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How it feels to suffer with depression and anxiety

I just wanted to take the time to try and explain just a little how it feels to suffer with depression and anxiety as I’ve found that many people don’t understand depression or understand very little about it. I have had depression for about 7 years or so now of varying intensity, somewhat dependant on what’s going on in my life at the time. It’s only recently that I have actually been to see somebody officially about this after I have gone into a very bad place with my depression again after something happened recently that I won’t talk about. After seeing somebody about this and also having shared the fact I am depressed with more people, I have realised that most people that haven’t suffered with depression and even some that have, really don’t understand what it’s like to be depressed. That’s why I wanted to try and explain how it feels a little. Depression is a self destroying, life ruining ‘illness’ that completely controls and defines everything in your life. Some people think that being depressed is just feeling down sometimes or maybe being a bit lethargic at times, which for some people may well be the case, but there are varying levels and types of depression and the depression I have is far more crippling than that. Depression can change intensity in my life dependant on events that happen, but no matter how good or bad (which is generally the case) my life is going there is always a deep underlying depression present. So, a little more on how depression feels. It’s hard to chose where to start but I think I will start with how it effects things in your life. For a start it makes you lose interest in things you love doing and things you have a passion for. For example I love playing guitar, if I’m in a place where I’m not too bad with depression I could play my guitar for hours, but when I’m in a lower point with depression I can barely keep playing for half an hour without giving up and just putting the guitar down and sinking into my depressive thoughts again. Depression also makes you overthink every single thing that happens and makes you think everything is going to go wrong and that you are to blame for it. Depression also makes you realise how much people take being happy for granted. Every single day I wish to myself that I could just be happy like actually happy for more than just one rare day where something or someone has made me happy, I mean sometimes I’m that desperate that I will literally wish out aloud for a god that I don’t even believe in just to make me happy for more than that one rare day. I mean how pathetic is that, a grown man wishing to himself, but when you are depressed you try everything to be happy you are desperate just to feel something other than despair and hatred for yourself and to for once not feel like you’ve completely given up on yourself and to not have to constantly struggle for just one day. Imagine losing somebody out of your life and just wishing for them back knowing you would do literally anything to get them back, then imagine every single bit of your happiness being the thing that you have lost, imagine practically everyday feeling like the worst day of your life, near everyday you break down into tears and I don’t mean just a few tears, I mean like moaning like somebody you love has just died in front of you or something, just not being able to stop crying and moaning with tears. Imagine feeling that every single day, imagine feeling like you are going nowhere and that you will never ever be happy and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, feeling like if you ever do anything it’s going to go wrong because that’s what’s always happened in the past. I’ve known some people think it’s cowardly when people kill or want to kill themselves, well fuck those people, it’s not cowardly, how is it cowardly fighting against the worst sadness in your life most every single day, wanting to leave this earth because you can’t cope with the sadness every single god damn day of your pathetic unfulfilled life. I have thought about ending it all soo many times, I’ve held full packets of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen at the same time wanting to down them all because I just can’t stand another day feeling the worst sadness I have ever felt. The only thing that stops me is the guilt of how my friends and family would feel if I did it. I feel like I’m trapped in this life of suffering and sadness and there is literally nothing I can do about it. It’s not like I haven’t tried to stop feeling depressed either, I have tried and tried and tried, I’ve tried to change my life, tried to make things work, but in the end it never ever works, you just end up back at step one feeling like complete shit constantly. Nobody knows how depressed anyone ever is because when you are depressed you become so good at hiding it that nobody ever knows and I’m not saying it will devoid you of ever having any fun, yeah you can still enjoy yourself and have fun with your mates and you aren’t like constantly mopey 24/7, but when you are feeling low, you really really feel low and you’ll just break down over nothing all the time, I often find myself curled up in a ball on the floor in a corner when I break down sometimes just clinging myself longing for someone to hold me and tell me everything going to be okay, but I only have myself and the cold hard ground to hold me and that doesn’t feel like the love you need, not at all. An example of a shitty breakdown for me recently, was Saturday night. I went out with my mate to town for a few drinks, I didn’t get hammered anything, just perhaps a little tipsy. The last place we went was The Leadmill. I popped into the toilets a couple of times to shut myself in the cubical and just have a little moment to myself like I generally have to do on a night out, not that I tell my friends this is what I’m going to do. My mate came in looking for me because I had been a while and I came out even though I wasn’t ready to go back out and I ended up just crying in the middle of the dance floor. Anyway I kept crying all the way into subway then stopped when we got in the taxi. We arrived near to my house a road across and this is where I got out and said my goodbyes to my friend. A soon as the taxi left I broke down again, as I was holding all my tears in inside the taxi. I reached the alleyway and walked part way through, when I just stopped and literally collapsed on my knees because I was crying that much I could not physically continue, I was completely sober at this point. I then sat against the alleyway wall and cried and moaned aloud for a good 20 mins or so. I then curled up into a ball on the concrete floor just longing and wishing to be happy just desperately wanting a few minutes of happiness more than anything else in the world, I mean is that really to much to ask. Anyway I’m going a bit stray here. To sum up depression, or at least my depression, it is constantly feeling so so sad and wanting and hoping for happiness and constantly struggling through every single day and just getting practically nothing out of life at times. I’m not saying I always feel like this either, when things are going good in my life or I have somebody in my life that makes me truly happy I won’t feel like this for months, but generally it doesn’t last as things go wrong again. Also if I’m with friends and around people I like I won’t be depressed around them at the time, I also know when some people are depressed they push people away, but I’m the opposite, I want the people close to me around even more. Also I want to quickly say about self harm because many people have no idea why people do it. For me when I have done it in the past, it’s to somewhat punish myself but mainly it’s when depression gets really really bad, as pathetic as it sounds, it’s so that you can focus on physical pain just to take your mind off your mental and emotional pain just for a few seconds because sometimes physical pain is the better option for a few seconds it’s that bad. Also I have this strange obsession of trying to fix people and make them happy because I desperately want somebody to do that for me. So I apologise if I’m overly nice to some people quickly, I’m just trying to feel like I have some purpose. This doesn’t even really begin to scratch the surface of depression, but I would have to write a hundred page book for that. Anyway just wanted to get that off my chest and hopefully maybe show some people a little what it feels like to be truly depressed, if anyone actually reads this. Thanks.

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