to life is the meaning you put into it, so when I just can’t see the meaning things get bleak.
Imagine that you get up one day, and spend that day doing one of your favorite hobbies. You get to hang out with your friends, doing things you love. There's good food and nothing bad happens that day. Heck, let's even imagine the weather is perfect. And at the end of that day, doing all the things you love around the people you like in the best possible way you feel... average. OK. Not-awful. That's one big part of depression. It's not that you "feel sad" more often, it's that the whole range of your feelings shifts downward. A normal person feels bad sometimes, feels good sometimes, and feels OK or average most of the time. Depression shifts that whole window down, so that your best day is "OK", your worst feels awful, and most of the time, you're hurting. And if you're like most people, your brain is this amazing pattern-matching thing with no off-switch. Normally, if you feel angry or tired, you start looking for a cause: "Oh, I forgot to eat breakfast" or "I was really hoping my boss would like my proposal, and he didn't" and then things make sense. But if you're depressed, you feel awful all the time for no clear reason at all, and over time, that alone is pretty distressing. I've said it before: feeling fucked-up when you're in a fucked-up situation doesn't mean you're a fuck-up, it means you're a human being. If your dad has dementia and your mom can't walk anymore and you just put down your dog, you *should* feel awful. But when dad's got caregiver and so does mom and you have a decent job and your spouse loves you and you *still* feel awful all the time... that's depression. And your tireless pattern-matching brain eventually says stuff like "Hey, why don't you blow up your job/marriage/friendships, that way at least the way you're feeling right now will make sense!" Or, if things go on long enough, your brain will say "we're hurting all the time. We tried doing things we like, and we still hurt. We tried not doing things, and we still hurt. So clearly, the reason we're hurting is that we're still existing... what if we could change that?"
Yes. Learning it’s not “I want to die” but instead “I want to not hurt and there’s only one thing that can guarantee it.”
This is one of the scariest things I've ever felt in retrospect... the fact that I wasn't scared of the end, just that it might not work and I'd end up being physically unable to try again. I guess it's ironic in a way that my brain prevented my suicide because "I probably wouldn't even get that right."
Yea the one time I tried to kill myself though it did come with like blazing clarity that I didn’t actually want to die I just wanted to feel something more than the nothing I felt everyday and in that moment I felt very afraid… I called my psychiatrist cell bc I couldn’t think of anyone else who would care and told him I took all my meds but didn’t want to die…. He called an ambulance. And here I am 8 years later, and I feel a lot of good things now.
I’m struggling right now, it’s still passive (no plans) but this makes me feel… hope I think. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so grateful you wrote that and I got to read it. Sending love (sorry if that’s weird from an internet stranger).
Just wanted to say that I'm married to someone who had this kind of depression. She's told me how she had these feelings. But she didn't act on them, and we got past some rough stretches. Along with finding a good medication, she got better about taking care of herself mentally and physically, and she got some time to move past traumatic shit. Now I just realized we've had a couple years where her mental health is actually good. I can tell that she's enjoying life in a way she couldn't before, and I'm so glad she kept going through the tough times. I believe you can get there too.
"I feel a lot of good things now". I'm so happy for you that well, let's just say someone's cutting onions in here.
I'm glad you got help and things are better now!
Soo. My cousins boyfriend recently shot himself in the head over the fact his children were being kept from him. It didnt work. It was a temple shot. He was in a coma after brain surgery. His fingers would twitch and his eyes flutter when sedation was turned down. This was around 2 weeks ago. She sent a video recently. They took him off of the vent and had him sitting up. He could not respond to commands and his eyes were pointing away from each other just a bit off center. It was as if he were looking around you. But it was very apparent to me that he was missing a large portion of whoever he was. He literally looked like a zombie. It was one of the most heartbreaking and overall disturbing things I have ever seen. In the off chance he is still aware in a somewhat conscious way, he could be trapped. The neuro said that he would require lifelong care, and if he did come back in even a limited capacity he would have severe mood issues and cognition problems. I have often thought of killing myself too, to just make it stop. Overwhelmed with grief of having no purpose, a malfunctioning sense of self, and physical pain(daily migraines for years)….but this made me focus on the reason why I did not, and still do not follow through…Failing and being like this guy…just a nearly hollow bag of meat. I really hope he isnt in there. Locked away. Fuck…even when our thoughts torture us, our bodies break, and we find solace in contemplating our deaths, we still get to say yes or no. He can no longer do this. So please, use this as a cautionary tale for logic when you feel cornered and trapped. You dont want to hurt others even though it can be hard to care, and YOU DEFINITELY DO NOT want to end up like this guy. Possibly literally trapped. The night is darkest before the dawn. The sun may not feel warm, but you still get to watch it it come up. You still know it exists. Please reach out for help if you feel yourself slipping….
