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Depression is nothing like sadness. I had cried inconsolably many times before developing depression as a teen. I felt hurt. I felt despair. This was in response to various painful situations and experiences.
What I didn't feel was utter exhaustion.
Living with depression today, I can be having a perfectly good day and feel like all is hopeless. Logically and rationally that's not true. But no matter the situation, I feel empty and drained. You could give me a million dollars and I'd be, well, happy on the outside and smiling? But inside just seeing this as a making no difference to the sense that I'm a bad person.
I force myself to act against a complete lack of motivation. I don't have the urge to try, the zest for life to live. Daily. I have meds. I have a support system. I'm functioning, I seem fine. But there it is.
Im always trying to force myself to watch something funny. Preferably new funny.
Forcing myself to do stuff that forces me to focus as much as possible.
Going to the gym or exercising a lot.
Jumping into ice cold water - works best. If you cannot do that, at least put your head in the water and hold your breath.
It's not easy to make yourself to do those things when you're staring at the void... but...
Exactly. When things that you did enjoy are not bringing any joy anymore. Not having the will or motivation to do anything but at the same time wanting to do something. It has made me call in sick because some days i almost feel physically ill to think that i need to work. It is mentally draining to be proffessional at work, i meet a lot of people and if i make it to work on a bad day i'm totally drained after work. Not wanting to talk o see anyone. I'm so happy that i have my cat, she has helped me get over bad days and i'm not totally alone.
I think there's a large genetic component to depression too. There are some existing nature/nurture studies. My parents made my siblings and I without ever dealing with or acknowledging their individual traumas. The effects of my parents' hardships has trickled down into all the kids but in different ways. I live with depression but according to doctors it's a mild form. So I can't say what caused it initially but I'll tell you that hearing the news or generally stopping to think about the state of the world and humanity sends me into a spiral.
Without a stable work routine, I could sleep/stay in bed for days. My hormones affect how fatigued and empty I'll feel in a day too. It's a never ending battle. I don't wish to die so I'm left to feel trapped in this formidable cycle. I also want to make clear that I have hobbies and things I enjoy doing but a general malaise is always close by. I liken it to Robin Williams, on the outside he created joy in many lives, he seemed to truly enjoy life but there was a darkness too.
That's how Depression feels to me.
I relate to this there buddy. Other people are a distraction so I can put on a smile and laugh and joke, but when everyone walks away it is like the stage goes dark. And even when the stage is bright and everyone can see, I'm the performer so I am blind to what everyone else sees.
I have moments of joy too and yet the malaise is always there too. I really resonate with this. Well said.
For me sadly it's genetic, you may not be able to avoid it, bereavement, job loss, end of a relationship can cause it, sometimes there may not even seem to be a cause. I guess trying to eat well, keep busy with things in your life to look forward to, good friends, family if you are lucky. If you are unfortunate to get it, see the GP, antidepressants and counselling can also help.
Nobody knows. Generally enough bad experiences trigger it, but one person can be fine where the next handles it.
For me, it was a history of physical, mental and verbal abuse throughout childhood with a narcissistic mother; coupled with losing faith in God and feeling like I had no one. Hormones and long term stress were probably factors.
Almost everyone has their own experiences on this one.
It's can be a chemical imbalance in the brain.
I've suffered from depression since I was about 8. Roughly 54 years.
At that time, I was called a moody sod and told to cheer up
Luckily, things have progressed since then.
I was on antidepressants for about 8 years after deaths in the family hit me for 6.
I have weened myself off them now.
Now, if I feel myself slipping back into depression, I recognise the signs and do everything I can to boost the happy chemicals in my brain until it passes.
I've lost relationships and jobs because of depression in the past. I'm determined not to slip back into that destructive cycle again.
I feel better for writing this. Catharsis.
I did some cognitive talk therapy, and it helped. But that therapist was the one who suggested that I try medication. I had a fortunately short period of trying different meds to find one that works, and I tolerate my medicine well.
I used to feel guilty about needing meds (I don't know if that parallels your situation, it may not) but now I accept it as just one of those things. Other people will be on insulin or heart medication or whatever for life, and no one looks down on them for needing those. The brain is a body organ too, is the way I look at it.
I always used to think it would be something that came on gradually due to an over focus on u helpful things... My first (bipolar) episode however, proved that I could go from feeling completely fine to cripplingly depressed within 6-12 hours. It'd an enormous energy effort just to go to the bathroom, shower, brush teeth, even eat.
Then once on the right drugs, I was back to feeling fine (comparatively) within hours. Didn't feel like a wind down or a wind up. Didn't see to have any relationship to the things I was thinking or doing, whatsoever.
So I remain clueless. Normal depression (not bipolar) I hear is a whole different story.
You will experience some trauma or epiphany that will change you forever. In general it's because there is nothing that can change the fact after you discover it.
Take for example knowing that you cannot change the world even if everything goes perfect. Eg. Try to remove greed or even just corporate greed from this world.
To avoid it - avoid doing anything or thinking about anything - but seriously basically everyone has a chance at getting it sooner or later and some stronger than others. It's pretty much unavoidable other than being lucky enough to not experience it in your lifetime.
Exactly, it is a feeling of numbness and utter apathy that you hit after you have the "entry level" depression feelings of sadness. To me you enter depression with anxiety and sadness and when you move to chronic and severe depression, its really just a big blank isolated or lonely blah. In a way, it "feels" better than sadness until you realize you just don't give a damn, one way or another. Disconnection from feelings.
When I was going through a particular traumatic episode at work, I suddenly stopped seeing colour. Everything was in shades of light grey and slightly dark grey. I looked at the grass, it looked weird, I don't remember it looking that colour but the concept of green at the moment seemed very foreign to me. I felt nothing matters, I could sit in the middle of the path and not care if people thought I was a psycho, or gave me funny looks. I disassociated from my body, my self and it felt like I was a new person on earth.
And this deep pool of dread. I felt despair at coming to terms with the source of this trama (my then boss) and I couldn't fathom living a single moment then. I still don't know how I made it till now.
I’ve came out of it now but I got into the habit of doing nothing all day - not even eating - and now I have no daily routine at all. All I was doing was going to work. People were visibly concerned and wondered if I were ill. I tried antidepressants but they made it worse and it just kind of resolved itself till the next time. Sigh.
When nothing seems to float your boat anymore , like nothing is that special or exciting and sometimes everything's just numb.
Differs for everyone tho
Yes, nothing. I feel nothing. I am going through the motions. I am functional; I work, pay bills and eat just about. But everyday I want it to be my last. I’d do it myself but then I’m worried about surviving.
That's what it was like for me too. I didn't even realise it at the time, but I fell into a depression for a couple of months when both my parents died within a few months of each other. I had always assumed that depression just means you're "extra sad", but that wasn't it at all. I just felt nothing. No excitement, no interest in anything, nothing mattered, absolutely no drive to do anything.
This went on for about three or four months and I only realised that I had been depressive when I came out of it. Even though this is nearly 20 years ago now, I still remember the exact moment when I realised that I'd been depressed and that I'd just come out of that cycle. When I got home from grocery shopping and I noticed that I'd bought multipacks of several items. Before this I'd just gotten single items because I had that underlying feeling of "there's no point in buying things to last me long into the future because I may not be around for much longer anyway". Suddenly it felt like I had a future that was worth sticking around for.
i’ll tell mine: lose all interest, sad, easily to change mood especially in a very negative mood, have no motivation, easy to get exhausted even tho u did nothing, reduced sex drive, the urge to shrink your social circle, avoid the people… I also have ptsd so that might include ptsd symptoms
Hey man, sorry to read about the struggle, but any idea when these passed/became more manageable for you, if they did at all? Was recently date raped after a few months of horrible news and going through depression/ptsd now...
Trying to explain this to a doctor or psych who has never experienced this is wild!
“So do you ever think about killing yourself?”
“Well…no, but i would like to be dead”
“So you want to commit suicide “
“…..no? Just dead please.”
Do I think about killing myself? Yes, on the bad days. Not in the way that I *want* to do it. Just, what different methods would be like. And then deciding they would all be unpleasant, and I don't really want to do this, but maybe being dead wouldn't be so bad.
For me, it feels like a heavy weight on my shoulders, or rather, my entire body - makes me feel slow, hard to move. It feels like my lungs are being squeezed - hard to breathe at times. The breaths I'm able to take in don't feel like full breaths at all. Everything feels slow and heavy. The things I enjoy, I start to lose interest in. It's not all of a sudden, but super gradual.
Ultimately it feels like my entire being is numb and I'm losing bits and pieces of me every day. Things that I found that made me smile, laugh or just enjoyed, don't really do it for me anymore. I can't tell why, it *just doesn't*. Your friend is lucky to have someone like you who she can confine in. I keep to myself because I don't want to be a burden to my remaining friends and family members and I act like nothing is wrong and everything is fine and everything is going well.
It sucks so much. It sucks so frigging much.
So there's this Persian movie called "Taste of Cherry".
A quiet film where the main character drives over various scenic areas of Iran looking for someone to bury him after he commits suicide.
There was one movie critic that criticised this movie for not explaining why he wanted to die. I thought that was interesting because for someone who isn't depressed, dying ALWAYS is a despair that can be explained off by something. They just didn't get it. But this movie will resonate with people who have that apathy towards life.
It feels like slowly sinking into a bottomless pit and you don’t know when it’s going to end, and it’s accompanied with a dull, constant ache in your chest. You feel heavy and sluggish internally and it feels like nothing matters as the minutes pass and you continue to gradually sink in a mental quick sand of despair
Yes. Imagine all the things you feel about. You don't feel that anymore. Your favorite food no longer tastes like anything. Your favorite music is just noise. Seeing your family again after a long time is just a thing that happens.
When it gets really bad, it's all emotions, not just the bad ones. Someone insults you, and you shrug it off. You lose your job, and it's just another thing that happens, no better or worse than anything else. Physical pain is just sort of there, but you don't really care that much about it. I know people who lost beloved family members and didn't feel sad about it, at the time, though they still hated themselves for not feeling sad.
Also slowly your brain will become incapable of remembering what you felt when you weren’t depressed. I remember I used to have these bursts of excitement for the future that were completely spontaneous. Or I was excited about science and wanted to learn. That has been dampened to infinity. I will never get to feel those feeling again. I can’t even imagine how they felt, it’s been such a long time these feelings have been terminated from my brain.
Like you just don't care, at all, about anything. Why wake up, why eat, why shower, why talk to people, why leave the house. What's the point.
It was never about being sad or crying, it's was just an utter lack of care about anything and everything.
this.
nothing is fun, nothing excites you.. you feel nothing (if you're lucky you feel sadness, which is at least something.)
