How do YOU describe your Depression? *possibly triggering*
 

Hi,

I was wondering how people describe their depression to others and what kind of words and images or metaphor people use.

As we all know its terribly difficult to describe it to anyone and we all get faced with trying to explain it to others.


I often refer to mine as living under a heavy wet blanket. Like one of those old fashioned grey ones. Its cold and it weighs me down, restricts my movement. It blocks out the light and is generally unpleasant and uncomfortable.

I also often say to someone if they ask me what its like - to imagine their worst day, and then multiply it by 100 and relive that day over and over.

I use many more but they are usually the ones i often start with.

So how do you describe yours?

depression
 

sometimes its numbness, or nothingness, like im a zombie or dead. sometimes. i usually cant put it into words, i just know its a bad feeling.

often times I tell people to imagine what it is like after you loose a loved one but that sadness never ends and in my case i don’t know why most of the time for such feelings

and it never ends no matter what i do
i can do things to hold it off and have some fun
but every night

but if am lucky ill get by a night without the extreme late night depression

i have lost hope for a stable constant joy
i may have some nights of it
but 9 of 10 nights i get very depressed sometimes to the point of suicidal thinking
anyway
some people listen
some don’t
and some i don’t even bother with telling them anything for they would just judge me

i read a quote once somewhere that said:

"depression is a thief, a monster that steals the soul"

i feel that. it takes away my humanity. cold. lifeless. uncaring. dead.

It's like being in a coma. I can see and hear everything going on around me, but i can't communicate to anyone how i'm feeling, or that i'm feeling at all.

It is a shapeshifter.

A ghost. Being like a ghost. Tortured. Trapped.
Alone. Despairing. Lost. Cold. Hiding.

Sad. Numb. Burdened with anger I could not express.

The thing is, often in depression I abandon myself.

I see it as sort of an alter ego. There's a part of me that wants to get better and be happy and then there's the part that won't let that happen. The part that makes me shut myself in my room and never let anyone near me and forces me to do horrible things to be myself. And I hate that part, but I need it because it's the only one who is always there. Others will hurt me and leave me but this hurts me and stays. It congratulates me on skipping meals, shows me what's wrong with myself so I can make it better and lets me go for razor blades when it all gets too much. It's like a toxic friend you stay with because you can't image life with them.

it's like a sort of existance where you are just empty. nothing really matters. you are kind of just like an empty shell. you feel hollow and as if nothing is real. you can't really do anything, because you just don't care about anything

of course, none of my friends ever ask.

Stupid, I know, but I'm not depressed right now and feel like I never really was 'properly' but then when I am depressed I know it all too well.

Its dark, like living with shades on everything, if there is a bad thing I see that and nothing else, its like looking through some binoculars that prevent anything positive from being seen.

Also the word hopeless seems to roll over in my head, its all I feel and I dont see the future, I cant imagine anything in the future because it feels like I dont own a future. I cant see 'the future' as feasable.

Finally I feel so much more sensitive in every way imaginable, I feel the cold more, I feel tiredness all the time, the smallest thing upsets me, and throughs me down. Then some ******** (my mind) stops me from getting up because they say I should give up because its all I can do. I feel like I have an evil imposter in my head and they are torturing me with horrible thoughts and senarios. I see people die in front of me, but its my sick imagination torturing me. :(

x Marie x

I can relate so much to that. Thank you for describing it so eloquently.

Its pretty much what my therapist and I were talking about in today's session.

I'm not sure really. I'd say it's a bit like being on a broken rollercoaster that used to go up and down normally, and then it used to go either really really high, or really really low, with nowhere in between. And now it's just low, or really really low, and it can't seem to find its way back up again.
*shrugs*

its a person.
she's strangling me.
she pushes my head into the dirt.

Oooh first post on here but not really my first post, aaaanyway...

For me depression is a dark cloud that hangs over you constantly. Its there when you wake up, its there when you go to sleep. If your in a relatively happy situation it pushes you down and if you let it take over it releases its grip for a while. It controls me completely and i cant do anything without it bringing me down

I think I'm bipolar so I'd say it's up and down!

feels like drowning - now it feels normal - or maybe im just normal now, but of a blurry line between the two

I would describe my depressive episodes as like being surrounded by a thick grey cloud. It is so thick that I can't see the wood for the trees. Everything is just so dull and heavy. Life feels like a leech sucking all that is good and honest out of me.