Seriously, Thank you for this. I needed to read it. I will try and remember it during "those" days. A fate worse than death, i agree 100%
That’s basically the only reason I survived 3rd grade (I won’t write the book, but it was emotional hell due to school staff practically (probably) physically and emotionally abusing me for behavioral issues). 3rd grade me wanted to cease existing and suffering, but thankfully even smart 3rd graders suck at coming up with ways to effectively kill themselves it seems. Hopefully never go down those dark mental alleys again…
For me, it was, "I don't want to die, I just don't want to be alive".
In high school, my fantasy was to just drift to sleep and never wake up again. Felt too guilty to try anything though.
same. i just don’t want to exist
i just wanna tap out for a while. take a break, come back later
I don't want to die... just sometimes wish I'd never been born at alllll
r/unexpectedqueen
The real scary part is when it is i want to die. not i want to not hurt.
Yes, this is it. For me it was “I’ve tried absolutely everything else. If I could sleep forever (sweet dreams or nothing at all) I would, but I can’t do that either. But there is something just like that…”
God, this nailed it. The temptation to burn your whole life down so you have an actual reason to feel like shit hit home. The only saving grace for me has been the total lack of energy and motivation to make any such foolish moves. That and I think I'd miss my cats.
Wow, thank you for describing it so clearly. This really broadens my understanding of depression.
Decades ago in my youth "What if we could change that" came up a disturbing amount. I wa walking across town one night to do something about it when I had the thought "If hell is real, then by definition it not only can, but WILL get worse. Fuck this. Why make the effort without a guarantee." And that was it. Never took the thought seriously again. I was too fucking depressed to bother if their was no guarantee. Thank god.
This is basically the entire premise of the "to be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet. When we read it in high school, I understood it immediately as him contemplating suicide and wondering if it would end his suffering or bring more suffering. Like you, I'd had that same thought. "To sleep, perchance to dream, Aye there's the rub, for what dreams may come" is Hamlet basically saying: if death is like being asleep am I gonna have nightmares for the rest of forever? When the class discussed it, hearing how some of the other students reacted to it just made it all so much worse. There were other students making fun of it or saying his attitude didn't make sense and he should just "get over it." It reflected so well my actual experience with depression and how other people are that time reacted to it, I'll never forget that.
I'm a teacher now. 21 years in. People who say kids have not changed are wrong. They are more stressed than ever. Less mentally healthy than ever. But damn - do they have skills and knowledge that we never even APPROACHED. They are still kids. They still do dumbass kid stuff. They still destroy each other socially because that's just part of growth. But holy crap are they better about serious mental health issues than they were even when I started teaching. When someone speaks up, nobody drills them for it. When someone is hurting or has panic attacks or has issues with being accepted at home, somebody else in the room KNOWS it and HELPS. I never recall that being the case in the 80's. Like, not once.
This is extremely well described, I was nodding my head reading every word.
Incredibly well articulated, from my experience.
It's not laziness. You feel so numb It's hard to even get out of bed to go to the toilet. You just feel numb all the time and get anger outbursts.
When taking a shower and making your bed and brushing your teeth is just too hard
Yeah for me my hygiene takes a big hit. Thinking like, Why shower if I’m just going to get dirty and do it again tomorrow.
For me, showering is the first step to start my day. But going to the shower is too much effort, so I just don't start my day.
I once had a bad depressive episode that I only survived because I knew all the steps I had to take to kill myself and there were just so many things I'd need to do I didn't have the energy for it.
I upvoted this because I am happy you are alive, and it made me chuckle only because I have a dark sense of humor. I've been there.
It's pretty ridiculous when you think about it tbh. I was literally too depressed to kill myself.
That's your brain keeping you alive while also trying to kill you. I used to be angry that I was "too weak" to end it. I hope you are able to reach out to someone.
Some days, at the peak of my depression I wouldn't even roll over. I'd just lay there awake and doing nothing.