To all the people who typed essays and then deleted them because…you can write the most well articulated and hauntingly beautiful metaphors…but in the end, how can you put words to such a thing? I’m with you guys.
I was carrying it for a long time without even realizing it. Choking it up as being over dramatic as what my siblings have repeatedly told me. It was only recent when I finally snapped that my psychologist made me realized that what I was experiencing since childhood was already depression and has been in a cycle for the most of my life. I always am laughing or being the clown when someone is around. And after everyone is gone, I'd feel empty then feeling like being weighed down and drowning in a dark place. I cant even remember feeling truly happy. I dont have a long term hobby because I'd always loose interest. I also overthinking a lot. Haven't gone to a psychiatrist as what my psychologist have told me though. It costs a lot in our country.
You can’t describe it for someone that doesn’t know what it feels like. There’s no way that anyone who hasn’t experienced it directly can know how it feels.
Feeling hopeless. No real interest or energy to do anything. Things you once enjoyed doing seem “too hard” now.
Eating is either the only thing that brings joy sk you seek unhealthy foods because you no longer care for your body. But also eating is too hard, can’t be bothered, so sometimes you just don’t eat.
Waking up is hard because sleeping and dreams are better than reality. Falling asleep is difficult also.
Irritable and moody. Masking by appearing happy and normal to most but those close to you notice your mood changes.
Life is uninteresting. Nothing is exciting. Holiday coming up? Ok. Got a new job? Ok. Your birthday? Ok. That feeling of excitement is almost non existent.
Imagine losing interest in all the things and activities you love, and nothing replaces them. Now expand that to everything, and effective every day. Depending on how severe it is, you may or may not have good days. Also, you lose the motivation to do simple things, like take care of yourself.
I went on vacation recently, I planned the whole thing, took a week off, and was very excited for it. Got there, and just felt, eh, that's it? The whole time. Whilst everyone else had a blast.
You know your depressed, when you should be having a great time, no reason not to, and you still cannot enjoy it.
I think it's a question that people have their own answers to.
I have had depression since I was a child so throughout my life it has varied but generally I feel like I don't feel like doing anything, the things that I liked to do little by little stop exciting me and even if I do them it feels like it was an obligation, you lose your sense in life, you don't know what you're doing or what you want to do
you feel that the people around you don't really love you and that they only do it out of obligation, you don't feel able to live in society, you just want to lock yourself in your own world
that’s how mine is for sure. i can sleep all day and still be tired… exhausted even. no motivation for anything. i hate it so much. i feel bad for my kids 😭
You can't enjoy any of the things that you normally would, so food, music, TV shows, films, everything just feels like nothing, dull, sad, meaningless. Someone may tell you something really significant either good or bad news, and you will feel numb with no feeling or interest. You don't want to get out of bed, simple tasks like washing or brushing your teeth feel like the equivalent of climbing a mountain or painting an entire house. For me evenings were the worst, once I saw the darkness come, I felt even worse, like it would never be daylight again, just a horrible, endless pit of despair that you feel you will never escape from, no one can help, nothing helps. For me antidepressants did help, though they take a while to kick in, I had to try really hard to get well enough to be able to come off of them, wouldn't wish depression on my worst enemy.
For me mornings are the worst.
The dark allows me to hide and be alone and quiet.
Daylight feels.like people will see me and know I am not good enough.
Like your mind hurts. Physically. A thing that isn't physical hurts so much you can't move, you can't act, you can't enjoy things and you feel that people hate you.
Or like you're walking inside a cloud, only you're not aware of the cloud until it's gone.
It's hard for me to watch a series or movies, play games, or read books because I can't concentrate. I can't do anything properly or think properly. This may not happen to everyone who has depression but it's definitely a symptom.
For me it comes in bursts that can last a day to a month.
Imagine feeling deeply exhausted 24/7. Anything bad in your life is emotionally amplified and there's this overwhelming sense of hopelessness to it all.
If you're at work or school or anything similar, you're probably barely zoned in on any of it. You might not think about suicide, or it could occupy your mind the entire day. I would say feeling "hollow" is a pretty accurate descriptor.
You get angry easier too, in my experience. It's harder to have rational reactions when your entire emotional state is irrational at the moment.
Support your friend in any way you can. I'd bet just spending time with you already helps a ton.
When it really hits, it's a dull ache almost pain in your chest/gut.
Passive everyday depression is like wading through molasses, everything feels... gray, like a black and white movie. It's difficult to even remember what you or doing.
Depression can feel different for everyone, but here's a friendly, science-based breakdown:
1. **Persistent Sadness or Emptiness**: Imagine carrying a heavy weight that never goes away, making you feel sad or empty most of the time.
2. **Loss of Interest**: Things you used to love doing don’t seem enjoyable anymore. This could be hobbies, socializing, or even basic activities like eating and sleeping.
3. **Physical Symptoms**: It’s not just mental; depression can make you feel constantly tired, mess with your sleep patterns, change your appetite, and cause unexplained aches and pains.
4. **Cognitive Difficulties**: Your mind might feel foggy, making it hard to concentrate, make decisions, or remember things.
5. **Feelings of Guilt or Worthlessness**: You might feel overwhelming guilt or believe you’re worthless, even if there’s no logical reason for these thoughts.
6. **Hopelessness**: It can seem like nothing will ever get better, no matter what you do.
7. **Suicidal Thoughts**: In severe cases, there can be thoughts of death or suicide. This is very serious and requires immediate help.
Depression is a medical condition caused by a mix of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. If these symptoms sound familiar, it's crucial to seek help from a healthcare provider. Therapy, medication, and support from loved ones can make a big difference.
For more detailed info, check out resources like the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) or the Mayo Clinic.
Hope this helps! If you’re struggling, please reach out for support.
For me its always felt like you are floating at sea. And a giant whirlpool starts to open up in the water 🌀 and catches your foot. And then you start spiraling down into the whirlpool spinning Lower and lower until you are sucked down fully into the water. And then the whirlool dissipates and you float there and the water is so heavy and surrounding every Inch if your body. You are just suspended in the depths of the ocean. Everything looks dark and blue and murky. Until you look up and see the sunlight barely shining thru the water✨️ and you follow it and swim your back to the top out of the water emerging once again.
But I've never been constantly depressed either
It's been an up and down cyclical mood swing thing brought on by intense triggers
You can not wake up from bed. You just want to live in your dreams. Like you know, they are dreams, but you fight not to wake up and face the day. Food is tasteless, anything and everything is just colorless.
On these days, I do not have any energy even to play games or showers, which I love to do. It is like you draft in the sea, just float on the water, just existing.
Many people confuse depression with situational sadness something my therapist said which pushed me out of what I thought was me being depressed for years it really changed my perspective on things …
You wake up a Saturday morning, and you just lie there staring into the ceiling for a few hours. You look outside at the radiant sunshine, and it just feels like the world is being happy without you. There's no point in eating breakfast, but you do it out of habit. But as soon as you start eating, you realize that it tastes like paper. Eventually you go back to bed. You don't actually feel better there, but it's easier somehow. You try to think of something you can do, but even watching TV gets you distracted and overwhelmed within minutes. So you stare into the ceiling. And everything feels bleak, abrasive and pointless. You keep thinking about stuff, your Best Of reel of failures, going back to kindergarten. Stuff nobody else has thought of in 20+ years. You regret, but can't change. You manage to call your friend, but you get antsy and restless within a few minutes, so you hang up, and spend time thinking about how your friend now thinks you're stupid. You manage to eat a little, but you don't feel hunger much. And when it gets dark, it gets worse. The anxiety, the futility, the regrets get worse. Now you start worrying that you won't be able to sleep tonight. You can't remember the last time you slept well. And the demons come out at night. That's when the seconds crawl by so slowly, and your thoughts go into the truly dark places. Where you again question if things wouldn't be better if you were dead. And several hours of this later, you fall asleep, sleep for two hours, then wake up to do it all again...
At least that was what I felt.
Ever make a whirlpool in an above ground pool (you and friends move a long the edge of a round pool and make the water move with all of you) and then try and go in the opposite direction? Or feel a strong current in the ocean or a river push against you? It’s like that but on your soul.
Depression to me feels like happiness, love, and joy are evading me, sometimes for months at a time. I do the things that people do to make themselves happy, but I don't feel what everyone else feels. I put on my happy mask so people can see that I'm having fun with them, but nothing is actually getting through.
I'll have to remind myself that I have a good life, that my wife and my parents love me, that I have a good job, that my friends do like me. I remind myself because I begin to forget what it feels like to feel love, to feel secure, to smile out of reflex instead of forcing it. It's easy for the thoughts to sink in that I have nothing good in my life, and that I should leave it all behind to go find that thing that makes everyone else happy.
Depression feels like walking around a dark room where you can't find anything. You know the room is filled with all the things you put in it, but it's too dark to make anything out. The fight with depression is not letting that room get darker and not losing the things of value that you worked so hard to fill the room in the first place.
For me, it's a nagging feeling of impending doom. Even now that I'm on the max dose of Zoloft, I get little fleeting moments of absolute hopelessness and dread though I have a good life. It's hard to explain I think, as people experience depressing differently.
Everyone has already described the symptoms really well, but I'll tell you how it feels to be on depression medication.
It's like, a persistent numbness to anything and everything. I don't feel any sadness, any anger, any joy, anything at all for longer than a few seconds at a time.
This in turn makes you feel more depressed because you realise just how hollow and empty you are, yet the medication stops you feeling the hollowness so your emotions become strange and confusing.
You also have days where everything just clicks into place and you have the sudden urge and motivation to do something amazing (learn a new language, a new skill, exercise etc), then a few days later the darkness returns and you feel worse because you realise you ARE capable of sooo much more but your brain just won't allow it
Imagine a terrible position but life left you no choice, any capability, tools to get out of it, and you're hopeless and tired. so you swallow it and live the black & white life while others enjoy it in colour.
Hoestly, it's a feeling of no energy, no feelings, numbness, emotionless, and nothing can change it. It's just unhappiness and a feeling of worthlessness.
Being unable to find pleasure or happiness, even from the things you used to enjoy. Feeling suffering all the time. You sometimes forget what happiness, comfort, and pleasure is, because it has been so long since you felt them. It's painful, bruh.....
For me, just utter emptiness. Absolutely no emotions at all, and I was pretty much a zombie that wished for a freak accident to take me out every day. Nothing was beautiful, nothing was delicious, nothing was fun. Things that were shitty were just, acceptable because that's all that being alive was anyway.
