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 want to stay in love with my sorrow.
Oh, but God, I want to let it go.
If you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, you can find out first-hand what it's like to be me.
You'll need a symphony to give sympathy to the girl with the worst luck in town.
When I care, it curls me up on the floor and I swear I can't do it anymore.
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." 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.
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
~Phoenix~ is my Little Sister of Awesomeness and Self-Delusion :P Bitter Angel is my Mitten Animad is my Top Trump All Im Living For - Is my beautiful and special daughter who isnt called Kim but will moan if i dont add her :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.
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.
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
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.
STRENGTH
||| R.I.P Matt. 11.09.06. Forever loved, forever missed and never forgotten. |||
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.
s a r a h
* pm me * eating disorders info *
"Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge."
- Lord Byron
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.
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.
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 wake up feeling convicted, / I know something's not right / Re-acquaint my knees with the carpet //
They've been swimming in the wrong waters / Now they're pulling me down / But I am clinging to you, never letting go / 'Cause I know that you'll lift me out //
Have your way here / Keep me afloat / 'Cause I know I'll sink without you / Take this ocean of pain that is mine / Throw me a lifeline " - Lifeline, Brooke Fraser
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 :/
Last edited by drackisses : 27-06-2007 at 12:07 AM.
Reason: forgot words
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...
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.