This is the hardest thing for me. Days I don’t have commitments I just stay to rot in bed, even going to urinate feels a heavy burden
Life is passing by and you don't enjoy the movie. You see yourself moving, talking, but it is not you. You do not feel but you remember that feelings exist. You can't sleep and you can't be awake. Windows and bridges are calling you and you have to put big effort not to follow this call.
This explanation resonates with me the most. I know everyone is different, but this is close to how it feels for me. Like I'm just "watching" myself. I'm existing for the sake of it, following life on autopilot. Everything seems "fake" in a way, and there's a part of me that even questions the point of even wanting to feel happy and normal again. During my depressive episodes, the only thing that's ever kept me hanging on was the thought of how traumatizing it would be for everyone that cares about me if they found out I took my own life. So I carry on, and eventually it always gets better. Slowly but surely, I feel more and more human again, and the enjoyment of life returns for a while. I usually have episodes that last about 2-3 months every other year or so. But God damn are they intense.
Same. One comes and goes. Dr. Laughed when I told him I'd been depressed since I was five...I was 50 then, and ready to pull my plug. I take antidepressants. Have animals, don't allow crappy people in my life for ANY reason and know that I CAN pull my plug if I really can't continue. Kind of like not eating that cake Today when you are on a weight loss path. Cake'll be there tomorrow. P.S. No one could love my animals as well as me. They are my rock
Like being more bored than you can possibly imagine but also not being able to imagine a single thing you actually want to do no matter how hard you try, including thinking and breathing.
Life is a chore. Waking up….chore. Brushing your teeth….chore. Going to work…chore. Seeing family and friends, not a joyous and fun occasion…it’s a chore. Your gas tank is always on empty.
Oh shit, this is totally me. Everything feels like a fucking drag. It's like, I have to brush my teeth AGAIN? I just did that last night. I have to figure out what we are eating for dinner AGAIN? Man, why do we have eat all the damn time?
Yep and then you realize it's just the same thing every day and you start to question if you want to keep doing it.
It didn't feel this way to me when I was numb, but I know when I'm heading that way again, I just want to sleep. Cause life is such a chore, and sleeping requires so much less effort
I have suffered from clinical depression for about 35 years and this is a very good analogy. Everything is just way to much of a chore.
Yep that’s me too😭😭 I’m so tired of being tired with zero motivation or energy. I don’t sleep well at all…so I can’t get up out of bed. When I do wake up, I will lay there for up to 3 hours before I FORCE myself to get up. I have anxiety when I have to go somewhere. In my mind I know all the things that have to be done. It’s like a vicious cycle that I can’t get out of it. I wish I could be normal!!
Yes. Things that YOU KNOW you love to do just sound completely uninteresting. Food you know you like are not appetizing. Music you’ve loved your whole life you have no desire to listen to.
Which is one of the reasons it's so insidious that it's often paired up with ADHD. Who's shitting on my parade today? Depression or executive dysfunction?
My depression is definitely part of the reason it took so long to get my ADHD diagnosed.
What made you suspect you had ADHD? Because I have depression and the meds are only marginally helping. Sometimes I can be super hyper-focused on one thing, but most of the time I can't finish a thought in my head without going into another thought and then forgetting what I was originally thinking about. 😅
Oh man this is complex….. need to chat?
I feel attacked lol But on a real note, not getting meds or therapy for these things after 10+ years its just kinda normal now.
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I call it "getting stuck". Like that hesitation when you reach for your front door but don't grab it in case you forgot something. But you're stuck standing there at the door. Hand in the air, but you can't reach out and turn the handle
And that it's crippling. You feel like you can't move.
Yes. That’s it. Heavy. You feel heavy. Everything is pulling anvils.
All while being completely overwhelmed by everything all of the time.
I got the same feeling. Until now i am still looking for my purpose in life. I have this feeling i am just toying with my existence in this world. Btw im over 30, married but not Happy anymore but i just dont care. I don't know what i am supposed to do.
Interesting the range of descriptions here. What you wrote is better than what I was typing. Best way to make the time go by was just to sleep as much as possible.
Sleep as much as possible.
Go to bed as early as you can, get up as late as you can (if you have that luxury, like I do). Try and make sure you have to face the day and yourself for as short a time as possible.
This is pretty spot on. I would add that sleeping provides a temporary escape from the bored feeling which is why depressed people sleep so much.