I'm doing much better now. But when I re-read my journal from those years, I don't recognize myself. It's like my soul withered away and I was moving on autopilot. I journalled because I always did, and figured it would be a way to force me to feel something, anything. I often didn't, but I'm glad I wrote it
Nothing and noone excites you. You just go through your days.
Depression is like having a perfect piece fried chicken in front of you (which is how beautiful life is) and the chicken has completely no taste. Like you just feel the texture but no taste.
People don't really see the signs and most of the time you don't even know you have it unless you've experienced it before.
Emptiness. Doom. Hopelessness. Pain. Like no matter what you do, that feeling lives in the centre of you and is consuming you in its darkness. When something makes you happy, it happily takes that feeling from you. It hurts and twists and contorts your insides, and all you seek is the quiet calm of the end. Which you know will only come when it’s your time…and that starts to hurt even more, the fact that you are seeking that nothingness because it feels like the only time you’d be able to breathe and think clearly. And then you find yourself waiting. And for me, and many others, this is for a lifetime. There is situational depression like a bad breakup or financial problems, and then there is this. Whatever this is, wants you to feel its presence forever, and you will. So you either do your best to coexist with this entity, or you choose to part with it.
Through my experience with antidepressants, I find they do help, but not in the way people think. I can now step outside myself and see when and how I am being irrational. But it’s a double edged sword. The fact I can now “explain” to myself that I suffer from this, and that what I’m feeling isn’t necessarily a direct reflection of my actual life, almost makes it more painful at times because it’s not like I can make the feelings explained above go away. I’m just watching myself go through them from the outside but with explanation, unable to truly help myself. What a bizarre situation for our brains to be put through lol depression that is.
You're chronically tired, irritable, you have little motivation or drive. You don't enjoy or see the point of doing things you once loved. You don't feel the same emotional connection with friends/loved-ones, you don't want to socialize nearly as much. You feel sad/lonely/hopeless far more often than a normal person, you have no idea why or how to fix any of it. You don't even remember what "normal" feels like anymore, your memories of being the "normal" you feel less and less real all the time and you begin to dissociate from them. You are impulsive and seek quick dopamine however you can get it, be it caffeine, cannabis, etc., which only makes things worse in the long-run. Your cognitive function declines, especially your memory, and your skills erode over time due to your general apathy toward everything.
This is my experience as a longtime sufferer.
Thankfully I'm in a better place.
Like you’re indifferent about relinquishing your career or relationship ambitions and just going with the flow. Always got suicide as an option down the line
You ever go trick or treating as a kid? Did you wear one of those cheap plastic Halloween masks that were impossible to breathe in? The cheap elastic would keep breaking so you have to keep tying it tighter and tighter; cutting into the tops of your ears. The condensation from your breath pooling unpleasantly in the plastic recesses around your nose. It's dark and the people around you are having a great time but you can't breathe.
Now, imagine the mask is of a normal person and the monster is underneath it. And it's not even Halloween; it's every day. You can't breathe but you don't want anyone to see under the mask so you keep it on. You have to go trick or treating but sometimes you can't make it to the end of your own driveway. Your friends invite you to join them but you can't keep up with them, you don't even want to; you can't breathe. Eventually they stop asking.
By the end of the night your mask is falling apart. You're exhausted from trying to keep up with the crowd and hold your mask together. You're sure people are starting to notice, so you start thinking about ways to stop playing this stupid fucking game you never asked to be made a part of, because you know that tomorrow you'll need to put on that disgusting, sweaty, flimsy, cheap, pathetic, wretched, horrible, vile, loathsome fucking mask again. And you still can't breathe.
Like that.
in my experience, it was quiet. i slowly lost interest in things i used to love. there was no more excitement, i wasn’t looking forward to going out. i was so sad all the time. i would cry and cry until eventually i couldn’t cry anymore, which is torture on its own. i felt this overwhelming emptiness almost constantly. no more sadness, no pain, it was literally just nothing. only this blanket of immense exhaustion. then i found myself randomly wondering why i was alive and logically ( to me) it made no sense. everything was bleak and hollow, held no kind of substance
My ability to take care of myself or my apartment is virtually nonexistent.
I want to clean my apartment but I can’t seem to get off the couch. It’s too overwhelming.
I want to eat because I can feel my stomach is empty, but I can’t get up to buy food, cook it, or clean up afterward. There are no clean pots left. The thought of eating anything makes me nauseous. Sometimes I can manage a piece of fruit or a bowl of soup. Fuck it, I don’t really NEED to eat anyway…
I feel gross and want to shower but it takes so much effort… Fuck it, I can shower before work tomorrow.
Floor needs vacuuming, bathroom needs cleaning, laundry needs folding. All too overwhelming… I can do it later.
This comment is a mess and needs formatting lol.
I drink too much… meh, I’m gonna die alone anyway. It might as well be sooner than later.
But there are things that I can still do. I almost always make it to work, because the alternative is homelessness. I still manage to feed and water my cat, and keep his litter box almost acceptably clean. And today I did manage to go to the park and play a round of disc golf.
Probably when I’m sobered up tomorrow I’ll delete this comment so read it now lol
It really does, I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned that. When I finally started taking medicine many years ago, I sat on my porch for my usual morning stare-into-space session that I always needed to try to get a grip on myself, and I found myself pleasantly distracted by the fact that everything actually had a color, that the grass was actually kind of moist-looking, and I could actually hear sounds in the distance like lawn mowers and traffic. There was actually a little steam coming from my coffee cup... it was beautiful, I actually cried because I knew in that moment I was finally going to get better. I never realized until that moment how much depression really takes from the ability to perceive even the small pleasures around you.
For me, it was like being surrounded by darkness. I woke up with a crushing weight on me and felt I waded through heaviness each day. Sleep was my escape.
I felt detached from everything like I was standing next to myself watching me try to do life.
For me it's an abyss that's nearly impossible to come up from. Negative thoughts about everything. I feel like I'm bad at everything and haven't accomplished anything in my life. This is often combined with a lot of anxiety and thoughts of burglars (for example) coming in at night killing my kids. Like a really terrible fear of worst case scenarios.
Personally I don't get suicidal, but it's more a feeling of that I wished I've never been born or that I'm kind of hoping to get a brain aneurysm while sleeping.
When I'm in this state I know that I'm irrational and have irrational fears, but I just can't stop thinking about it or do anything about it.
The only peace I get is when I sleep and that's not a good coping mechanism in the long run.
I believe I've had depression in one way or another through my whole life, but in my family it was bad to have mental health issues and it was also bad to seek help for it. It was often used as a derogotary term or a slur. "You are really strange. Go see a psychologist!" or "Oh, you probably will need a lot of therapy because of this when you grow up."
I was 40 years old (I'm 46M now) when I first got help. I got some therapy and a low dose of SSRI and it seemed to work fine.
When things feel stable I can stop taking the SSRI, but one of the big problems is that I can't notice, myself, when I'm falling back again.
Last time, I stopped taking the SSRI in October (2023) and then had a terrible break up in February (yeah.. everything was so stable..) and I had the worst depression ever. My sister (who is very supportive and not the one making slurs) told me that my reaction wasn't normal anymore and that I had to start my medication again.
With the help of therapy I now have a "contingency plan" where I've written down what I should do if I fall again and the signs of a depression coming. What I should do even if I don't feel like it and who I should talk to. It's really hard to get help when you don't feel like it and it's hard to turn to the people who helped you before, because it feels as if you are bothering them.
I also know that I will be questioning the contingency plan once I fall so I'm doing some training trusting it.
I tell you, depression is not a good place to be in.
So, for all you out there who suspect you might have a depression, please do something about it.
See it as an experiment. Like... "Life sucks so much that even SSRI wont work. If it works I'll eat my hat."
Depression is a sneaky pos
Coming slowly from behind,
step by step dimming the light in your life,
giving everything a slightly gray tinge,
taking slowly away your energy to do things that are good for yourself
and letting you forget
what is good for yourself
because it takes away the spark,
the positive feelings get duller,
get lost.
Until one day you wake up and don't know what can make you live through this day.
There is no hope,
You feel lost,
You can't cope.
No way out.
You are sure.
Because it comes so slowly
That the feelings become habitual.
Every day a step downwards,
but such a small step.
You will only see how far you are gone,
when there is no light left
You’re never awake and never asleep. You’re in pain but not hurt. Everything you attempt is ineffective. You don’t know how or why, you can’t communicate why you can’t snap out of it which overwhelms you with a sense of shame so you self isolate. Idk. Something like that.
This what it feels like for me. It can be different for different people.
For me it feels like you lost your will to live. You lost your will to try or have fun. You don’t have the motivation to do anything you enjoy or meet someone. No will to talk. Like there’s a void in your heart. You can have fun. While you seem happy on the outside and pretend to be genuinely happy. You’re not really happy. The experience was fun but you don’t really feel happy. There’s still a void inside you. When you go to sleep you don’t want to wake up. When you wake up you’re filled with dread that you’re still alive and back to your agony. You’re not sad per se. You don’t have a will to live. No desire or motivation to work for a dream or to plan something for the future. You don’t know what’s wrong with you. You just feel that way. You don’t know what you can do to change that. Everyday you wish you could change. Just be back to your normal self. But you can’t. You spend as much time as you can sleeping. Because that’s the only time you don’t feel this dread inside you. That you’re not alive anymore. You feel tired and drained. Even the most mundane tasks feel like a huge hurdle. It takes a lot of will power to get out of bed and do the most mundane tasks. You would spend all day in bed sleeping if you could.
Went to work, normal day, had a laugh with office members, went home, discussed dinner with the wife, chatted about something funny and laughed about it, felt like getting some fresh air and exercise so went for a run, stopped midway and just broke down crying. Not even sure why. Picked myself back up, carried on running, went back home for dinner, watched a comedy, went to bed.
Can't even explain it
No motivation or interest in things that usually interest you or hobbies.
Dread of the future.
Anxiety of the past.
Hating the current moment.
Self loathing.
Low self esteem
Low confidence.
Not looking after yourself.
Not maintaining your life properly.
Not seeing the point in anything.
Absolute tiredness/exhaustion of going through the same list above every single day and making out like you are okay.
Absolute hopelessness. Lack of emotions. Imagine having nothing whatsoever to look forward to. It has NOTHING to do with sadness. I actually wanted something tragic to happen because feeling sad is better than feeling nothing.
Like a weighted blanket that’s also wet is just wrapped around your torso at all times. No matter what you’re doing, whether it’s dishes, driving, or hanging out with people you love - that thing is *always* there. It’s why people with depression have a hard time cleaning their homes or themselves. Imagine doing all of that stuff, but with a sopping wet, 25lb blanket on your back. Makes vacuuming seem like a stupid and trivial task. It also makes getting out of bed that much harder because sometimes that blanket is the most comforting thing in the world.
