How does it feel for you?

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#1
To me, depression feels like a wave, crashing down into the depths of my being. It leaves me overcome with sorrow, unable to think, to breathe, to speak. And for no reason. No event triggers this overwhelming sadness, no remark sparks off my pain. It feels like I cannot help but let it take me far away to somewhere where I am drowning in its depths, longing for someone, something to bring me back but not knowing how to ask. Not knowing how to express myself, how to say the words that I just cannot cope. It feels like a deep, dark blue filling me up and threatening to overflow, to break the dam I had been so carefully keeping shut. But it feels like breaking that dam couldn't help, as though there is no help for this, only more sorrow, more sadness, and more loneliness. And it feels like I don't know how to take it, how to handle it, how to cope with it.
And then I realised, as alone as I feel, I am not alone. There are other people who are struggling with this too. Other people who are trapped by a feeling that can be so hard to express or to describe.
And so I'm asking you to describe the way your depression feels to you, however complicated or simple that is. I'm asking this so that not only me, but all of us, can see how it is we are all feeling; no matter how different we are, or how alone we feel. I'm asking for your own words, your own emotions or your own thoughts...
With love,
chickadee x
 

total eclipse

SF Friend
Staff Alumni
#2
depression is life draining is a darkness so deep noone sees you there is a nothingness a feeling of being so alone and yes it is a feeling of wanting to leave of being worthless i hate it so much as it is not me depression has taken me away with it.
 

Mr Stewart

Well-Known Member
#3
Imagine you have a life long goal, something you've wanted since the earliest years of your childhood. For years you work at it little by little. Then something happens. Something (not an actual thing, like a flipped switch in your brain more like) that now makes it impossible for you to ever obtain that goal. Imagine that goal is happiness, security, purpose, hope. I feel like everything in life worth living for is cloistered away behind an insurmountable obstacle. That there is no hope. There will be no happiness. There is no point in trying, for trying will only increase the pain of inevitably failing to succeed. My outlook on life becomes progressively shorter. From thinking about and planning for years ahead, to only months, then later only days, and finally only hours and minutes. At the lowest points there is no sadness and no regret. There is nothing I care about, nothing that matters to me. All I have during those times is my meager defense mechanisms designed to get me from one hour to the next, to continue to breath. It's so hard. Giving up is such a comforting thought.
 
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Growing Pains

Well-Known Member
#4
An aching numbness. At one point, I would have described it as a constant darkness full of sadness and despair, etc, etc. But today, I think saying a numbness is more accurate. All the little things that used to matter... don't. All the beautiful things that I used to admire... are now dull, lifeless, meaningless. All the things I used to enjoy are now pointless. Sometimes, I even look at people I once cared about and feel nothing. I think Tyler described it very similar to how I would. I no longer think about my life in years or even months... but minutes. I don't care what I'll be doing tomorrow, I only want to think about what I'll be doing five minutes from now. Sometimes, there is sadness. But only when I realize I just don't care about anything any more. There's often loneliness... which is paired with regret because I know I pushed people away myself. I often feel trapped as well. Like I can't get out of the position I'm in. Some days, I don't even feel like getting out of bed is worth the struggle.
 
#5
epression for me feels like a long dark tunnel. no matter which way you try and get out of it, you simply hit a dead end.

as for my mental illness, it feels like an ocean. like i am calm, and then the waves crash against the shore- and it's horrible
 

Chargette

Well-Known Member
#6
I can't tell if I'm inside of the fishbowl looking out or if I'm on the outside looking in. Maybe it's both because the people I'm with seem to be on the other side of the glass. I guess I'm describing a barrier.

When I do interact with others, I often feel like the odd man out, the sore thumb, the fifth wheel. Never quite fitting in.

I can be in fairly decent shape and everything that was together falls away and I'm in the quicksand of depression. That's the worst part. Especially when I can't explain it to others.

I know what my wants are. I know what I want to do. But there is no spark inside me to set anything into motion. My brain is numb (sometimes literally in the front lobes), my arms are very heavy.

Things that I have enjoyed doing before are meaningless and don't inspire me.

I try to keep this minimized by keeping a simple schedule. In doing so, I have brief snatches of time to something that I like. The slowness of doing something is frustrating and that works against me.

When the down time comes, I take the time to get the extra rest so I can get back up in a day or two.

It doesn't sound like much of a life and doesn't feel like much of a life either, but I've decided to endeavor to stay around so my kids have someone to call when they need to talk. The world is bad enough to face that I don't want to put that kind of pain in their life to deal with.
 
#8
Depression allows me to feel things I've never felt before. It brings me to a rather abnormal state of the mind, body and soul. It's like when I'm alone, sad and tears start to fall, my childhood and everything and everyone I care for is taken away from me. It's like I'm being judged alone in a dark and very tranquil place not knowing which way to go. Depression traps me but I'm a ghost. I can escape it but I'm choosing not because I know it can never go away.
 

oxygenidia

Well-Known Member
#9
I feel like I'm in emotional pain from the moment I wake up till I go back to sleep. Everyday I wake up with a new bad memorie from past abuse or things that I've done that I regret/ feel shame over, and then I can't get it out of my head. I feel constantly ashamed and horrified about being me, like I just want to get out of my own body, I just loathe myself sort of... Like I'm really an unworthy person, lower than everyone else. I can't shut off the damn thoughts, they just don't ever stop! Unless I'm asleep.