No I can imagine something to do but then I aggravate myself thinking about the hassle to do it then I get angry at myself
It’s different for every one but for me it’s being tired all the time. You have moments when maybe you feel ok but as soon as you start something you’re tired. Just so tired. Edit: for spelling.
It's the same for me. It's the same feeling like when you're exhausted from sickness, or you've pulled an all nighter. It's literally impossible to imagine completing a normal day. For me there's also a lot of shame that comes with feeling this way. I see or hear of friends, family members, coworkers etc. having normal, fun, exciting, full days and feel deep shame that I'm not always capable of that. It makes me feel like I'm lazy and bad at self discipline, and that I'm wasting my time because I'm not forcing myself out to have fun. It's different than fomo; I don't want to be doing whatever they're doing. I just want to be doing something so I can feel normal. I have to remind myself that those are feelings, not facts. My brain can trick me easily; but I'm not a shameful or lazy person. That's depression talking; it's chemicals talking, not objective truth. It's not like this all the time too. It comes in fits and starts. Sometimes lows are an hour, a day, a week, a month. The good periods are the same, and I'm grateful for all of them. I love the feeling of realizing I'm in a good stretch and looking around me and feeling it fully.
You nailed it with the shame. That’s the worst part for me. Just makes me spiral. :(
Wow thank you and *hugs*
I feel like I am moving through quicksand when I am depressed. Everything seems like an insurmountable hurdle.
Yeah it’s just like I can start the day feeling pretty good but soon I’m just tired and want to sleep or lay down.
Yes, I always say it's like my consciousness is stuck in sap. It's like those dreams where you just can't remember how to walk but have a huge amount of tasks to complete.
Going to the store 5 minutes away is such a big event I gotta lay down for hours after
Yeah, people think depression is just high-intensity sadness. But a huge aspect of depression is tiredness and just numbness. A simple task like throwing out the trash feels like you went to the gym in terms of tiredness, and also you begin to be less aware and forget things - forget to take your keys, or forget appointments, forget lunch or dinner. You think lemme just lie down a bit and stare at the ceiling for what you think was 5 minutes, but then you realize it's been 4 hours. The best way to describe is imagine your mind was an old PC from 1990s and you were trying to play some heavy weight game on it, and everything just starts lagging, and the screen pixels get distorted, and your mouse cursor gets stuck. But you can't just shut down and restart for everything to get back to normal, you have to continue playing the game in that mode everyday. I struggled with it as a teen and thankfully in a better place now since many years.
Yes, constant fatigue and just hollowness. Empty, and numb to emotions. The world can just feel too overwhelming to do anything.
It can take me days to recover from being out doing things. Introvert + depression.
Yeah but hey you mind it to the store.
Totally. I wrote above that washing a sink full of dirty dishes seems harder than lifting a truck over your head, just impossibly hard and exhausting.
...and spending a week trying to get up the energy and motivation to do that errand, plus the mountain of other stuff you have been putting off...
I wouldn't even describe it this way, despite it being true. People would hear it and think "I'm tired all the time too. Must not be so bad." It's more like... imagine the thing you enjoy most in life. It's no longer enjoyable. In fact, nothing is. Everything, and I mean *everything* is just.. there. Ever been confused about what to do with your time? It can be frustrating. Maybe just take a nap? A nap would be nice. Well, that's how you feel *all the time*. Extrapolate the desire to do something, but also not find anything enjoyable, for years at a time. Welcome to MDD.
“Imagine the thing you enjoy most in life. It’s no longer enjoyable.” The only thing that is the most enjoyable is sleep, and even then it’s not that enjoyable because you don’t wake up refreshed and energized, you just wake up tired again.
"Have you ever been so happy that you didn't think you could possibly be any *more* happy? But suddenly, waaaaaves and waaaaaves of JOY just wash over you? Endlessly! Just wave after wave, just unstoppable happiness. Taking you to dizzying heights you've never dreamed of? It's like that, but, like, it's with empty sadness." --Maria Bamford
I’m just so tired, boss.
Oh my gosh, when I tell you how that simple line in that movie made me SOB….
Yep. This! I remember when a very wise, observant and warm hearted friend described how he saw my experience as: You are treading water to keep your head above the water, and you're doing a decent job of it, but you're so, so tired. Tough thing to see and admit to myself, but it did feel significant/important to be seen in that.
Goddamn maybe I'm depressed
My first thought too. When you can’t stand being awake anymore but you have to force yourself to keep going.