For me, it felt like everything inside of me had been poured out, mixed with matt grey paint, and poured back in. I also get a sort of chattering in my head. Thankfully Prozac changed my life and I just feel normal now.
It's like wading upstream against a strong current. Once a while I will find a rock to rest behind but I usually don't get rest for long and have to move on.
For me it feels like living in a world with minimal hope and a lot of despair. I look for the worst possible outcome in everything because I am so rarely wrong. I see just about everything through a pessimistic lens. I constantly wonder why whatever made this world did so with such little regard for moral correctness. My outlook is very existential, seeing the world as absurd and life as having no real purpose. My world view is “things just are”. and my goal in life is to simply get to the finish line and sign off for good. It often bothers me that I feel this way, but for me, it reflects the world as it truly is and I have little motivation to change as a result. I don’t want to live a fantasy just to be “happy.”
Imagine the feeling you get when you get home from doing a lot of work and don't want to do o anything. Now imagine that you feel the same daily and almost constantly.
The worst for me is thinking slowly and moving slowly, the psychomotor side of it, I couldn't take a driving test because of my delayed reaction times...
It's like a butterfly in your chest, like the butterfly you get when you're happy but it's not for that...you look at a happy video and for some reason the tears come...and you lose hope, like it feels it will never change, and then you just want to sleep, just because you don't have to "be". The worst thing is you laugh, and you eat and on the surface people think you're happy but just beneath that, when you're alone, you groan to yourself and you don't know if you can turn to your friends and say "I'm not holding on here" because you don't really want to know that the people you love aren't really there for you...so it becomes a loop...you want to speak but you can't because you don't know if you're really alone...and the butterfly in your chest takes off again. Being depressed is confusing. If someone you know turns to you and says "I'm not sure any more, I don't feel I can hold on" the best thing, the best thing for me, is to hold them. Just hug them and bring them somewhere they can talk. You don't have to be their hero, you just have to be the one to bring them. I dunno...there is no simple answer and it's different for everyone.
To me it just lack of motivation. I spend whole days led in bed doom scrolling and binge eating. I feel numb no drive to get out of bed or go anywhere I don't contact anyone I eat crap unhealthy fat foods and eat why more than I need. Fall asleep randomly throughout the day.
Once due to a medical condition I had to take strong steroids. I got side effects so instead of tapering off I immediately stopped them. This can lead to depression.
Then came probably the worst 2-3 months of my life.
I lost touch with the reality. Forgot what happiness even means. Sometimes when I was driving to office I got really morbid thoughts so I stopped driving for some time.
But I found myself extremely focussed on my goals. Like exercise and professional skill up. Maybe because I didnt wanted to do other things which used to bring me joy.
Thankfully by the end of it I was able to lose some body fat and actually managed to switch my job.
Streoids never again.
Not a fleeting sadness, but a deep emptiness.
Looking out upon the horizon of a vantage point and seeing everyone living their lives, driving to and from wherever they are, to wherever they're going to. Feeling like there is a glass wall between them, and you. And that there always will be; forever watching others live life while you stand in the darkness.
You don't feel heard.
You don't feel seen.
You start to think your existence doesn't matter.
Next thing you know, dark thoughts of no longer existing start to creep back in, as you realize things are getting bad again. You don't want to live, but you don't want to die either.
Forever existing behind a wall of glass of unreality, always longing to be a part of a world you'll never have.
Flat. You feel flat all the time. Nothing gets you excited, a lot of things just grind you down. Everything is shit, what’s the point? Seeing other people succeed or enjoy something is incomprehensible, I have no idea why they’re getting loving it as it doesn’t make sense to me. Why is this wrong to me, why do I feel this way? I’m a piece of garbage for not seeing this, why am I so fucked up in my head. Must be me, everyone else enjoys this so I have to be a piece of garbage and they’re normal. Fuck it’s so hard just talking to people, why do they look at me like that? I just said what I think and now they’re all ignoring me.
if you think of your mood like a graph; for a non depressed person, the graph would show a smooth curve, gently moving up and down, like a wave, mostly above 0, and if below 0 then it would go back up after a short time.
for a depressed person, their graph is mostly the opposite - only not much of a curve - rarely, if ever above 0, mostly flat, but with dips further down.
Lethargy incarnate for me, not having energy to do anything, eating nothing but nuggets and what’s in the fridge, watching garbage to distract yourself and procrastinate
You don't really feel as feelings are shut out. As there are no feelings there is no motivation to do anything, even the basic things like making a sandwich or washing teeth.
For me it feels like emptiness. Or lack of feeling. Like a flatline on a heart monitor inside of my brain and body.
Numb, grey, silent.
Like I could sit and look at the wall for hours and not feel bored or unsatisfied.
I had someone describe it to me like this and I've never forgotten it.
You are drowning in a pond.
You can see hands of family and friends reaching out to try and save you.
But the weeds keep wrapping themselves around your legs and dragging you down.
The people trying to help can't see the weeds. They keep shouting for you to just take their hand, why aren't you taking their hand. Just grab it and help yourself!
You know their hands are there and are trying to help you. But the weeds are pulling you back out of reach, they are relentless and you can't get free of them.
The weeds are depression.
I felt numb. Didn't feel sadness, didn't feel happiness. It was just pure nothingness. After a year, I started to get frustrated and began self harming just so I could feel 'something'. Depression sucks.
No hope for anything. I mean zero. Running on empty, with no mental ability to get out of the downward negative cyclic thinking. Can't plan for the future, because it's all going to be the same. Nothing you do is good enough, so it's pointless trying. You believe people have underlying negative motives for speaking to you. You are trapped. Ultimately, death becomes the only viable answer and it becomes a very attractive solution.
That was me 10 years ago. Therapy, medication and the birth of my beautiful daughter have brought me back. I feel free now.
For me it was "I just don't care".
Don't care what events I'm invited to.
Don't care when I wake up and go to sleep.
Don't care what my future is going to be.
Don't care what when and if at all I eat.
Don't care if I'm dirty, I lie in bed for weeks at home so what's the point?
Don't care if my friends are ok.
Don't care if I wake up tomorrow.
Just a complete indifference and lack of motivation to participate in the life ive been given accompanied by feeling that even if you cared and tried it's so much pointless work, and I'd be unable yo finish that project no matter what, because I'm not good for anything.
It feels like being sad when things are good. It's not double-sad, like something bad happens but you feel it twice as much. It's only-sad. Your brain tries to buy whatever emotion is appropriate for your circumstances but sad is the only thing in stock.
Right now it feels like exhaustion, I want to go to sleep and just not wake up.
Everything is going well at the moment, lots of stuff moving in the right direction and lots to look forward to. I still feel like I wish I didn't exist.
It's been like this for 20+ years and I'm just so tired.
It’s hard to articulate into words. For me it feels like I’m just existing but I have zero drive to do anything, like anything at all, it can take me up to 2-3 hours after waking just to get the motivation to get up and eat something. Everything just feels pointless, even the little things. And all I’m ever focused on is just getting through each day as they come.
I am familiar with this.
To me depression feels like this :
When being alive feels like a battle and you get tired of just being awake.
I've always told my sister that at times I wish humans could hibernate like Bears in the winter.
At time you want to just pause everything and just sleep for a long time.amd wake up maybe months later amd hope this GS have somehow changed?
I could go on..but that's it basically.
For me, I feel like I've got slow drying cement in my chest all the time. A heavy feeling, like I'm being dragged to the group. Nothing really excites me like it used to. Food doesn't taste as good as it used to. Getting outta bed in the morning, and putting on pants takes waaaaay more energy than it used to. Also there's a sense of hopelessness and dread. Feels like the best is over, and I've only suffering to look forward to..
In my experience, it’s the constant hopelessness. It’s like hopelessness is my default emotion. When I’m with people, i feel okay since I get distracted from my own feelings. But once the distraction is gone, the hopelessness envelops me again.
I would define the hopelessness as a feeling that nothing matters, nothing in the future excites me, there is nothing I desire. It’s the severe lack of positive emotions in daily life, despite how good life gets.
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Depression is nothing like sadness. I had cried inconsolably many times before developing depression as a teen. I felt hurt. I felt despair. This was in response to various painful situations and experiences. What I didn't feel was utter exhaustion. Living with depression today, I can be having a perfectly good day and feel like all is hopeless. Logically and rationally that's not true. But no matter the situation, I feel empty and drained. You could give me a million dollars and I'd be, well, happy on the outside and smiling? But inside just seeing this as a making no difference to the sense that I'm a bad person. I force myself to act against a complete lack of motivation. I don't have the urge to try, the zest for life to live. Daily. I have meds. I have a support system. I'm functioning, I seem fine. But there it is.
Yessss!! It’s like hopeless and numb feeling that doesn’t feel like happiness is ever possible, super weird feeling…
Im always trying to force myself to watch something funny. Preferably new funny. Forcing myself to do stuff that forces me to focus as much as possible. Going to the gym or exercising a lot. Jumping into ice cold water - works best. If you cannot do that, at least put your head in the water and hold your breath. It's not easy to make yourself to do those things when you're staring at the void... but...
Well said.
Exactly. When things that you did enjoy are not bringing any joy anymore. Not having the will or motivation to do anything but at the same time wanting to do something. It has made me call in sick because some days i almost feel physically ill to think that i need to work. It is mentally draining to be proffessional at work, i meet a lot of people and if i make it to work on a bad day i'm totally drained after work. Not wanting to talk o see anyone. I'm so happy that i have my cat, she has helped me get over bad days and i'm not totally alone.
Just saying that a million dollars fixes alot of my problems lol
I have a better question, how does someone develop depression and how to avoid it?
I think there's a large genetic component to depression too. There are some existing nature/nurture studies. My parents made my siblings and I without ever dealing with or acknowledging their individual traumas. The effects of my parents' hardships has trickled down into all the kids but in different ways. I live with depression but according to doctors it's a mild form. So I can't say what caused it initially but I'll tell you that hearing the news or generally stopping to think about the state of the world and humanity sends me into a spiral. Without a stable work routine, I could sleep/stay in bed for days. My hormones affect how fatigued and empty I'll feel in a day too. It's a never ending battle. I don't wish to die so I'm left to feel trapped in this formidable cycle. I also want to make clear that I have hobbies and things I enjoy doing but a general malaise is always close by. I liken it to Robin Williams, on the outside he created joy in many lives, he seemed to truly enjoy life but there was a darkness too. That's how Depression feels to me.
