Telling a depressed person to be happy is like telling a cancer patient to cure themselves. Telling someone "why are you depressed? look at how great your life is" is the same as saying "what do you mean you have asthma? look at all this air."
Depression is not just a bad mood or sadness. It is a mental disorder that can actually threaten someone's life. It is not visible, so people wouldn't know if one has it or not. But if signs of depression appeared in forms of bulging veins or squirting blood, then my body would be a huge mess.
Anyone with slight or clinical depression shouldn't be made fun of. They are not overreacting or be attention seeking, cause that invisible mental illness is legitimately real. I don't think people understand how stressful it is to explain what's going on in your head when you don't even understand it yourself. When you're depressed, you don't control your thoughts. Your thoughts control you. It's as if countless demons are whispering dark-gloomy thoughts to your head nonstop. And it doesn't always come at 3AM, it can strike even when you're halfway laughing about a joke at 3PM. With depression, sleep isn't just sleep anymore, it's an escape.
Depression isn't always crying yourself to bed while listening to sad songs. Sometimes it's not wanting to talk to anyone for days and other times it's desperately needing to be around people. Sometimes depression is having no appetite even though you haven't eaten since yesterday and sometimes it's eating everything you have in the fridge. Depression isn't your boyfriend holding you and telling you that it's going to be okay. It's sitting across the table, not eating, having him ask you what's wrong and knowing that you're ruining his night because you can't seem to snap out of it and just be happy. It's the frustrating feeling of desperately wanting to enjoy something and just be fucking normal for once. It's keeping things secret from the people you love because you don't want them to look at you like you're broken. No, depression isn't beautiful black and white images. Depression is lonely and frustrating and mostly just exhausting.
I am good for a while. I'll talk more, laugh more, sleep and eat normally. But then something happens, like a switch turns off somewhere and all i am left with is the darkness of my mind. But each time it seems like i sink deeper and deeper.. And i am scared.. Terrified that one day i won't make it back up. I feel like gasping for air, screaming for help, but everyone just looks at me with a confused faces - wondering what i am struggling over when they're all doing just fine. And it makes me feel crazy. Something is wrong with me..
When i'm upset, i shut myself down. I have no motivation for anything, i tell myself that nobody cares, even though i know some do. I think about all the negative things i could possibly think of. I give myself all the pain, thinking i deserve it. I'm not sure why I do that, but that's just how i am. Sometimes i get so sad that i completely shut down. I stare blankly at the wall. And it doesn't matter what you say to me. Because in that moment, i don't exist.
When a depressed person shrinks away from your touch, it does not mean he/she is rejecting you. Rather he/she is protecting you from the foul, destructive evil which she believes is the essence of his/her being and which he/she believes can hurt you.
Having depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It's the fear of failure but no urge to be productive. It's wanting friends but hate socializing. It's wanting to be alone but not wanting to be lonely. It's caring about everything then caring about nothing. It's feeling everything at once then feeling paralyzingly numb.
Living with depression is like being followed by a voice. It knows all your insecurities and uses them against you. It gets to the point when it's the loudest voice in the room. And only you can hear all of it. It's like you know you'll be okay but you still feel awful; you know people love you but it doesn't feel like it; you know doing something will make you feel better but you just don't know how to; you want to be well, but you just can't seem to get there.
I isolate myself then become upset because i'm lonely. I want to get out yet something inside of me tells me not to do anything and forbids me from getting out of my room. It's like a constant battle between my true self and the demons inside of me.
Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can't wash a dish or change their clothes. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your passions and good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can't comfort yourself socially, you risk your education because you can't concentrate. You become pathetic and you know it. And you are uncapable to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which leads to worse depression and isolation.
Depression is humiliating. It's not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in modern world. It's an incapacity to function. At all. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. Depression is real. Just because you never had it, it doesn't make it imaginary. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life. So if you've never been depressed, be really grateful and if you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessings to you too.
Have a heart. Don't judge someone who's looking miserable. You'll never know how terrible it is and you'll never know who's looking fine yet suffering inside.
And if you know anyone who has depression. Be compassionate. Cheer them up, give some supports with encouragements or motivations. It may be something simple but means a lot to them. You might save a life.