I kinda say its like watching a movie and the movie keeps skipping (kinda jittering),
and there is no pillow to hide behind and nobody to protect you at the scary parts.

Like it's a black hole, and anything in and out of is is terrifying, sometimes thought I've described it like a whirpool which inexorably pulls me down into it, at the bottom is destruction but I haven't got enough strength to get out.

For me it's like having a very anaemic day. No energy, no motivation, no effort.

Of course, it doesn't help when I have an "anaemic day" and a "depressed day" at the same time.

Also, something that's always there, just sometimes it's more there than other times when I hardly notice it.

Zombie..I am..

Or I wish I could be. Mine is more of an endless slew of self destructive suicidal thoughts. Everybody's out to get me. I feel like a piece of *****. I can't cut deep enough and I want to get worse, to punish myself.

To me, depression is almost this dark being that hands me a shovel and just says "dig" so I keep digging myself into a nice little rut.

I usually say it feels like someone's squeezing my lungs and chest
, and loosening their grip until I think I feel better before squeezing again
. That, or I simply say, "You know the story of Tantalus, the man punished by the gods to that he could never reach the fruit or bend over to get a drink of water? Yeah, it feels a bit like that."
:shocked: I think the first description may be focusing more on my panic attacks, but those and Depression really tend to get confused in my mind.

people have said it is like a black cloud. I feel like that but more as if it is a shadow under my feet, and it just follows me around, for a while it can be really sunny and then i cant see it, but i know it will be there, when i walk around a corner or when the sun dissapears behind a cloud, and when i am walking on it i just fall into the shadow.

Generally with a simple 'I feel like arse'.

Interesting replies. Its funny because we all have different ways to describe it, yet i can relate to almost all of whats being said.

And yes......i too have been in that "arse feeling" place! :P

same here. Sometimes i'm so low that i can't remember being happy. Then i'm so happy that i can't float and nothing hurts and life is so funny but when i'm like this i can't remember why i'm was so down.

It's a rollercoaster.

I usuall say that it's like walking through the blizzard of '78 if nothing but underwear and socks: It's unbeleavibly cold, lonely, and it feels like I am using most of my effort to make each and every step I make.

For me, it is a vast pocket of space, devoid of any life or meaning whatsoever. It's like a parallel universe, where your mind has been switched with this dulled out, zombie brain and all those things that used to mean so much seem worthless. Even the smallest aspects of life are heightened, concentrated to vile extremes. The tunnel that everyone stays you will come out of has no end, it is an eternity of darkness at either side of you. The only memories that function are those awful ones, where your nightmares because real and you feel less and less. You dwell on these night and day. Life seemed dragged out, slow and painful. Each step is agony and even thinking about it hurts. The only way out is to escape by dulling the pain, forever. Death can seem like a fantasyland. In the state of mind you are in, you would feel no remorse in suicide and you feel as though nobody would care when you eventually did do it.

i always say my depression's like a fog. you can't really describe what it is or why its there but it makes everything look and feel different and you can't escape it or see things clearly...yeah

bi polar so.....its like a hill, bloody hard to get up to a high and too easy to tumble down into a low.

I actually wrote a piece for my english coursework about how it feels, when I wrote it I didn't know, or rather didn't want to admit to having depression. Since writing this I have been diagnosed with depression, and although attempting to have not yet recovered. I have put the piece of writing here but obviously I know its very long so I have bolded the main bits.

When I feel down, thoughts begin to gather in my head, they sit like a heavy weight pressing on my brain. No matter how much I try to ignore them and no matter how hard I try to think of other things or keep myself occupied in the rare moments when my body is silent my mind begins to wander.

As soon as it starts to do this I know that it will be followed by a feeling that takes over my body, leaving me feeling drained, helpless and exhausted. So many feelings,thoughts and emotions run through my head like blood through my body. It has enveloped me in this frame of mind in which I feel extremely low and beyond the point of any hapiness.

Sometimes I make the decision to try and think about what has caused this immense feeling to wash over me, and sometimes there is no answer, which scares me and makes me feel out of control. Although sometimes there are also occasions where I do know what has caused this to happen again. So when I am alone and able to reflect on this I do so. Again I can scare myself becasue the things that go through my mind are so deep and previously unknown that I wonder how this feeling can control my ability to think and allow me to discover forgotten memories or emotions I never knew existed but can cause so much pain in the slight moment I think about them.

When the reason behind this time of sadness is unknown, I cant help but blame myself. When this isnt reason enough I find myself thinking back to events that have happened and made me feel the way I feel in that exact moment of despair. I reach out and try to grasp any hint of familiarity with the current and any previous situations.