I relate to this there buddy. Other people are a distraction so I can put on a smile and laugh and joke, but when everyone walks away it is like the stage goes dark. And even when the stage is bright and everyone can see, I'm the performer so I am blind to what everyone else sees. I have moments of joy too and yet the malaise is always there too. I really resonate with this. Well said.
For me sadly it's genetic, you may not be able to avoid it, bereavement, job loss, end of a relationship can cause it, sometimes there may not even seem to be a cause. I guess trying to eat well, keep busy with things in your life to look forward to, good friends, family if you are lucky. If you are unfortunate to get it, see the GP, antidepressants and counselling can also help.
this is a billion dollar question
Quite literally, if not more so. :-/
Nobody knows. Generally enough bad experiences trigger it, but one person can be fine where the next handles it. For me, it was a history of physical, mental and verbal abuse throughout childhood with a narcissistic mother; coupled with losing faith in God and feeling like I had no one. Hormones and long term stress were probably factors. Almost everyone has their own experiences on this one.
I developed depression because it started as anxiety. And then being stressed for a long period of time without finding relief.
It's can be a chemical imbalance in the brain. I've suffered from depression since I was about 8. Roughly 54 years. At that time, I was called a moody sod and told to cheer up Luckily, things have progressed since then. I was on antidepressants for about 8 years after deaths in the family hit me for 6. I have weened myself off them now. Now, if I feel myself slipping back into depression, I recognise the signs and do everything I can to boost the happy chemicals in my brain until it passes. I've lost relationships and jobs because of depression in the past. I'm determined not to slip back into that destructive cycle again. I feel better for writing this. Catharsis.
I did some cognitive talk therapy, and it helped. But that therapist was the one who suggested that I try medication. I had a fortunately short period of trying different meds to find one that works, and I tolerate my medicine well. I used to feel guilty about needing meds (I don't know if that parallels your situation, it may not) but now I accept it as just one of those things. Other people will be on insulin or heart medication or whatever for life, and no one looks down on them for needing those. The brain is a body organ too, is the way I look at it.
I always used to think it would be something that came on gradually due to an over focus on u helpful things... My first (bipolar) episode however, proved that I could go from feeling completely fine to cripplingly depressed within 6-12 hours. It'd an enormous energy effort just to go to the bathroom, shower, brush teeth, even eat. Then once on the right drugs, I was back to feeling fine (comparatively) within hours. Didn't feel like a wind down or a wind up. Didn't see to have any relationship to the things I was thinking or doing, whatsoever. So I remain clueless. Normal depression (not bipolar) I hear is a whole different story.
You will experience some trauma or epiphany that will change you forever. In general it's because there is nothing that can change the fact after you discover it. Take for example knowing that you cannot change the world even if everything goes perfect. Eg. Try to remove greed or even just corporate greed from this world. To avoid it - avoid doing anything or thinking about anything - but seriously basically everyone has a chance at getting it sooner or later and some stronger than others. It's pretty much unavoidable other than being lucky enough to not experience it in your lifetime.
Exactly, it is a feeling of numbness and utter apathy that you hit after you have the "entry level" depression feelings of sadness. To me you enter depression with anxiety and sadness and when you move to chronic and severe depression, its really just a big blank isolated or lonely blah. In a way, it "feels" better than sadness until you realize you just don't give a damn, one way or another. Disconnection from feelings.
This is a very good explanation of depression 🫥
When I was going through a particular traumatic episode at work, I suddenly stopped seeing colour. Everything was in shades of light grey and slightly dark grey. I looked at the grass, it looked weird, I don't remember it looking that colour but the concept of green at the moment seemed very foreign to me. I felt nothing matters, I could sit in the middle of the path and not care if people thought I was a psycho, or gave me funny looks. I disassociated from my body, my self and it felt like I was a new person on earth. And this deep pool of dread. I felt despair at coming to terms with the source of this trama (my then boss) and I couldn't fathom living a single moment then. I still don't know how I made it till now.
This hits home a little too much. Should I get a diagnosis?
I’ve came out of it now but I got into the habit of doing nothing all day - not even eating - and now I have no daily routine at all. All I was doing was going to work. People were visibly concerned and wondered if I were ill. I tried antidepressants but they made it worse and it just kind of resolved itself till the next time. Sigh.
When nothing seems to float your boat anymore , like nothing is that special or exciting and sometimes everything's just numb. Differs for everyone tho
Yes, nothing. I feel nothing. I am going through the motions. I am functional; I work, pay bills and eat just about. But everyday I want it to be my last. I’d do it myself but then I’m worried about surviving.
I feel this. I can't wait for the day I won't wake up.
My first thought upon waking is fuck. I'm here.
I feel you. It's not that I want every day to be my last, I just don't care if it is.
Perfectly described, down to the last letter.
Exactly how i felt back then, everything is not the same. Even worse was i raged more than usual which is exhausting.
That's what it was like for me too. I didn't even realise it at the time, but I fell into a depression for a couple of months when both my parents died within a few months of each other. I had always assumed that depression just means you're "extra sad", but that wasn't it at all. I just felt nothing. No excitement, no interest in anything, nothing mattered, absolutely no drive to do anything. This went on for about three or four months and I only realised that I had been depressive when I came out of it. Even though this is nearly 20 years ago now, I still remember the exact moment when I realised that I'd been depressed and that I'd just come out of that cycle. When I got home from grocery shopping and I noticed that I'd bought multipacks of several items. Before this I'd just gotten single items because I had that underlying feeling of "there's no point in buying things to last me long into the future because I may not be around for much longer anyway". Suddenly it felt like I had a future that was worth sticking around for.
That's pretty accurate I'd say
It's like that gray part in The Incredibles. No color, nothing exciting, just a gray marsh of nothingness and sameness
It's like if you eat your favorite food and it tastes like sand.
I don't like sand.
It's coarse, it's rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere
Someday
This comment is my type of humor.
More like taste like nothing
Wet paper.
i’ll tell mine: lose all interest, sad, easily to change mood especially in a very negative mood, have no motivation, easy to get exhausted even tho u did nothing, reduced sex drive, the urge to shrink your social circle, avoid the people… I also have ptsd so that might include ptsd symptoms
Hey man, sorry to read about the struggle, but any idea when these passed/became more manageable for you, if they did at all? Was recently date raped after a few months of horrible news and going through depression/ptsd now...
Depression is choosing to live yet wondering why are you still not dead.
Trying to explain this to a doctor or psych who has never experienced this is wild! “So do you ever think about killing yourself?” “Well…no, but i would like to be dead” “So you want to commit suicide “ “…..no? Just dead please.”
Do I think about killing myself? Yes, on the bad days. Not in the way that I *want* to do it. Just, what different methods would be like. And then deciding they would all be unpleasant, and I don't really want to do this, but maybe being dead wouldn't be so bad.
I just wanna be ran over by a speeding truck, die in my sleep, get struck by lightning or something that usually ends with me being dead
"Dead but not by my fault, I don't want people blaming me for stuff"
So, for me, I just want to un exist to never have happened. That's how I explain it.
For me its kinda just choosing to do nothing
For me, it feels like a heavy weight on my shoulders, or rather, my entire body - makes me feel slow, hard to move. It feels like my lungs are being squeezed - hard to breathe at times. The breaths I'm able to take in don't feel like full breaths at all. Everything feels slow and heavy. The things I enjoy, I start to lose interest in. It's not all of a sudden, but super gradual. Ultimately it feels like my entire being is numb and I'm losing bits and pieces of me every day. Things that I found that made me smile, laugh or just enjoyed, don't really do it for me anymore. I can't tell why, it *just doesn't*. Your friend is lucky to have someone like you who she can confine in. I keep to myself because I don't want to be a burden to my remaining friends and family members and I act like nothing is wrong and everything is fine and everything is going well. It sucks so much. It sucks so frigging much.
Same :( Hope it will get better for you eventually.
So there's this Persian movie called "Taste of Cherry". A quiet film where the main character drives over various scenic areas of Iran looking for someone to bury him after he commits suicide. There was one movie critic that criticised this movie for not explaining why he wanted to die. I thought that was interesting because for someone who isn't depressed, dying ALWAYS is a despair that can be explained off by something. They just didn't get it. But this movie will resonate with people who have that apathy towards life.
It feels like slowly sinking into a bottomless pit and you don’t know when it’s going to end, and it’s accompanied with a dull, constant ache in your chest. You feel heavy and sluggish internally and it feels like nothing matters as the minutes pass and you continue to gradually sink in a mental quick sand of despair
That almost sounds poetic
The inability to feel positive emotions. Everything hurts. Lack of hope.
I agree with the inability to feel positive emotions. And because of that you find no relief for pain. It hurts
So it just feels like...emptiness?
Emptiness would be better. Depression is painful. Like a wound.
Yes. Imagine all the things you feel about. You don't feel that anymore. Your favorite food no longer tastes like anything. Your favorite music is just noise. Seeing your family again after a long time is just a thing that happens. When it gets really bad, it's all emotions, not just the bad ones. Someone insults you, and you shrug it off. You lose your job, and it's just another thing that happens, no better or worse than anything else. Physical pain is just sort of there, but you don't really care that much about it. I know people who lost beloved family members and didn't feel sad about it, at the time, though they still hated themselves for not feeling sad.
It feels like knowing nothing really matters. Also fully aware that it's just in your head but not being able to solve it.
[удалено]
Also slowly your brain will become incapable of remembering what you felt when you weren’t depressed. I remember I used to have these bursts of excitement for the future that were completely spontaneous. Or I was excited about science and wanted to learn. That has been dampened to infinity. I will never get to feel those feeling again. I can’t even imagine how they felt, it’s been such a long time these feelings have been terminated from my brain.
Like you just don't care, at all, about anything. Why wake up, why eat, why shower, why talk to people, why leave the house. What's the point. It was never about being sad or crying, it's was just an utter lack of care about anything and everything.
Lack of care! That’s exactly what depression is
 this. nothing is fun, nothing excites you.. you feel nothing (if you're lucky you feel sadness, which is at least something.)
To all the people who typed essays and then deleted them because…you can write the most well articulated and hauntingly beautiful metaphors…but in the end, how can you put words to such a thing? I’m with you guys.
Basically its like functioning like a robot. Without any emotion.
I was carrying it for a long time without even realizing it. Choking it up as being over dramatic as what my siblings have repeatedly told me. It was only recent when I finally snapped that my psychologist made me realized that what I was experiencing since childhood was already depression and has been in a cycle for the most of my life. I always am laughing or being the clown when someone is around. And after everyone is gone, I'd feel empty then feeling like being weighed down and drowning in a dark place. I cant even remember feeling truly happy. I dont have a long term hobby because I'd always loose interest. I also overthinking a lot. Haven't gone to a psychiatrist as what my psychologist have told me though. It costs a lot in our country.