I don't know if this is depression though. When I was very young, like 10, I was really in pain, more so than now actually. Then I got older and the pain turned into numbness, not feeling anything. Then I started selfmedicating with alcohol. Now I'm back to pain. I kinda miss the numbness. I also feel a bit paralyzed, like it's difficult to make myself do things.
I feel like one part of me wants to just sleep forever and the other part wants to try to make my life work.
 

UsedToBe

Well-Known Member
#10
i feel my brain is really tired, ready to switch off. One of my dreams is to go to sleep and wake up in a couple of years and see everything sorted out. It hurts when I breathe, it hurts to think, it hurts to live. The pain is located somewhere in my chest. Sometimes it seems unbearable and makes me want to shout, but I haven't got enough energy to shout, not even to whisper... It's strange, but I also feel numb, like I cannot feel any emotions at all - positive or negative... I'm so tired of living...
 
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Will

Staff Alumni
#11
Depression feels numb. For me, it detaches and numbs me from everything going on outside of my thoughts. I don't react or move out of instinct, or do anything. I have to think and put forth effort to actually do basic things, and I feel incredibly absent minded. Conversations are hard when I'm 'normal', and when depressed it's silent.

Depression gets kind of weird sometimes, too. I'll eventually start thinking a lot about failures or things that have happened in the past and eventually I get this 'electric' like physical pain in my chest, and it runs down my arms to my fingertips, coming in pulses. I'll continue to numb up, and after a few hours I'll either sleep or SI.

Either seems to work for the most part, but if I don't SI, I will wake up with that haze over me, and it'll take a really long time for me to get everything sped up and back to normal.
 
#13
I wake up and all the thoughts I can't stop crash in on me and then I start feeling a falling sensation in my chest and solar plexus and abdomen. I get weak and it's very hard to function...like fixing food, or talking to people, I have to push myself very hard. I feel like I have stepped off a cliff. I feel like I am under a crushing weight and and it's hard to get a breath. There is a kind of internal blackness and loss of life, the feeling of being alive is very weak and I have repetive thoughts of wanting out. My spirit is calling out to God to bring me home, that I just can't be here anymore, can't endure this horror of life on Earth. What triggeres this is how cruel people are. I just can't be around people, but I have to, because of my work, and it drains the life right out of me, how hard it is to be with people, how painful. And the fatigue...the words soul sick with exhaustion are good. The total exhaustion and the dread of having to go on feeling like this, struggling like this.
 

IV2010

Well-Known Member
#14
for me it's an overwhelming hopelessness.
a feeling of total loss of control of my life

I feel worthless, useless and see no way of things ever getting better..

there is a pain in my soul
and a fear of something unknown

anxiety controls me and always there is a feeling of doom permeating my body and mind
I have little interest in anything, can't make decisions, never think I do anything right
generally blame myself for everything that's ever gone/going wrong

can't 'do' relationships and can't handle the slightest stress
lots of crying ..etc. etc..


depression really gets me down....pardon the punn!
 

Silverpuddle

Some kind of geek
SF Author
SF Supporter
#15
It depends--right now it feels like I'm just a hollow skin filled up with broken glass. Every time something touches me, I'm stabbed from the inside in a dozen places.
 

hollowvoice

Senior Member & Antiquities Friend
#17
for me depression is like stepping in a boxing ring with my hands tied behind my back,every punch that fate lands is knocking out my stuffing ,i cant fight back though coz im already out and fate is now kicking me while im down
 

Megz

Active Member
#19
I feel angry and upset, tearful, and then frustrated because I can find no reason for it. It just happens and I don't want to move or speak to anyone I just want to call up in a ball and make it all go away. The tiredness is awful, I feel exhausted but again have usually done nothing to make me feel that way, but nor have I stayed in bed all day either - just a normal day but I feel like I haven't slept for days, and then when I do get to go to bed my mind won't switch off and then I search for something to matter how small to justify all this and when something pops into my head I then stress and stress about it until I blow it all out of proportion. The weird thing is that the things I stress about are usually small and insignificant yet I have problems going on with money and debts that could cause some serious problems in my life - and I ignore them until they break into my life forcefully and then I get so anxious and nervous I can't deal with it and end up shaking in a corner with all the doors and windows and curtains shut and won't leave the house. What a fucking great way to live eh? Trapped in a cycle of behaviour that I have no clue how to change.
 

SaraRose

Well-Known Member
#20
I describe it as feeling like someone just came by and zapped all my energy out of me. That the weight it ends up leaving me with makes all movements- even my fingers on this keyboard- nearly impossible.

It makes me feel like there is a weight is placed on my head, pushing me more to the earth. My chest gets heavy, so does my neck and fingers and everything.
 
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