Depression is not a bad mood and something you decide to feel and suffer with.
Depression is not something that you recognize straight away like Flu or something you can treat with a hot cup of tea with honey.
Depression doesn’t last 2-3 days like Stomach Bug and comes in different kind of forms.
Depression doesn’t necessarily “attack” those who have a bad life and doesn’t pick your age, sex, nationality etc. (That’s some equality there!)
Depression doesn’t let you know how to treat it but always makes sure to tell you how to make it worse.
So what is a day in a life with Depression?
It’s waking up in the morning and not wanting to get up. A very common feeling you say?
Well, waking up with Depression is forcing yourself to get up and do your daily things such as work, college or simply staying at home (that can be hard too).
Living with Depression is thinking if there is any point of taking a shower and making yourself look pretty (or at least “presentable”) and wishing you could just stay in bed hiding under the covers all the time.
In fact, some people give up on their personal hygiene when they are suffering with Depression because they don’t see any reason to look after themselves anymore.
Depression goes anywhere you go and stands behind you at all times like an invisible shadow that no one else can see but you.
Living with it is trying to smile when you feel the tears coming and hiding your shivering body when you feel like having a panic attack in public.
It’s feeling hopeless when being mistaken for being in a bad mood and cranky and hating yourself at the same time for making people feel that you are somehow annoyed with them.
It’s CONSTANTLY doubting yourself and believing that whatever you are doing will only go wrong and once again listening to Depression telling you how useless and brainless you are.
It’s looking in the mirror and hating what you see and wishing you could just have a different life.
Living with Depression is feeling too weak to do simple things such as making yourself food or brushing your teeth and not finding any enthusiasm to do anything at all.
It’s trying your best to speak out loud about your Depression but being stopped by a tingling pain in your throat and the lack of the right words to describe it.
It’s living in fears and playing them in your head on repeat and letting all of your problems to grow bigger than they are.
Living with Depression is believing that you are only alive for your family and sadly, in some cases trying to find at least one reason to stay alive.
It’s feeling lonely in a crowd full of people and staying silent when you scream inside for help.
While it doesn’t mean that a person suffering with Depression feels like this all the time, there are times when all of the feelings described above can occur in one day at the same time (yes, that’s possible and pretty nasty).
Some people might feel like this only once a week or so while other people might live like this for years.
But the good news is that Depression can be treated just like any other illness.
While I don’t believe in medication and Antidepressants as in my opinion they don’t solve any problems, only “numbs” your brain and stops you from thinking about anything, I do understand that in some cases medication is necessary and sometimes the only treatment that helps.
In my case, Antidepressants were making me feel like Walking Dead and once the brain numbness wore off I was thrown back in a pile of my problems and fears that were causing my Depression in the first place.
In my opinion and my opinion only, the best treatment for Depression is talking about it, the right support and understanding your emotions and fears.
Sometimes the thoughts that come out of our Depression sound completely differently when we say them out loud.
Once we understand where our fears are coming from and why, we can then overcome them. Counselling is one of the best ways to do that.
And once we have the right support, be it people dealing with the same issues online, your best friends, spouses or anyone – we can get rid of Depression for good.
And it doesn’t matter where you are, support is always there.
We just have to find all the strength we have and ask for it.
I always reply to ANYONE reaching out to me for help and at the same time I reach out for help too when I need it. With 7 billion people in the world no one should ever suffer with Depression on their own.
“There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, ‘There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.” – Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees
Photo source – http://www.m.webmd.com/depression/ss/slideshow-depression-support