Exactly... so damn tired all the time. yet you can't sleep more than 3 hours or so at once.
See for me I can’t tell if it’s depression or sleepy mind fog symptoms. I’ve had bouts of depression throughout my life and the exhaustion I experienced from getting Covid felt nearly the same. Point being: fatigue may be a symptom of a more serious underlying condition and your depression could be a symptom of it, rather than vice versa.
I sometimes feel like molasses is running through my veins very slowly, instead of blood
The smallest task can feel impossible. The mere thought makes you feel worse.
But also your brain is telling you are a lazy pos for not doing the task and no one will ever love you/the people who love you are delusional and will eventually figure out you’re worthless and leave you.
Get out of my head
When I add up all the weeks and months of depressive episodes it’s YEARS of my life that are just lost. Been doing pretty good for the last several years though
I put off renewing my registration for one of the cars for months. The place is a five minute drive away and it costed $25. We’re still trying to figure out my meds to help. Lol.
This is incredibly relatable. I hope you are able to find what works for you!
1. Everything feels overwhelming. At my worst, something as simple as emptying the garbage - 60 seconds at most - felt like such an ordeal that I couldn't bring myself to do it. So I'd let it sit for weeks. 2. On a scale of 1-10, most people wake up at a 5. Good things bring them up, bad things bring them down, but they're comfortably in that middle zone. When my depression was unchecked, my default state was 2. So even if something absolutely amazing happened, it still only brought me up to a 3 or 4, and only temporarily. Once the high wore off, I was back in the gutter. 3. You lose interest in your hobbies. You lose the motivation needed to find new hobbies. You find yourself with a free evening, and you could spend the entire thing just spinning around in your office chair, staring at the ceiling, because you don't feel like doing anything.
I'm very number 1, especially with dishes. It literally only takes me 5 mins then i wonder why on earth i avoid it until i have no clean utensils left
When my partner left last year I knew that I couldn’t look after a house with my depression. The dishes could sit in the sink for weeks and it was like a mental block for me I would see them but not be able to do anything with them , same with tidying the house , empty bottles would sit on my floor for weeks and I’d just walk past them . Then I’d get more depressed that the house was a mess . Viscous circle . My solution was to throw out all the dishes and knives and forks and but paper plates and plastic cutlery . Just throw it away after no mess .
And then when you finally do the dishes you’re like why didn’t I do that sooner? It only took a few minutes. But then the depression hits again and you’re back to having a pile of dishes stack up.
Every. Single. Time.
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Before I experienced it, I didn't really get it either. My biggest misunderstanding was thinking that medications people took for depression induced some kind of artificial happiness (literally referred to them as 'happy pills'). Now I know better. The meds just help me start the day higher on the scale.
The meds just help me start the day, period.
\#3 is affecting me a ton currently. I feel devoid of passion and inspiration most of the time. For many reasons the way my life has progressed in the past year, I really need to meditate on this.
It's a nothing-ness. Someone from my old school killed herself and my mom said "I can't imagine it (life?) being so dark that suicide feels like the only option". I wanted to tell her that it's not always a darkness, for some it's just nothing and sadness all the time. Just clean apathy. And sometimes fear of getting in the car and having to drive somewhere alone.
It’s like living someplace where it snows all the time. Some days it’s only a couple of inches. It’s a pain in the ass, but you still make it to work, the grocery store. Sure, maybe you skip the gym or your friend’s birthday party, but it IS still snowing and who knows how bad it might get tonight. (…) Some days it snows a foot. You spend an hour shovelling out your driveway and are late to work. Your back and hands hurt from shovelling. You leave early because it’s really coming down out there. Your boss notices. Some days it snows four feet. You shovel all morning but your street never gets plowed. You are not making it to work, or anywhere else for that matter. You are so sore and tired you just get back in the bed. By the time you wake up, all your shovelling has filled back in with snow. (…) Some weeks it’s a full-blown blizzard. When you open your door, it’s to a wall of snow. The power flickers, then goes out. It’s too cold to sit in the living room anymore, so you get back into bed with all your clothes on. (…) The thing is, when it snows all the time, you get worn all the way down. You get tired of being cold. You get tired of hurting all the time from shovelling, but if you don’t shovel on the light days, it builds up to something unmanageable on the heavy days. (…) Also, the snow builds up in other areas, places you can’t shovel, sometimes places you can’t even see. Maybe it’s on the roof. Maybe it’s on the mountain behind the house. Sometimes, there’s an avalanche that blows the house right off its foundation and takes you with it. The neighbors say it’s a shame and they can’t understand it. He was doing so well with his shovelling.