No matter how many times I have experienced these downers I never know how to deal with them. I sometimes feel like I am over-reacting but I cant help how I feel. I have no control over the way I am thinking about things in my mind. It just wanders. I try to change the way I am thinking, look back and try to remember how it feels when I was not experiencing this, but not the happiest of my memories could lift me out of this trance.

I try different things that I know have previously helped writing, drawing and tlaking, but it is so hard to do these things when one minute your mind is blank and the next it is racing with thoughts, and you are totally unsure of things.

I begin to notice that I am thinking about certain things and events more than others so I focus on them for a while. Before I was wrapped up and taken over by this sadness I believed I had overcome these things, but in the moments of vulnerability when my mind is totally honest with itself I realise that infact I haven't and for some previously unapparent reason have been unable to admit or realise it.

I notice a pattern, I sometimes feel this way and I go on a downer, most of the time I know when they are coming. Sometimes it is a way of dealing with things, it feels like a zone where in raw moments when I am at my worst I can be honest and truthful about the feelings I have. However there are also times when a downer may occur unexpectedly often set off by a trigger, these take me totally by suprise. I can be enjoying my day and be full of happiness when within minutes a dark layer of utter sadness can tightly take a grip on all my actions, often causing me to not want to carry on with the day and simply disappear from the world and come back only when I am ready to face it once again.

When I feel this way I experience feelings of dissapointment and failure within myself, I feel stupid for not being able to deal with and sometimes understand what goes on inside my head.

I am afraid of some of my thoughts as being down can make me realise things about myself that I never understood or really knew about. I am often scared of where my long trails of thought may take me and the lack of control I sometimes have on myself.

It feels like there are two sides to me, one where I am completely in control of myself, can judge situations, people and thoughts wisely be happy and be 'normal'. Then there is the second side, the one I only know half about therefore cannot understand. It is an uncontrollable mixed up side, where I cannot control what I think or sometimes even do. It is all the mayhem of a hectic carnival packed inside my head. There are times where I realise or remember things and wonder why I even did or said it.

The feelings I get from these downers are those of anger because of the feeling of lack of control over my own life, dissapointment and failure for letting myself get this way and for letting things get so bad and for being weak.

And sometimes almost as quickly as the feeling came it can go away, overnight or because of doing something to overcome it. I begin to feel myself again and wonder why I was so stupid and why I worried so much, but I knew that when I am in that place it always seems like there is no way out even though I know deep down it will be better. But even when I am happy the feeling still lurks somewhere in my body, waiting for the next time.

I use the usual metaphor, the cloud-over-my-head one. Because thats really is how it feels. It follows me everywhere and penetrates every inch of my life. Its like a murder-mystery. The old me is dead and I dont know why. I really like the blanket metaphor in the OP. That really does describe it well.

I used to describe it being like being hit by a wave, which drags you under the water where everything is dark, and just when you think you might get a breath of air, the second you feel a little hopeful, another wave hits and you're back down there again, and the small hope that exists of escaping makes it even worse when you're dragged back down again. There's no escape, you're constantly being battered by "waves" and nobody can see you drowning or throw you a rope.

I also like the metaphor that its like having fallen down a mountain, where its dark and cold and lonely, and nobody can see you. And climbing back up to the top seems absoloutely impossible.

When I'm depressed... I feel completely alone, even if I am surrounded by people, like there's a dark shroud separating me from the rest of the world. I'm consumed by bad memories bad thoughts, and just generally having the worst day of my life, perpetually. At my worst, I feel like I'm just empty, I don't have a point in living, nothing is working out and I can't see feeling better or being productive enough to sustain my life, if you can call it that. And the only way to stop all that, and without hope otherwise, is to finish it all with a razor, or those drugs in the cabinet, or a gun if one could only be gotten.

I never go into such description, that's just how I feel. I describe an episode as just feeling bad all the time, especially when I start thinking.

It's suffocating. Endless. Crushing.

My depression
 

I describe it as being at the bottom of an old well. It is very dark and oppressive, and if I look up really hard I can see just a pinprick of light (hope I guess). Sometimes if I'm doing better its like trying to climb up towards that light, but the walls are covered with slime, I end up falling again, and the higher I get, the harder the fall is and the more it hurts when I hit the bottom again. I wish it would rain. I want the water to surround me and envelop me.

