I’m like a depression snow globe… u can shake me up and make the glitter look all pretty flying around but eventually I WILL settle back into depressed nonactivity
We need a more inclusive awareness about depression.
When depression is described, it usually (but not always) amounts to variations of ‘feeling sad’. But I don’t ‘feel sad’, so I spent ten years thinking that I was just super lazy and undisciplined.
Then, someone made an effort to point out that I might have depression. Had I never been introduced to the more ‘obscure’ symptoms, I never would have realized that I was worrying about the wrong things.
For some people, depression amounts to;
A bleak outlook on your life – feelings of hopelessness and disinterest in your future.
Persistent and chronic feelings of ‘sadness’ and ‘helplessness’
Thoughts of suicide and/or self harm.
But for me, depression is NOT any of those. I have;
Daily physical and mental exhaustion, but also severe insomnia. I am yawning by mid afternoon, but I can only scrape an average of five hours of sleep.
Lacking the ability to consciously construct a train of thought (without great effort). This prevents me from doing schoolwork, household chores, or socializing.
Chronic restlessness and physical discomfort, which accumulates to general grumpiness and frustration 24/7.
Persistent body pains and aches, especially in my neck and arms.
An altered perception of time. I forget sentences as I’m speaking them. It’s difficult to tell if something happened two hours ago, or two days ago. Every waking moment just blurs into one big boring stretch of unsatisfactory.
You can’t muscle through depression. Things will not get easier the more you try to tackle them. You know a great treatment for depression? Accommodating to it. Making your life easier. Recognizing the things you can and can’t do.
We need more people to recognize their depression. Otherwise, they’ll keep struggling and struggling and they’ll wonder why everyone is having such a good time while they’re using up all their spoons simply by driving to work.
THIS. THIS THIS THIS.
When I do get down and suffer from the typical “sad” symptoms of my depression, it gets really, really bad, and I have the hardest time digging myself back out of it – there are some people who have seen me at my worst and can attest to just how “classically depressed” I can become – but on a day to day basis, everything the OP describes is absolutely on point. That’s what it’s like, every day, and it’s garbage.
People don’t understand that there’s more to it than the catastrophic pit of miserable despair that they usually think of when they imagine “depression”, and they think that if you’re not sobbing on the floor all day that there’s nothing wrong. This is obviously patently untrue, and I’m so glad the OP made this post.
There’s also dysthemia . It’s like a “Im a little sad, but its not extreme” over a long period of time. Like this neutral “meh” over everything
Apathy is an important part of it too. Just a complete lack of emotions or interest in anything – even things you would normally love to do or people that you love. This actually becomes quite dangerous because without even realizing it you’re cutting off your support and removing things from your life that could help you get some control and focus back into it. If you feel apathetic about something you would normally be extremely happy doing then my advice is to do it anyway. All it can do is help and in my own personal experience it gives something to grab onto to pull yourself out of the cycle.
FINALLY SOMEONE SAYS IT! Such an accurate post!
anxiety: imagine if [horrible thing] happened and you died
depression: IMAGINE🎉🎉🎉IF🎈🎈😍😍[HORRIBLE THING]🎉🎊🎊🎊HAPPENED👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻AND✨🎉🎉YOU🎈✨🎊🎊DIED😍👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
me, trying to drown my 7 mental illnesses in green tea: go ahead and have a fucking sip babes
you almost say seven but the answer floats in your lungs like rising mud. you shift your shoulders. some part of you is already forming an excuse. that it’s not that bad sometimes. one, two, three on a day that the clouds are out. you’re just complaining about stuff. yesterday you laughed past a brick of a four, does that make the brick come down to a two-point-five. the solid seven panic attack of last tuesday feels somehow like a little thorn, just a regular day full of a gentle three-point-nine earthquake rocking after yesterday’s close-to-an-eight. see but if tomorrow you have a real bad day, it will make today look simple.
and what if. what if tomorrow it’s a big old red eight-point-nine. like one of those days where sirens are going off in every part of you but you’re stuck behind a glass window watching it all burn down. like one of those days that your skin against the air feels foreign. like too much of everything. like sitting-in-the-shower, like can’t-eat, like the tide isn’t just coming in, it came while you were sleeping and now you’ve gotta learn how to swim. like bounce me against a bullet hole kind of day.
you keep numbers like nine and ten way out of reach. those are for the people who really are suffering. you’ve got no excuse. nine and ten are funeral numbers, for real problems, not yours, no. and sometimes you’re fine. and you’re kind of used to it. and it’s not sad, it’s just numb like a television caught on static. numb like i can’t remember if i care about this. numb like nothing works but i can’t be bothered to fix it. that’s not sad that’s every day stuff. everybody feels like this, right? feels like they’ve been shut off. right.
maybe five. right in the middle. like not gonna shoot myself but i’m not wasting your time. a nonanswer. like could be worse could be better. like i need help but i don’t want you to worry even though i need someone to worry about me because i can’t worry about myself. maybe five. but what if five is too small. what if five is too big. what if –
“on a scale of one to ten,” he repeats into your silence, and then pauses. “and please be honest about this.”
being mentally ill is just being fed up with your own shit 24/7 like oh my god are we really going to do this again can I have like one hour of peace just one fucking hour oh my god p l e a s e
I feel like neurotypical ppl tend to underestimate MI ppls level of self-awareness abt our disorders. Like, believe you me, I am well aware that my brain is a rampant shitshow. That doesn’t mean I can make it stop doing shit though.
The worst part about having mental health issues is that you’re seemingly required to have a breakdown in order for people to understand how hard you were trying to hold yourself together.
failed2be-chill 