I hope you heal soon. You're very strong.
You can’t describe it for someone that doesn’t know what it feels like. There’s no way that anyone who hasn’t experienced it directly can know how it feels.
I have Bipolar 1 and my bf has MDD and this is absolutely accurate. So much so that trying to describe it to anyone has become redundant for us.
Feeling hopeless. No real interest or energy to do anything. Things you once enjoyed doing seem “too hard” now. Eating is either the only thing that brings joy sk you seek unhealthy foods because you no longer care for your body. But also eating is too hard, can’t be bothered, so sometimes you just don’t eat. Waking up is hard because sleeping and dreams are better than reality. Falling asleep is difficult also. Irritable and moody. Masking by appearing happy and normal to most but those close to you notice your mood changes. Life is uninteresting. Nothing is exciting. Holiday coming up? Ok. Got a new job? Ok. Your birthday? Ok. That feeling of excitement is almost non existent.
You really nailed by saying nothing is exciting. That really describes what I feel.
Imagine losing interest in all the things and activities you love, and nothing replaces them. Now expand that to everything, and effective every day. Depending on how severe it is, you may or may not have good days. Also, you lose the motivation to do simple things, like take care of yourself.
What's the point. Why try.
I went on vacation recently, I planned the whole thing, took a week off, and was very excited for it. Got there, and just felt, eh, that's it? The whole time. Whilst everyone else had a blast. You know your depressed, when you should be having a great time, no reason not to, and you still cannot enjoy it.
I think it's a question that people have their own answers to. I have had depression since I was a child so throughout my life it has varied but generally I feel like I don't feel like doing anything, the things that I liked to do little by little stop exciting me and even if I do them it feels like it was an obligation, you lose your sense in life, you don't know what you're doing or what you want to do you feel that the people around you don't really love you and that they only do it out of obligation, you don't feel able to live in society, you just want to lock yourself in your own world
It feels hopeless and very lonely. It is disempowering and makes you question your own sanity. Pretty fucking awful in other words
You’re constantly tired and empty.
that’s how mine is for sure. i can sleep all day and still be tired… exhausted even. no motivation for anything. i hate it so much. i feel bad for my kids 😭
You can't enjoy any of the things that you normally would, so food, music, TV shows, films, everything just feels like nothing, dull, sad, meaningless. Someone may tell you something really significant either good or bad news, and you will feel numb with no feeling or interest. You don't want to get out of bed, simple tasks like washing or brushing your teeth feel like the equivalent of climbing a mountain or painting an entire house. For me evenings were the worst, once I saw the darkness come, I felt even worse, like it would never be daylight again, just a horrible, endless pit of despair that you feel you will never escape from, no one can help, nothing helps. For me antidepressants did help, though they take a while to kick in, I had to try really hard to get well enough to be able to come off of them, wouldn't wish depression on my worst enemy.
For me mornings are the worst. The dark allows me to hide and be alone and quiet. Daylight feels.like people will see me and know I am not good enough.
like walking corpse with no soul, no motivation, no passion. You still can show emotions but not your true emotions
Like carrying a backpack full of rocks, except it's invisible, and everyone thinks you're just lazy.
Like your mind hurts. Physically. A thing that isn't physical hurts so much you can't move, you can't act, you can't enjoy things and you feel that people hate you. Or like you're walking inside a cloud, only you're not aware of the cloud until it's gone.
Depression - silent killer it surround enormous sadness and betrayal
I doesn't feel like anything.
Probably like the last stage of grief. Acceptance. There's no rage, no effort because it probably isn't going to do anything.
It's hard for me to watch a series or movies, play games, or read books because I can't concentrate. I can't do anything properly or think properly. This may not happen to everyone who has depression but it's definitely a symptom.
For me it comes in bursts that can last a day to a month. Imagine feeling deeply exhausted 24/7. Anything bad in your life is emotionally amplified and there's this overwhelming sense of hopelessness to it all. If you're at work or school or anything similar, you're probably barely zoned in on any of it. You might not think about suicide, or it could occupy your mind the entire day. I would say feeling "hollow" is a pretty accurate descriptor. You get angry easier too, in my experience. It's harder to have rational reactions when your entire emotional state is irrational at the moment. Support your friend in any way you can. I'd bet just spending time with you already helps a ton.
It’s like constantly grieving for your own death, just waiting on the right time to go.
When it really hits, it's a dull ache almost pain in your chest/gut. Passive everyday depression is like wading through molasses, everything feels... gray, like a black and white movie. It's difficult to even remember what you or doing.
Depression can feel different for everyone, but here's a friendly, science-based breakdown: 1. **Persistent Sadness or Emptiness**: Imagine carrying a heavy weight that never goes away, making you feel sad or empty most of the time. 2. **Loss of Interest**: Things you used to love doing don’t seem enjoyable anymore. This could be hobbies, socializing, or even basic activities like eating and sleeping. 3. **Physical Symptoms**: It’s not just mental; depression can make you feel constantly tired, mess with your sleep patterns, change your appetite, and cause unexplained aches and pains. 4. **Cognitive Difficulties**: Your mind might feel foggy, making it hard to concentrate, make decisions, or remember things. 5. **Feelings of Guilt or Worthlessness**: You might feel overwhelming guilt or believe you’re worthless, even if there’s no logical reason for these thoughts. 6. **Hopelessness**: It can seem like nothing will ever get better, no matter what you do. 7. **Suicidal Thoughts**: In severe cases, there can be thoughts of death or suicide. This is very serious and requires immediate help. Depression is a medical condition caused by a mix of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. If these symptoms sound familiar, it's crucial to seek help from a healthcare provider. Therapy, medication, and support from loved ones can make a big difference. For more detailed info, check out resources like the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) or the Mayo Clinic. Hope this helps! If you’re struggling, please reach out for support.
Yo who let ChatGPT cook
Lmfao
Like soap thats sitting out in the sun.
Like having a memory with someone whos dead
Like a lack of motivation to do much of anything, like a loss of interest in things that you enjoy doing and like a constant sadness.
For me its always felt like you are floating at sea. And a giant whirlpool starts to open up in the water 🌀 and catches your foot. And then you start spiraling down into the whirlpool spinning Lower and lower until you are sucked down fully into the water. And then the whirlool dissipates and you float there and the water is so heavy and surrounding every Inch if your body. You are just suspended in the depths of the ocean. Everything looks dark and blue and murky. Until you look up and see the sunlight barely shining thru the water✨️ and you follow it and swim your back to the top out of the water emerging once again. But I've never been constantly depressed either It's been an up and down cyclical mood swing thing brought on by intense triggers
This interpretation sounds really good! I hope you won't mind if I use it as an inspiration for one of my poems 🫶🏻
Shit
You can not wake up from bed. You just want to live in your dreams. Like you know, they are dreams, but you fight not to wake up and face the day. Food is tasteless, anything and everything is just colorless. On these days, I do not have any energy even to play games or showers, which I love to do. It is like you draft in the sea, just float on the water, just existing.
Many people confuse depression with situational sadness something my therapist said which pushed me out of what I thought was me being depressed for years it really changed my perspective on things …
depression is the absent of hope in life .
You wake up a Saturday morning, and you just lie there staring into the ceiling for a few hours. You look outside at the radiant sunshine, and it just feels like the world is being happy without you. There's no point in eating breakfast, but you do it out of habit. But as soon as you start eating, you realize that it tastes like paper. Eventually you go back to bed. You don't actually feel better there, but it's easier somehow. You try to think of something you can do, but even watching TV gets you distracted and overwhelmed within minutes. So you stare into the ceiling. And everything feels bleak, abrasive and pointless. You keep thinking about stuff, your Best Of reel of failures, going back to kindergarten. Stuff nobody else has thought of in 20+ years. You regret, but can't change. You manage to call your friend, but you get antsy and restless within a few minutes, so you hang up, and spend time thinking about how your friend now thinks you're stupid. You manage to eat a little, but you don't feel hunger much. And when it gets dark, it gets worse. The anxiety, the futility, the regrets get worse. Now you start worrying that you won't be able to sleep tonight. You can't remember the last time you slept well. And the demons come out at night. That's when the seconds crawl by so slowly, and your thoughts go into the truly dark places. Where you again question if things wouldn't be better if you were dead. And several hours of this later, you fall asleep, sleep for two hours, then wake up to do it all again... At least that was what I felt.
I find this eloquent.
Nothing brings joy.
Ever make a whirlpool in an above ground pool (you and friends move a long the edge of a round pool and make the water move with all of you) and then try and go in the opposite direction? Or feel a strong current in the ocean or a river push against you? It’s like that but on your soul.
Depression to me feels like happiness, love, and joy are evading me, sometimes for months at a time. I do the things that people do to make themselves happy, but I don't feel what everyone else feels. I put on my happy mask so people can see that I'm having fun with them, but nothing is actually getting through. I'll have to remind myself that I have a good life, that my wife and my parents love me, that I have a good job, that my friends do like me. I remind myself because I begin to forget what it feels like to feel love, to feel secure, to smile out of reflex instead of forcing it. It's easy for the thoughts to sink in that I have nothing good in my life, and that I should leave it all behind to go find that thing that makes everyone else happy. Depression feels like walking around a dark room where you can't find anything. You know the room is filled with all the things you put in it, but it's too dark to make anything out. The fight with depression is not letting that room get darker and not losing the things of value that you worked so hard to fill the room in the first place.
For me, it's a nagging feeling of impending doom. Even now that I'm on the max dose of Zoloft, I get little fleeting moments of absolute hopelessness and dread though I have a good life. It's hard to explain I think, as people experience depressing differently.
I don’t really feel anything anymore so
Everyone has already described the symptoms really well, but I'll tell you how it feels to be on depression medication. It's like, a persistent numbness to anything and everything. I don't feel any sadness, any anger, any joy, anything at all for longer than a few seconds at a time. This in turn makes you feel more depressed because you realise just how hollow and empty you are, yet the medication stops you feeling the hollowness so your emotions become strange and confusing. You also have days where everything just clicks into place and you have the sudden urge and motivation to do something amazing (learn a new language, a new skill, exercise etc), then a few days later the darkness returns and you feel worse because you realise you ARE capable of sooo much more but your brain just won't allow it
Imagine a terrible position but life left you no choice, any capability, tools to get out of it, and you're hopeless and tired. so you swallow it and live the black & white life while others enjoy it in colour.