I have to say that I use wabbits description alot, though to me its a hole.
I also say that it is a curse and blessing. To me its a blessing cause of the old saying "what doesnt kill us only makes us stronger". I have seen, felt, thought, and did things that would make the strongest of people cringe. I think that makes me stronger. On the same hand, this is also somthing that I would not wish on my worst of enemies. I cant think of any punishment more worse then have depression.

Paul

i often desribe my depression as living in a glass box, and when i scream from inside this box no one can hear me
or like i'm sinking and sinking and so on and so forth
it's like watching the world in slow motion but being unable to do aynthing or participate in what's going on around you.

I've always felt it was this big crushing cloud hanging over me, but at the same time squeezing me and choking me. I think Sylvia Plath's bell jar describes it all really well, for me anyway x

I'm not even certain I have depression. But a lot of what was said rings true with me, and for a few months I just felt the worst I ever have. It's a bit better now -usually, though if it's because I told my friends about it or because school [and thus a few of my triggers] is over now, I don't know.
But when it was worst, I would have to say it was just...slow. So slow, everything was slow. And all the negative things were heightened beyond belief, but everything positive I just saw through a haze, and it couldn't touch me. I wouldn't saw numb, just very, very detached. And often, in really bad times, there was just something on my chest, making me this close to tears or to breaking in front of everyone. That sounds incredibly melodramatic, but if I tried to explain it to someone, I suppose that's how I would. And even when it isn't there, it is, like someone said before. It's just lying dormant, and I'm afraid of bringing it back again.
bleh :/

my depression has been very long, chaotic, non stop surviving, waiting for life to end because I really dont see how I will get out of it...everytime I think I am getting better, I get worse....depressions tends to attract other dissorders(at least for me it did) which makes it more worse...it makes me wonder if life is always going to be like that for me...

just changes you after your eyes. you leave yourself because you just had it.
ever felt like you bump into people that you THOROUGHLY despise? without knowing them......it happens to you because you hate this world just as much as you hate yourself.

aside from all that this is a great topic. but nobody even feels like there post is accounted in for.

can i just say that we are all similiar? anyone agree?

ps if anyone does wanna be my friend add me on www.myspace.com/thedavidian

my blogs might show how one changes

I agree with you...I think we are all similar...

It blurs the line between reality and feelings.
Sometimes you want to reach out and talk to someone, but you just cant. Theres to much darkness surround you, suffocating you.
You often feel alone, but in reality your surrounded by people who want to help you if you would only let them in.
It makes you see yourself as ugly or fat, when in truth your probabky neither.
It makes you push people away from you.

Everthing feels so dark and restricted and scary and you see no way for it to ever improve. Its like you wake up each day and just try to make it through each hour as it comes.

I can be fine. Chatting and everything, then someone will say something an i will just snap. back to feeling low, back to wanting to inflict as much damage as possible. Like that person has just thrown a huge big box over you so you cant see anymore.

yeah. were all very lonely. *hugs everyone*
the lonliest place in the world is within our own minds when some of us can be within the biggest crowds

i see it a a room, a room ive tried to barracked to long and no it runs wild sometimes far away some times encasing me.

It's like I am drowning, drowning in a sorrow, and pain and fear that is so thick and so tangable that I can feel it, like water, all around me, pulling me under and trying to choke my happiness and my sanity.

And at the same time it is like voices in my head, reminding me how worthless I am, how pittiful my existance is, and how ugly and fat I have become. It reminds me that I am a failure, and everything I do is wrong, is a mistake, I am a mistake. It tells me to just let go, because I will eventually anyway, because in the end I will never be good enough or strong enough, so why bother delaying the invidable.


*I am not counseling anyone to follow this philosphy, I am just using it to describe something*

Its like my life is a "puzzler book". My past, present and future are little puzzles on each page. Some are easy and some are hard. Regardless of whether i can work them out or not i turn to the answers page at the back to check and all the answers are the same. They tell me im worthless, im a liar, im wrong, i should die.

^^^
the answers are a little stronger worded but you get the point.

we all just want love and are desperately deprived of it :(

I would describe my depression as a video game of 3 levels, I'm either on the underground level, where I feel like im in a big black hole, a weel maybe. And I can't get out and if I scream out nobody can hear me and I just disapear.(depression)
The second level I'm mario above ground but without the mushroom, things are abit scary but I drift on like normal, The third, I'm big mario (I've won the mushroom) things aren't scary or dangerous. (even the things that are) and I'm a crazy hyperactive loon. (manic episodes)