I’ll be honest… before I had depression I had no idea what it was really like.
Here are what a few of my assumptions were:
–Depression is just sadness, but on a more extreme level.
–Something happened to someone or they went through an experience that put them in this state.
–After so long you should be able to “get over it”.
–People with depression just make things seems worse than they are.
–If you work hard enough, you can cure depression like any other illness.
In reality none of my assumptions were true. It is the most horrible thing I have ever gone through with the most painful emotions I have ever felt. As I have learned the truth I feel terrible that I wasn’t more sympathetic towards other people who I knew were struggling. Now, I will never make that mistake again as I have developed such a soft heart because I truly don’t want anyone to have experience what I did.
I knew I didn’t understand depression before I had it, and being me, I am the type of person who would rather sit in silence than be proven wrong especially if I think that I am right. It was like karma came back around when I had depression because I was now the one in the position of not being believed.
It was maddeningly frustrating trying to explain my emotions and what was happening to me. It was like speaking a different language that nobody could understand. I get that there are experiences you can’t realize the full depth of until you have gone through it yourself, but I think mental health is so vital to have some level of awareness and understanding because it is way more serious and more complex than simply being sad.
I hope these 5 example of what depression really feels like either gives you some insight if you haven’t experienced it for yourself or, if you have, I hope these example can put words to some of those emotions.
1. You feel like you’re losing your mind
Have you ever been in one of those cash grab machines? I’m talking about the ones where you stand inside a box and as it blows cash all around you frantically try to grab what you can. I did one of those once and you wouldn’t believe how much I got… $0. I couldn’t believe it either. I thought it would be so easy, but honestly it was so hard and I was trying so hard to win.
This is exactly what my brain felt like in the midst of my depression. I couldn’t seem to control my thoughts or anything that was whirling inside my brain. The harder I tried the crazier everything became. I couldn’t even slow it down enough to grab onto a single idea.
It felt like I was losing my mind day after day as I couldn’t grasp my reality.
2. Clinging to an ounce of hope
In The Hunger Games, President Snow talks about the concept of hope with his game maker Seneca Crane where a little bit of hope is fine but too much is hard to contain. I always believed that hope was a good thing, but when I rewatched the movies I understood the diversity of hope and how it had helped and destroyed me during the thick of depression.
To get the analogy, you must understand that depression strips you of everything. You have no hope for the future, you have no motivation, you have no source of happiness, you have no control over emotions, and you are giving up in a way because there is nothing left.
Hope helped me because when I was so numb, the tiniest of things would get me through the day. For instance, I love hot chocolate. I can drink about any version of hot chocolate, but when you put vanilla coffee creamer in it… it is just *chefs kiss* for me. That became my salvation for about a week. The only hope for having a good day was the hot chocolate with vanilla creamer I would drink before bed. It was such a tiny thing, but it was something that helped.
It was my destruction as well because one night I went to make my hot chocolate and someone had gone through all the stuff in the fridge and one of the items thrown away was my vanilla coffee creamer. I lost it. I remember just crying and crying and crying. When you look at it from the outside it seems like such a ridiculous thing to get upset about, but when you have nothing… nothing… the tiniest thing becomes everything. You cling to it because it is all you have and the only thing you have felt in such a long time, so losing it feels like your heart being ripped out.
3. Wanting an emotional connection
This is one thing I think could have helped me immensely.
When I first was exhibiting signs of depression I knew something was off, but I didn’t know what and I didn’t want to admit that it could be depression.
As it was worsening, I felt like I was going crazy and had lost control over my life. I honestly didn’t know what to do and I came to a point where I was so desperate for ANYONE to tell me ANYTHING that might help.
I reached out to family, friends, my church leaders, and eventually doctors. I was jumping from person to person trying to get whatever help they could offer and though it did help, I wish that I had had a real emotional connection with someone who understood what I was going through.
Before everything happened I never talked about mental health with anyone, especially those going through more serious experiences. Now I think that it is so ironic because we can be so afraid to talk about mental health, but for the person struggling that’s all they really want; they want someone who will listen and just be there for them.
4. Being physically exhausted
This one might seems a little weird because mental health is internal right? All inside your head?
Actually it might surprise you that mental health can take a huge toll on your physical body.
There are so many symptoms besides the ones that are supposedly in your head. Some I bet you could guess like being unable to sleep, loss of appetite, fatigue, or headaches. Others could include muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, increased heart rate, nerves/restlessness, or feeling weak.
Reading those symptoms, you can make the connection of, oh that makes sense. I’m sure everyone experiences their own specific symptoms, but I had a few physical symptoms that I did not expect at all.
The first one was my heart hurting. Some days I cried the entire day and other times I would be overcome with uncontrollable sobbing. It was like going to the gym, doing a hard workout, and then being sore the next day, my heart was sore. It pounded so hard and so continuously that I could actually feel how tired it was.
The second one was a tired brain. You might think I was experiencing a headache, but I know the skull pounding feeling and this one was different. It was almost like my brain itself was throbbing and when it started shutting down I knew everything for the day would be shot because I would be unable to muster any concentration or focus. Even trying to respond in a conversation was too much.
The third was the effects of my medication. It takes time to find the right prescription and dosage and during that time I didn’t always feel well. I was nauseous and dizzy half of the time and the other half I was trembling and experiencing an increased heart rate.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that what you’re feeling could be a cause of depression, but when you come to the understanding that it is, it is a weight off your shoulders because you have a real explanation.
5. Feelings of despair
In case you didn’t know, despair means feeling a complete loss of hope. I think this is what checks the box of having depression vs. just feeling sad.
I would wake up everyday drowning in this emotion and everyday it would surprise me as if someone had jumped out and scared me. I don’t think we can control our emotions. I think that is exactly what depression is: a highly emotional imbalance or total lack thereof. I mean if I could control my emotions I wouldn’t make myself go through this.
On the other hand, I do think that we can influence our emotions, but that takes time, experience, and practice.
In the midst of depression you are so consumed by the emotion you’re feeling, like despair, that trying to influence it is about impossible. We’ve all had that experience where a little kid is crying and upset so we go and try to cheer them up and make then feel better. Trying to cheer someone up with depression is like holding your breath.. you shouldn’t do that.
In those moments, that feeling is who we are. It’s every cell in our body telling us that we feel this way and it’s so overpowering. It’s almost impossible to get away from by yourself without hope. This was one of the scariest things for me because though I could sometimes get out that fog of despair, I never knew when it was going to pop back up.
Mental health is extremely hard. It takes as much dedication and prioritization as taking care of your physical body. When you are in the depths of depression it is difficult to believe that you can ever get out. For me, it was over time little by little that I started getting better and it was mainly these 6 ways I improved my mental health that made the biggest difference which you can read about HERE.
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