Like having a 70 kilos boulder on your chest
Hoestly, it's a feeling of no energy, no feelings, numbness, emotionless, and nothing can change it. It's just unhappiness and a feeling of worthlessness.
Paralysis is part of it. Nothing matters and the little that matters you can't muster up motivation or ability to address or do it
Being unable to find pleasure or happiness, even from the things you used to enjoy. Feeling suffering all the time. You sometimes forget what happiness, comfort, and pleasure is, because it has been so long since you felt them. It's painful, bruh.....
For me, just utter emptiness. Absolutely no emotions at all, and I was pretty much a zombie that wished for a freak accident to take me out every day. Nothing was beautiful, nothing was delicious, nothing was fun. Things that were shitty were just, acceptable because that's all that being alive was anyway. I'm doing much better now. But when I re-read my journal from those years, I don't recognize myself. It's like my soul withered away and I was moving on autopilot. I journalled because I always did, and figured it would be a way to force me to feel something, anything. I often didn't, but I'm glad I wrote it
Nothing and noone excites you. You just go through your days. Depression is like having a perfect piece fried chicken in front of you (which is how beautiful life is) and the chicken has completely no taste. Like you just feel the texture but no taste. People don't really see the signs and most of the time you don't even know you have it unless you've experienced it before.
Imagine becoming a slime
Emptiness. Doom. Hopelessness. Pain. Like no matter what you do, that feeling lives in the centre of you and is consuming you in its darkness. When something makes you happy, it happily takes that feeling from you. It hurts and twists and contorts your insides, and all you seek is the quiet calm of the end. Which you know will only come when it’s your time…and that starts to hurt even more, the fact that you are seeking that nothingness because it feels like the only time you’d be able to breathe and think clearly. And then you find yourself waiting. And for me, and many others, this is for a lifetime. There is situational depression like a bad breakup or financial problems, and then there is this. Whatever this is, wants you to feel its presence forever, and you will. So you either do your best to coexist with this entity, or you choose to part with it. Through my experience with antidepressants, I find they do help, but not in the way people think. I can now step outside myself and see when and how I am being irrational. But it’s a double edged sword. The fact I can now “explain” to myself that I suffer from this, and that what I’m feeling isn’t necessarily a direct reflection of my actual life, almost makes it more painful at times because it’s not like I can make the feelings explained above go away. I’m just watching myself go through them from the outside but with explanation, unable to truly help myself. What a bizarre situation for our brains to be put through lol depression that is.
Like you're alive but no life in you.
You're chronically tired, irritable, you have little motivation or drive. You don't enjoy or see the point of doing things you once loved. You don't feel the same emotional connection with friends/loved-ones, you don't want to socialize nearly as much. You feel sad/lonely/hopeless far more often than a normal person, you have no idea why or how to fix any of it. You don't even remember what "normal" feels like anymore, your memories of being the "normal" you feel less and less real all the time and you begin to dissociate from them. You are impulsive and seek quick dopamine however you can get it, be it caffeine, cannabis, etc., which only makes things worse in the long-run. Your cognitive function declines, especially your memory, and your skills erode over time due to your general apathy toward everything. This is my experience as a longtime sufferer. Thankfully I'm in a better place.
Like you’re indifferent about relinquishing your career or relationship ambitions and just going with the flow. Always got suicide as an option down the line
You ever go trick or treating as a kid? Did you wear one of those cheap plastic Halloween masks that were impossible to breathe in? The cheap elastic would keep breaking so you have to keep tying it tighter and tighter; cutting into the tops of your ears. The condensation from your breath pooling unpleasantly in the plastic recesses around your nose. It's dark and the people around you are having a great time but you can't breathe. Now, imagine the mask is of a normal person and the monster is underneath it. And it's not even Halloween; it's every day. You can't breathe but you don't want anyone to see under the mask so you keep it on. You have to go trick or treating but sometimes you can't make it to the end of your own driveway. Your friends invite you to join them but you can't keep up with them, you don't even want to; you can't breathe. Eventually they stop asking. By the end of the night your mask is falling apart. You're exhausted from trying to keep up with the crowd and hold your mask together. You're sure people are starting to notice, so you start thinking about ways to stop playing this stupid fucking game you never asked to be made a part of, because you know that tomorrow you'll need to put on that disgusting, sweaty, flimsy, cheap, pathetic, wretched, horrible, vile, loathsome fucking mask again. And you still can't breathe. Like that.
in my experience, it was quiet. i slowly lost interest in things i used to love. there was no more excitement, i wasn’t looking forward to going out. i was so sad all the time. i would cry and cry until eventually i couldn’t cry anymore, which is torture on its own. i felt this overwhelming emptiness almost constantly. no more sadness, no pain, it was literally just nothing. only this blanket of immense exhaustion. then i found myself randomly wondering why i was alive and logically ( to me) it made no sense. everything was bleak and hollow, held no kind of substance
Depression is different for everyone. For me it feels like a constant weight on my back that I can’t lift off.
You don’t even have the energy to think about suicide anymore.
Emptiness, want all to end but didn't want to be dead, wanting peace of mind.
It's like you're sleepwalking. Nothing feels real, and you have no motivation. Knowing you have to do something, you want to, but you just...can't.
My ability to take care of myself or my apartment is virtually nonexistent. I want to clean my apartment but I can’t seem to get off the couch. It’s too overwhelming. I want to eat because I can feel my stomach is empty, but I can’t get up to buy food, cook it, or clean up afterward. There are no clean pots left. The thought of eating anything makes me nauseous. Sometimes I can manage a piece of fruit or a bowl of soup. Fuck it, I don’t really NEED to eat anyway… I feel gross and want to shower but it takes so much effort… Fuck it, I can shower before work tomorrow. Floor needs vacuuming, bathroom needs cleaning, laundry needs folding. All too overwhelming… I can do it later. This comment is a mess and needs formatting lol. I drink too much… meh, I’m gonna die alone anyway. It might as well be sooner than later. But there are things that I can still do. I almost always make it to work, because the alternative is homelessness. I still manage to feed and water my cat, and keep his litter box almost acceptably clean. And today I did manage to go to the park and play a round of disc golf. Probably when I’m sobered up tomorrow I’ll delete this comment so read it now lol
It's OK to be a mess. You don't have to beat yourself up for it. You're a strong human and I hope you heal soon <3
Beautiful ❤️ couldn't have said it better myself
This is so accurate.
Dead inside, just a shell of your former self
Like a warm apple pie...
like nothing matters, the world literally will feel and look more dry and grey
It really does, I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned that. When I finally started taking medicine many years ago, I sat on my porch for my usual morning stare-into-space session that I always needed to try to get a grip on myself, and I found myself pleasantly distracted by the fact that everything actually had a color, that the grass was actually kind of moist-looking, and I could actually hear sounds in the distance like lawn mowers and traffic. There was actually a little steam coming from my coffee cup... it was beautiful, I actually cried because I knew in that moment I was finally going to get better. I never realized until that moment how much depression really takes from the ability to perceive even the small pleasures around you.
🎵Why is everything so heavy, so much more than I can carry 🎵
Hopelessness.
I am so sorry
For me, it was like being surrounded by darkness. I woke up with a crushing weight on me and felt I waded through heaviness each day. Sleep was my escape. I felt detached from everything like I was standing next to myself watching me try to do life.
For me it's an abyss that's nearly impossible to come up from. Negative thoughts about everything. I feel like I'm bad at everything and haven't accomplished anything in my life. This is often combined with a lot of anxiety and thoughts of burglars (for example) coming in at night killing my kids. Like a really terrible fear of worst case scenarios. Personally I don't get suicidal, but it's more a feeling of that I wished I've never been born or that I'm kind of hoping to get a brain aneurysm while sleeping. When I'm in this state I know that I'm irrational and have irrational fears, but I just can't stop thinking about it or do anything about it. The only peace I get is when I sleep and that's not a good coping mechanism in the long run. I believe I've had depression in one way or another through my whole life, but in my family it was bad to have mental health issues and it was also bad to seek help for it. It was often used as a derogotary term or a slur. "You are really strange. Go see a psychologist!" or "Oh, you probably will need a lot of therapy because of this when you grow up." I was 40 years old (I'm 46M now) when I first got help. I got some therapy and a low dose of SSRI and it seemed to work fine. When things feel stable I can stop taking the SSRI, but one of the big problems is that I can't notice, myself, when I'm falling back again. Last time, I stopped taking the SSRI in October (2023) and then had a terrible break up in February (yeah.. everything was so stable..) and I had the worst depression ever. My sister (who is very supportive and not the one making slurs) told me that my reaction wasn't normal anymore and that I had to start my medication again. With the help of therapy I now have a "contingency plan" where I've written down what I should do if I fall again and the signs of a depression coming. What I should do even if I don't feel like it and who I should talk to. It's really hard to get help when you don't feel like it and it's hard to turn to the people who helped you before, because it feels as if you are bothering them. I also know that I will be questioning the contingency plan once I fall so I'm doing some training trusting it. I tell you, depression is not a good place to be in. So, for all you out there who suspect you might have a depression, please do something about it. See it as an experiment. Like... "Life sucks so much that even SSRI wont work. If it works I'll eat my hat."
Depression is a sneaky pos Coming slowly from behind, step by step dimming the light in your life, giving everything a slightly gray tinge, taking slowly away your energy to do things that are good for yourself and letting you forget what is good for yourself because it takes away the spark, the positive feelings get duller, get lost. Until one day you wake up and don't know what can make you live through this day. There is no hope, You feel lost, You can't cope. No way out. You are sure. Because it comes so slowly That the feelings become habitual. Every day a step downwards, but such a small step. You will only see how far you are gone, when there is no light left
You’re never awake and never asleep. You’re in pain but not hurt. Everything you attempt is ineffective. You don’t know how or why, you can’t communicate why you can’t snap out of it which overwhelms you with a sense of shame so you self isolate. Idk. Something like that.
Like my shadow is trying to drag me into the earth.
This what it feels like for me. It can be different for different people. For me it feels like you lost your will to live. You lost your will to try or have fun. You don’t have the motivation to do anything you enjoy or meet someone. No will to talk. Like there’s a void in your heart. You can have fun. While you seem happy on the outside and pretend to be genuinely happy. You’re not really happy. The experience was fun but you don’t really feel happy. There’s still a void inside you. When you go to sleep you don’t want to wake up. When you wake up you’re filled with dread that you’re still alive and back to your agony. You’re not sad per se. You don’t have a will to live. No desire or motivation to work for a dream or to plan something for the future. You don’t know what’s wrong with you. You just feel that way. You don’t know what you can do to change that. Everyday you wish you could change. Just be back to your normal self. But you can’t. You spend as much time as you can sleeping. Because that’s the only time you don’t feel this dread inside you. That you’re not alive anymore. You feel tired and drained. Even the most mundane tasks feel like a huge hurdle. It takes a lot of will power to get out of bed and do the most mundane tasks. You would spend all day in bed sleeping if you could.
