What Depression is Like to Me

Depression is like being attached to a bungee rope. Every time you start to walk away, the distance becomes greater and then BAM!!! It snaps you right back

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By Chemene

My depression is like one of those days where the cloud meets the ground. There’s no movement, it’s a timeless day where morning is as the afternoon and afternoon is as morning. For those key moments I am in a paradise lost, alone. Alone to roam amongst my thoughts and rake over the coals of sad memories and controlling thoughts. You don’t control your thoughts, depression does.

Depression is like a bungee rope

Depression is like being attached to a bungee rope. Every time you start to walk away, the distance can become greater and then….BAM!!! It snaps you right back to where you were. Sometimes I get up and I think, ‘OK I’ve done it before I can do it again.’ Other times I sit there and melt into the floor.

No help, no shouting, no call at all. I don’t want people, I don’t want sound, I don’t want to see or hear anything. Books are tightly shut, I have no use with words. I want my senses muffled. However, I think, I think constantly about why I feel this way, is this normal? Am I normal? I am so lonely like I’m lost at sea and waves of sorrow flip me over, tirelessly and endlessly. ‘I cans’ translate into ‘I cannots’.

Motivation leaks from me and determination goes into hiding.

I don’t understand it myself

I have many friends, close friends, but I still feel so lonely. It’s hard for some people to understand depression when they haven’t experienced it themselves. I can’t blame them, I don’t understand depression myself. It’s taken a myriad of thoughts, feelings and years for me to realise that this repetition of low mood, and numbingly empty feeling is, in fact, depression. Not hormones, not a ‘bad’ day, week or month but, in fact, depression.

I am anxious, I’m tired, but I can’t sleep. My mind runs a marathon and is full of dark scenarios, fears and worries. Either I have no appetite or I’ll eat emotionally…impetuously. The anger I feel and the irritability is equally as consuming.

Depression happens…and I am still me

I am a dormant volcano that will erupt without any prior warning. I hate it and in turn hate myself which compounds my already well-established depression.

But I am who I am and everyday I learn more about myself. Yes I smile, I laugh and I care too much about others, because when I think about other people and take on their struggles, I don’t have to think of mine. I am a Mum, I am a Wife, I am a Daughter, I am a Friend and I suffer with depression and that’s OK. Depression happens. I am a normal person, I am….Me.