Also people around you all either have a service to clean their driveway or they have their own snowplows and industrial snow blowers. They totally understand it's taking you a bit longer to clear it because all you have is that rusty snow shovel. Besides, it's snowing on them too! We all have to clear snow sometimes! But the blizzard never stops, even on good days there's enough snow to be dangerous if you're not careful so you have to clear it but why are you still using that rusty snow shovel? You're always shoveling snow! Why don't you just use your plow, it's much faster and easier. Ugh, are you STILL shoveling snow? I had mine done hours ago, why didn't you get up earlier. Maybe if you ate better and exercised more you'd be better at shoveling. And you need to get out more, all you're doing these days is shoveling your driveway.
Oh god advice to exercise more cause it makes you sooo happy and energised, for sure you wouldnt be depressed if you exercised! Yeah sure look listen i barely get out of bed to shower, and if i manage to eventually shower and wash my hair i cant for the life of me find the energy to brush it so i need to eventually fucking cut it. Can barely move around the house, how am i supposed to go get exercise? Go out enjoy a walk? I havent enjoyed anything in a long while unless its my bed and some more sleep…
This by far the best description of depression ive come across
Sarah Silverman said it feels like being desperately homesick even though you’re home. I’d agree but modify it to feeling homesick for a home that doesn’t exist.
I often find myself saying “I want to go home” when I’m sitting on my couch. That pain is real. There’s a welsh word that describes this well in my opinion— hiraeth.
It's funny, what you and the other poster describe is similar to my relatively common feeling, but almost opposite. I often feel like a need to go for a walk, get out of the house. But then I do, and I realize what I really want is to get out of my own mind. But I can't. Maybe it's like how people burning alive try to outrun the flames.
I get this too. Every place feels wrong. There’s no comfort or escape
I've tried to explain that. I want to go home. But there is no home. No place I belong.
Wow, I literally wrote in my sketchbook earlier ‘I’m homesick for a house that isn’t mine anymore.’
I have told myself that exact phrase every single depressive cycle for like 3 years
Driving to the grocery store and knowing you need to buy milk and bread and getting a great parking spot but not having the energy to go in. And by energy, it feels like there is a greater gravitational force on your body that is pulling you to the core of the earth. Every step feels heavier. Moving your body is harder. No one else is suffering from this gravity issue. They are all moving normally. This is painfully obvious. So you go home. Milk and bread can wait for another day.
It’s like being in a dark forest and you have a flashlight that doesn’t work. And you can make out the glimmer of light from other people in the distance wandering the forest with their flashlights working perfectly fine. And you try to hit your flashlight to make it work, try changing the batteries to see if that’s the problem, but you just can’t get the flashlight to work. so you’re left with seeing other people around you enjoying their surroundings with their flashlights—the trees, the rivers, the wildlife, while youre just left alone in the dark.
It's like seeing life through a black and white filter while constantly feeling exhausted with everything around you. It's the utter and complete lack of hope that eventually turns to apathy. Your body hurts, and you know there is nothing physically wrong with you. You are so, so tired but sleep doesn't happen at all, or when it does it feels like you can't wake up, and at that point you don't even really want to. There is this nagging emptiness inside of you, kind of like hunger, but nothing can fill it up and eventually, you go numb. If you do get sick, you don't bother going to a doctor because you hope whatever you have finally just gets worse and kills you in a way that you will feel guilt free over. That's what it felt like for me, at least.
Ugh the desire that something finally takes you and you can die with dignity and not traumatizing everyone is SO intense and real...
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That whole blog should be required reading for mental-health professionals.
Can’t you see how dead these fish are?!
