Teasal seeds and vetch.
This Is What Depression Feels Like – In
The Words of Sufferers
Pooky Knightsmith
Depression is a really difficult condition to understand,
which can make it hard for us
to offer meaningful support if we have a friend or
relative who’s facing it.
Depression isn’t the same for everyone, so there’s no
‘one size fits all’ explanation.
In order to help you better understand, I’ve explored
some of the common themes
and feelings experienced by people struggling with
depression
so that we can all be a better friend to people who are
depressed.
1. Sometimes, you feel nothing at all
People who are struggling with depression
will often talk about a complete lack of emotion and
feeling:
“Nothing, that was what I
felt. All day, every day, NOTHING.”
After a while they might even forget what it feels like
to feel,
leaving them unable to know how to respond to things
that happen each day:
“I didn’t have the energy,
empathy or motivation to feel happy for my friends.
I vividly recall a friend
telling me she’d got engaged and I felt nothing.
I think I said
‘congratulations’ but in a dull, emotionless way that led her to believe I
didn’t care.
And I didn’t.
But that wasn’t me talking,
it was my depression. I really hurt her but I didn’t intend to,
I’d just lost the ability to
care for and be happy for her. You can see me in all of her wedding photos.
The
unsmiling bridesmaid. I wanted so much to be able to smile and feel happy for
her
but I just couldn’t remember
how.”
2. Nothing feels real
Often, people who are struggling with depression will
talk about their life
as if they are living in a kind of dream (or nightmare)
state where everything feels somewhat meaningless and
surreal:
“When you’ve been devoid of
feeling for a while, things take on a different meaning –
well a lack of meaning
really. Until you’ve lost all feeling, you don’t realise how important
a part of the fabric of day
to day life our thoughts, feelings and emotions are.
I felt like I was kind of
sleepwalking.
Awake enough to interact with
those around me, but never feeling fully present or real.”
Many people use analogies like being stuck under water
or down a well to explain the feeling of distance from
the rest of the world.
“Every minute of every day
was lived as if I was almost at the point of drowning.
The point after you’ve
stopped struggling and you’re just lying there,
watching the rest of the
world as your lungs fill with water
and the water envelopes you
and you think ‘I don’t belong here anymore.’”
3. You can feel like an observer in your own life
It’s common for people to talk about feeling absent from
their own lives.
Depression can make you feel like an outsider looking in
rather than an active participant:
“It was like watching a TV
show of my life. I didn’t necessarily like all of the episodes
but I felt incapable
of changing them – like some producer had made the decisions, not me.
It all just washed over me as
I watched on.”
4. The future can feel inconceivable
Both the short and the long term future can feel hard to
grasp. This doesn’t necessarily mean
feeling suicidal or not wanting to live, but rather just
not being able to imagine it.
“My Dad was talking to me
about college choices and I just found myself thinking ‘college?
is that even possible?’ – not
in an ‘I’m stupid’ kinda way, more in a ‘that’s a thing people do,
I’m not really ‘people’ I’m
just this blob of….nothing…. how could college be for me?”
“My friend suggested that as
I was managing a bit better now, perhaps we could get coffee
next week. I said no. Not
because I don’t like coffee, or didn’t want to be with my friend,
but just because I couldn’t
get my head around the idea of this afternoon, let alone next week”
5. Just occasionally, you have happy moments when it’s all okay
People who struggle with depression sometimes have
minutes, hours, or days when things feel
real again and they can see a glimpse of what it feels
like not to be depressed.
“Every now and then the
clouds would clear, and it was like I was alive again. It never lasted long.
At first I would just feel so
low knowing it would pass, but after a time I learned to grab
these moments of respite and
do all my living whilst they were with me.”
6. But you feel guilty if you feel okay
There’s a common misconception that if someone is
depressed, they never feel okay
and never smile. This can leave sufferers feeling
confused and guilty during respite periods:
“I was signed off work for
depression, but here I was walking through the park enjoying the sunshine
and
the bird song. I felt like a total shirker as I thought of my colleagues back
at the office
picking up my workload. The
day before I had not left my bed and, as it turned out,
that was also true of the day
after too, but right then I felt okay – and I felt guilty for feeling okay.”
7. And sometimes you put on a brave face and everyone thinks it’s
okay
It can be pretty easy to fool everyone if you want to:
“Before I leave the house, I
check I’ve got my wallet, my keys, and my fake smile.
If I’ve got those three
things, I’m set.”
“After a while, you teach
yourself how to act normal. It stops people getting upset and worried.
It means that all day, every
day is a lie and it’s kind of tiring
but it does stop people from
worrying so much.”
8. People want you to be fine, so they believe you if you try to
fool them
We can all be guilty of not looking past the ‘happy
mask’:
“When people say ‘how are
you?’ they never mean it.
The thing is just to say ‘I’m
fine’ and plaster on a fake smile. Hardly anyone sees past it.”
9. It really helps when people reach out, but you don’t know how to
thank them
When we’re struggling with depression, sometimes we need
the friend who sees past
the happy mask more than we need air. But we don’t know
how to tell them “thank you”
or to acknowledge the fact that we need them. We may even
ignore them.
But it doesn’t mean we’re not grateful:
“I had the most amazing
friend. She stuck by me. Every day she would text or email.
Every day I would ignore her
but she continued. Just little messages that let me know
in her kooky way that she
cared. No one else persisted like she did.
The rest all took my lack of
response as a sign to stop. She, somehow, realised that
I needed those messages. They
were a lifeline, and the fact that they came without the expectation of a
response made them all the more precious.”
10. It affects your friendships deeply–for better and worse
Depression is a tough illness to face. Many people who
suffer from it will lose friends along the way. However, sometimes it’s
also a time when someone really special steps forward,
and we develop a lifelong friendship with them:
“It’s hard to be friends with
someone who’s depressed. I get that.
Most of my friends kind of
drifted away.”
“Before I was depressed I had
so many friends. Afterwards, I had just one true friend.
But one true friend is worth
more than a thousand friends who drop away when things get hard.”
I hope this helps you understand – or explain – this
difficult illness just a little better.
You’re a good friend for caring enough to read this far.
Good luck.
These quotes all come from people who are currently
suffering from
or have recovered from depression and who have
shared their experiences with
Dr Pooky Knightsmith.
All people quoted have given their permission for their
words to be shared anonymously.
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/this-what-depression-feels-like-the-words-sufferers.html
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