It is 4:30 in the morning, I have class in 5 1/2 hours and I am doing everything in my power not to finish my homework so I can go to sleep. This is among the most unintelligent things I’ve ever done, I swear.
I’m think a lot tonight though. I was talking to one of my friends earlier and stress and depression came up. They asked me what having depression is like, since I had it for a while during high school. After thinking for a few minutes, I came up with this response:
Depression is like getting up in the morning and not having the will to roll out of bed. It’s losing interest in things you previously would die without. Bad habits are picked up, friends are dropped. People become just an irratation. The only thing you want to do is sleep, because when you’re sleeping, you’re not feeling. Sometimes there’s nightmares though, I had a couple really bad ones that’d mess me up for the rest of the day, and then you stay awake all night dreading the weight of sleep. You stop caring. It doesn’t matter what you wear, who you talk to, what you do. Nothing matters, and everything is exhausting. It hurts to breath. There’s also the want to end things. Not necessarily because you want to stop living, but you want to stop feeling. You want to stop the empty void that’s filling your entire being. It’s terrifying. Depression is like drowning.
And to be honest, that’s my experience, someone else might have a different idea. I think sometimes people discount the validity of depression. People forget that it’s a totally real illness. I think a lot of mental illnesses are similar in that regard. Most people wouldn’t consider them on the same level as physical illnesses. I would say they have more power to destroy a person than the majority of illnesses your body fights off.
Part of that, I think is because while your body is equipped to defend itself from an illness, many mental illnesses are your mind trying to fight off an enemy that it doesn’t even believe is there. It’s absolutely terrifying.
Not only that, few people are taught from a young age how to deal with mental issues. I am absolutely no exception. I’m still trying to figure out how to handle these weird things called emotions. While I may not be currently depressed, I’m always a little nervous after a bad day. There’s always the feeling like “Man, I hope that was a bad day, and I’m not slipping back into the darkened void called Depression, because that would really suck, and I’m not sure how long I can handle that.”
blindunderground 