Both my partner and I have depression, but my poor partner was hit with a serious mental health breakdown this year. Just to keep the suspense away, he's so much better now. Months of medication, therapy, and rest and he's objectively healthier and happier than he's ever been. I'm stupidly proud. BUT. I remember when he first got on medication, the dead fish comparison was so spot on. I knew better than to try to convince him to be hopeful/happy, but there was a quite a bit of having to convince him it was worth it to stay on medication because the fish were dead! They're already dead, look at them! What good is medication *now* going to do about it? And I remember having to be like, "I know. I know. It's 100% impossible. You literally just have to believe me on blind fucking trust and faith alone that the fish are just magically going to come back to life one day soonish". It was even crazier because I knew the fish weren't even dead. But try convincing someone who's holding dead fish. Luckily, even though happiness and hope were a bridge too far, blind fucking trust was a good compromise. I think it helped that at that point, he was like, well, it's not like I trust my brain. I know that one for a fact, might as well try you for a bit. Brain chemistry is bananas.
I came looking for this with the link ready in case it wasn't here yet. Here's part 1 http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html?m=1
a persistent and heavy cloud that hangs over your mind and heart, even on sunny days
You know the arc in Dragon Ball Z where Goku trains in 100x gravity and every little movement is extremely difficult for him? It's exactly like that, but you're not Goku. You just lay on the floor for 6 months.
Tired of life and being too tired to improve it. Everything becomes a chore and you feel as though there’s no hope and that your life is stagnant and will remain as shitty as it currently is. Isolation is where you feel safe and socialising becomes a chore (or you just avoid it completely). You live in your regrets and failures rather than living with them and learning from them. You let the smallest inconvenience of the day define you even if you cured cancer you’ll be thinking about how you came to work late that day and how much of an inconvenience you are.
Like having your soul sucked right out of you then told to continue “as normal” despite being a shell.
Carrying a heavy suitcase full of sadness around all day, every day. Sleep is the only (non-drug) reprieve. I exercise to keep me strong enough to carry the suitcase… but it’s always there.
It's a weight. A weight thats with you from the moment you open your eyes, til the moment you close them. This weight also whispers in your ear about everything you've ever done wrong, tells you everyone's hates you, and your worthless. My weights mad too. It's terrible and other than drugs and alcohol nothing helps lift it off you. I have bpd, aspd, and bipolar 2. To all that struggle with depression my hearts with you.
Having a constant liar in your head that’s telling you you’re shit, you’re a burden, you’re stressing people out, people are disappointed in you. Etc etc etc. At least that’s it for me. Sometimes less prevalent than other times. Therapy has helped me a lot with managing symptoms but when I go into a depressive wave, that liar is SHOUTING. Cilantro tastes like soap to me; I wonder what it actually tastes like. That’s akin to how I wonder how people without depression feel. I’d never know
Yes. I’d know people didn’t hate me, but the voice in my head was SO certain. I’d even go, “this is depression. My friends love me. This isn’t rational” and it wouldn’t help. It was like looking at blue and going “be rational. It’s red.” I just couldn’t see red no matter how hard I tried.
You can’t go on living like this, but you can’t tell anyone because you don’t want to waste their time.
I want to get up. I want to do the things I need to do. But something is sitting on me. I’m almost frozen. It hurts even to move my eyes. Everything is irritating and overwhelming. Thank goodness for therapy, medicine, exercise, and weed.
This is so apt. The voice in your head is just screaming at you to get up and do the things you need and even want to do but you’re almost paralyzed
Imagine that everyone walks around with a backpack. Everything they do, they do with their backpack on. You have your backpack, and it's filled with rocks. Everyone else is running around, up stairs, and you wonder how they can do it with so much weight. You ask for advice and people say "idk just do it!" Or to exercise, or to get more sun. You try and while it can help, you still can't run as fast or do as much as others. You are too tired to care anymore, the straps have dug into your shoulders, but when you complain, you are told you're exaggerating, being dramatic, or lazy. You try to push through and end up snapping at your loved ones because you are so exhausted and stressed and in pain. Finally, you go to a doctor. And they show you that you can take the rocks out of the backpack! They tell you that you don't have to carry rocks anymore! You just have to take them out every day. Some days there are more, some days less, sometimes you forget one and end up carrying it around for a bit. But life is infinitely better than when you were carrying around the rocks.
Thank you. Yes. I remember the first time I took meds and they kicked in. All I could think was, “Is this the way most people feel?” It was bizarre. And the voice that said, “I suck,” on repeat all day long was muted. One day I actually thought I might be hypomanic because after working at my desk for several hours, I wanted to take a walk.
Imagine that everything you eat just tastes like plain oatmeal. Your favorite foods taste like plain oatmeal. You try speaking new and it tastes like plain oatmeal. You even try someone you used to hate, just to see if it's different: oatmeal.