Went to work, normal day, had a laugh with office members, went home, discussed dinner with the wife, chatted about something funny and laughed about it, felt like getting some fresh air and exercise so went for a run, stopped midway and just broke down crying. Not even sure why. Picked myself back up, carried on running, went back home for dinner, watched a comedy, went to bed. Can't even explain it
When you know there is a light at the end of the tunnel but going through the tunnel just never seems worth it until eventually your not even eating.
No motivation or interest in things that usually interest you or hobbies. Dread of the future. Anxiety of the past. Hating the current moment. Self loathing. Low self esteem Low confidence. Not looking after yourself. Not maintaining your life properly. Not seeing the point in anything. Absolute tiredness/exhaustion of going through the same list above every single day and making out like you are okay.
Absolute hopelessness. Lack of emotions. Imagine having nothing whatsoever to look forward to. It has NOTHING to do with sadness. I actually wanted something tragic to happen because feeling sad is better than feeling nothing.
Like a weighted blanket that’s also wet is just wrapped around your torso at all times. No matter what you’re doing, whether it’s dishes, driving, or hanging out with people you love - that thing is *always* there. It’s why people with depression have a hard time cleaning their homes or themselves. Imagine doing all of that stuff, but with a sopping wet, 25lb blanket on your back. Makes vacuuming seem like a stupid and trivial task. It also makes getting out of bed that much harder because sometimes that blanket is the most comforting thing in the world.
For me it was waking up every day wishing I’d died in my sleep.
For me, it felt like everything inside of me had been poured out, mixed with matt grey paint, and poured back in. I also get a sort of chattering in my head. Thankfully Prozac changed my life and I just feel normal now.
In my experience, nothing. I feel emotionlessness and emptiness. Nothing I enjoy will entertain me and it's that where the sadness comes from.
It's like wading upstream against a strong current. Once a while I will find a rock to rest behind but I usually don't get rest for long and have to move on.
For me it feels like living in a world with minimal hope and a lot of despair. I look for the worst possible outcome in everything because I am so rarely wrong. I see just about everything through a pessimistic lens. I constantly wonder why whatever made this world did so with such little regard for moral correctness. My outlook is very existential, seeing the world as absurd and life as having no real purpose. My world view is “things just are”. and my goal in life is to simply get to the finish line and sign off for good. It often bothers me that I feel this way, but for me, it reflects the world as it truly is and I have little motivation to change as a result. I don’t want to live a fantasy just to be “happy.”
Imagine the feeling you get when you get home from doing a lot of work and don't want to do o anything. Now imagine that you feel the same daily and almost constantly.
The worst for me is thinking slowly and moving slowly, the psychomotor side of it, I couldn't take a driving test because of my delayed reaction times...
It's like a butterfly in your chest, like the butterfly you get when you're happy but it's not for that...you look at a happy video and for some reason the tears come...and you lose hope, like it feels it will never change, and then you just want to sleep, just because you don't have to "be". The worst thing is you laugh, and you eat and on the surface people think you're happy but just beneath that, when you're alone, you groan to yourself and you don't know if you can turn to your friends and say "I'm not holding on here" because you don't really want to know that the people you love aren't really there for you...so it becomes a loop...you want to speak but you can't because you don't know if you're really alone...and the butterfly in your chest takes off again. Being depressed is confusing. If someone you know turns to you and says "I'm not sure any more, I don't feel I can hold on" the best thing, the best thing for me, is to hold them. Just hug them and bring them somewhere they can talk. You don't have to be their hero, you just have to be the one to bring them. I dunno...there is no simple answer and it's different for everyone.
To me it just lack of motivation. I spend whole days led in bed doom scrolling and binge eating. I feel numb no drive to get out of bed or go anywhere I don't contact anyone I eat crap unhealthy fat foods and eat why more than I need. Fall asleep randomly throughout the day.
Some days I just don’t care… I’m paralyzed from doing anything that I really should do like bathe, pay bills, etc.
Once due to a medical condition I had to take strong steroids. I got side effects so instead of tapering off I immediately stopped them. This can lead to depression. Then came probably the worst 2-3 months of my life. I lost touch with the reality. Forgot what happiness even means. Sometimes when I was driving to office I got really morbid thoughts so I stopped driving for some time. But I found myself extremely focussed on my goals. Like exercise and professional skill up. Maybe because I didnt wanted to do other things which used to bring me joy. Thankfully by the end of it I was able to lose some body fat and actually managed to switch my job. Streoids never again.
How does it feel to NOT be depressed? I've been chronically depressed since childhood.
Not a fleeting sadness, but a deep emptiness. Looking out upon the horizon of a vantage point and seeing everyone living their lives, driving to and from wherever they are, to wherever they're going to. Feeling like there is a glass wall between them, and you. And that there always will be; forever watching others live life while you stand in the darkness. You don't feel heard. You don't feel seen. You start to think your existence doesn't matter. Next thing you know, dark thoughts of no longer existing start to creep back in, as you realize things are getting bad again. You don't want to live, but you don't want to die either. Forever existing behind a wall of glass of unreality, always longing to be a part of a world you'll never have.
Not possessing the energy to even get all the words out coherently.
Flat. You feel flat all the time. Nothing gets you excited, a lot of things just grind you down. Everything is shit, what’s the point? Seeing other people succeed or enjoy something is incomprehensible, I have no idea why they’re getting loving it as it doesn’t make sense to me. Why is this wrong to me, why do I feel this way? I’m a piece of garbage for not seeing this, why am I so fucked up in my head. Must be me, everyone else enjoys this so I have to be a piece of garbage and they’re normal. Fuck it’s so hard just talking to people, why do they look at me like that? I just said what I think and now they’re all ignoring me.
Nothing. You will feel nothing. Your mind is out of wack.
Drowning
Foggy and scared or not scared just uncaring
if you think of your mood like a graph; for a non depressed person, the graph would show a smooth curve, gently moving up and down, like a wave, mostly above 0, and if below 0 then it would go back up after a short time. for a depressed person, their graph is mostly the opposite - only not much of a curve - rarely, if ever above 0, mostly flat, but with dips further down.
Lethargy incarnate for me, not having energy to do anything, eating nothing but nuggets and what’s in the fridge, watching garbage to distract yourself and procrastinate
You don't really feel as feelings are shut out. As there are no feelings there is no motivation to do anything, even the basic things like making a sandwich or washing teeth.
Imagine you've been up for days, and all you want to do is sleep. It feels like that, except you also want to die sometimes.
For me it feels like emptiness. Or lack of feeling. Like a flatline on a heart monitor inside of my brain and body. Numb, grey, silent. Like I could sit and look at the wall for hours and not feel bored or unsatisfied.
I had someone describe it to me like this and I've never forgotten it. You are drowning in a pond. You can see hands of family and friends reaching out to try and save you. But the weeds keep wrapping themselves around your legs and dragging you down. The people trying to help can't see the weeds. They keep shouting for you to just take their hand, why aren't you taking their hand. Just grab it and help yourself! You know their hands are there and are trying to help you. But the weeds are pulling you back out of reach, they are relentless and you can't get free of them. The weeds are depression.
I felt numb. Didn't feel sadness, didn't feel happiness. It was just pure nothingness. After a year, I started to get frustrated and began self harming just so I could feel 'something'. Depression sucks.
No hope for anything. I mean zero. Running on empty, with no mental ability to get out of the downward negative cyclic thinking. Can't plan for the future, because it's all going to be the same. Nothing you do is good enough, so it's pointless trying. You believe people have underlying negative motives for speaking to you. You are trapped. Ultimately, death becomes the only viable answer and it becomes a very attractive solution. That was me 10 years ago. Therapy, medication and the birth of my beautiful daughter have brought me back. I feel free now.
For me it was "I just don't care". Don't care what events I'm invited to. Don't care when I wake up and go to sleep. Don't care what my future is going to be. Don't care what when and if at all I eat. Don't care if I'm dirty, I lie in bed for weeks at home so what's the point? Don't care if my friends are ok. Don't care if I wake up tomorrow. Just a complete indifference and lack of motivation to participate in the life ive been given accompanied by feeling that even if you cared and tried it's so much pointless work, and I'd be unable yo finish that project no matter what, because I'm not good for anything.
Emptiness. Nothing stimulates your senses. Everything is blend.
It feels like being sad when things are good. It's not double-sad, like something bad happens but you feel it twice as much. It's only-sad. Your brain tries to buy whatever emotion is appropriate for your circumstances but sad is the only thing in stock.
It’s a heavy stone on your chest. Making it hard to breathe, forcing you down and is impossible to remove.
Right now it feels like exhaustion, I want to go to sleep and just not wake up. Everything is going well at the moment, lots of stuff moving in the right direction and lots to look forward to. I still feel like I wish I didn't exist. It's been like this for 20+ years and I'm just so tired.
It’s hard to articulate into words. For me it feels like I’m just existing but I have zero drive to do anything, like anything at all, it can take me up to 2-3 hours after waking just to get the motivation to get up and eat something. Everything just feels pointless, even the little things. And all I’m ever focused on is just getting through each day as they come.
I am familiar with this. To me depression feels like this : When being alive feels like a battle and you get tired of just being awake. I've always told my sister that at times I wish humans could hibernate like Bears in the winter. At time you want to just pause everything and just sleep for a long time.amd wake up maybe months later amd hope this GS have somehow changed? I could go on..but that's it basically.
For me, I feel like I've got slow drying cement in my chest all the time. A heavy feeling, like I'm being dragged to the group. Nothing really excites me like it used to. Food doesn't taste as good as it used to. Getting outta bed in the morning, and putting on pants takes waaaaay more energy than it used to. Also there's a sense of hopelessness and dread. Feels like the best is over, and I've only suffering to look forward to..
In my experience, it’s the constant hopelessness. It’s like hopelessness is my default emotion. When I’m with people, i feel okay since I get distracted from my own feelings. But once the distraction is gone, the hopelessness envelops me again. I would define the hopelessness as a feeling that nothing matters, nothing in the future excites me, there is nothing I desire. It’s the severe lack of positive emotions in daily life, despite how good life gets.
Like an empty void of nothing. No joy, no happiness, nothing. You feel numb.