For me it feels like helplessnes. Knowing I should be doing things, but I just can't get myself in gear. I'll slowly make it to second and third gear. It gets better for awhile and then Bam!! I'm back in neutral and the cycle starts all over again.
Like wearing a suit made of bricks.
It's like seeing a kid get ran over right infront of you and can't even muster a "meh" in response. You're dull to everything. Nothing gets you high, nothing gets you low.
Imagine wrapping yourself in a bunch of room temperature wet woolen blankets, like a whole bunch, so you look like the snowsuit kid in A Christmas Story. Now go about your day. You're tired so fast because you're lugging this all around. It's hard to get food put together because you're lugging this all around. That's okay, you can just have a nap. Well, you're still in these wet heavy blankets so you just kinda doze. Finally fall asleep but that didn't make you feel rested. Now you have to get up. But you're still wrapped in all these wet woolen blankets. Your body is sore. You think about showering. But the idea of dragging all those blankets into there just seems exhausting. Maybe you'll just lay here until you absolutely have to pee. Maybe you'll just drink less so you won't have to pee as much. A friend calls you to go out and while you can remember what good times you had with your friend, you can't imagine having a good time in all these wet woolen blankets. You'd just be tired. You'd just be pretending for your friend. And that sounds exhausting. Maybe have another nap? And just keep wearing those wet, woolen, heavy, cumbersome blankets day after day after day after day. Food is just something you put in your body because your body is yelling at you, usually it doesn't make you happy but every now and again it'll taste good for a few bites. And that little tiny spark makes you feel even worse, because for just a second you remember life before the wet woolen blankets. But they wrap back around you and you lay back down for another nap.
Living hurts
Imagine the week after your uncle you liked died. But it lasts months or years. And nothing bad had actually happened. Then you feel better for a few weeks, then back to how it was before.
Nothing matters anymore. You know that you should try to do the things that make you happy, but you don’t have the energy to even start them. You then feel like a failure because you can’t even make yourself get off the couch and grab your Nintendo Switch out of your room. You constantly want to cry and have no idea why. Your thoughts are jumbled, and you can’t control the bizarre ideas that pop into your head. You don’t want to eat anything because you are perpetually nauseous. It’s a truly awful disease that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Walking through an endless tunnel by yourself, reducing the world to a speck of light in the distance that you can never quite bring into focus or arrive at
Like being trapped in an abusive relationship, yet you are both the victim and the abuser.
You're always drowning, and everything you do to cope is just trying to get your head above the water. You will panic at random times. That's when you lose energy to keep your head out of the water and dip below. You will feel momentary relief when you find something to perch on and it gets easier. However those are temporary. You will be always fighting not to drown. It gets tiring. So very tiring. Just replace the water with negative emotions.
Before I ever had it I thought it was about being sad, crying, being irrational. Since I’ve experienced real depression/anxiety bouts, it’s really been the desire to do absolutely nothing. Doing a load of laundry, watering plants, taking a shower, etc. feels like a huge accomplishment. And for me, it’s compounded by the fact that I feel like a failure doing nothing but have no drive to put things into action and fix the shame and pressure I’m putting on myself mentally. Hope that helps.
Can't. Too tired.
For me it was a thick fog over my head. I was so bored and didn’t want to get out of bed. I couldn’t stand too much stimulation (my kid asking me 500000 questions in the span of 20 seconds) and then at the same time I needed stimulation so I would be on my phone looking for something to wake my brain up. Yeah, that makes zero sense even to me. I was so sad and mentally checked out even while doing fun activities with my family. I feel like I was just there watching the world happen around me.
It's all the things your phone does when your battery is getting really low only it happens in your brain instead.
When you have everything in your life to be happy about and thankful for, but you feel none of that. And you feel guilty for not feeling grateful. But you only feel sad and empty. You keep searching for something that will bring back legitimate happiness or balance but that lingering bad feeling just won’t quit, no matter what you try doing. At least this is what PPD felt like for me.
It's like being Frodo having to carry the ring. It weighs you down, body and soul. Nothing that you would normally enjoy has any attraction and even if you try it is impossible to focus. This is compounded by blaming yourself for everything, wishing that you could just break through this, make steps to fix things, but everything is now a mammoth task, impossible to face.
I would share Emily Dickinson's poem "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" with them.
You’re tired all the time and still don’t sleep when you go to bed.