Here’s How To Describe Depression To Someone Who’s Never Experienced It

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It’s back. The thoughts in your head SCREAMING at you. They scream inside of you, wiping your energy, wiping happiness, wiping your peace…until you’re just existing. They scream, “you’re nothing, you’re worthless… I hate you.” You cover your ears as if that’ll help it stop, but it never does. It’s always there, at the back of your mind. Suddenly, the voices of the people around you drown out until the only one you can hear is the one inside your head. It waits until you’re at your weakest, then it tries to break you. Intoxicating you into an intolerable sadness. You’re becoming detached from your reality and slipping away into a state of depression.

The thoughts taunt you. You feel that you’re not in control. You feel like you’re in a dream, controlled by these thoughts and feelings, this bully called Depression that lives in your mind. There’s a deep despair in your stomach, as if you have just lost so much in just one moment and you are now in a state of desperate grief.

You’re in a pit of darkness. No matter how hard you try, you can’t find a way out. You feel completely and utterly alone. Your body is freezing and all you feel is the pain.

Why can’t it just stop? You cry to yourself. It feels as though you will always feel this way. All you see is darkness. You now see the world in black and white. Everything you had has been temporarily robbed from you, as if valueless. You’re just existing, until it passes. Until it decides to let you feel again. You’re in agony.

A million distressing images rush through your mind at once as you try to comprehend them. Tempting you to harm yourself, as if it’ll free you from the pain. But it won’t.

It wants to see you bleed, it wants to see you hurting, it wants to see you drowning, struggling for air – it’s the worst kind of torture. A silent torture. An invisible kind of pain. But it’s real. It’s like a nightmare but you’re awake. You’re terrified.

You don’t know if you’ll make it. You don’t know how long you can endure this. “One, two three” … you count the seconds to help you get through it. “Not long before it passes,” you say. But truthfully, you don’t know how long it’ll stay. You try to get up and move, to remind yourself you’re still here, but your limbs are heavy. You’re paralyzed by it.

You curl up into a ball and close your eyes. Your body shakes, you’re so scared.

Inside, you fight. You fight it with all you have. You don’t let it win, you try so hard. But you feel completely powerless to its strength, it’s got a hold of you, and it won’t let you go. The thoughts get stronger, clearer, consuming you in their fire. The sadness burns inside of you, it comes and goes in powerful waves. The kind of waves that would drag you into the sea in an instant at its hands.

Slowly, time passes. It feels like an eternity.

You open your eyes again. It’s finally passed. It’s been days. Days of indescribable pain.

You start to see in color again. Your body is in a cold sweat. Your eyes are sore from crying. Your body is weak from the fight.

You’ve made it. Your head is finally above the dark water that it tried to drown you in. The tight grip around your throat that was choking you, has loosened. You wriggle free from its grip as you slowly start to breathe again and take in your surroundings. You survived it. You feel as if you’ve woken from a war, an internal war, destruction surrounding you but you’re still alive.

For now, the thoughts are silenced. Until next time. But next time you know you will do the same, you’ll NEVER stop fighting this. You’ll NEVER give up. You’ll NEVER give in, even when it tries to take everything that you have.

You are worthy of life. You’re not defined by depression. You’re not what it tells you that you are. You are more and you deserve happiness, but know that you’re never alone. There are millions of people going through exactly what you are right now and together, we will win. We will defeat it. Together.

You are NOT worthless, you are COURAGEOUS, one of a kind, and loved by so many. There’s no one quite like you. But most of all, you are strong.

You’re already defeating it, with every silent fight you win, you get stronger and it gets weaker. It’s a coward, but you, your strength and courage is beyond words. It will get better and one day the pain will fade away. There IS life after depression. The life you deserve to live and WILL live. So, every time it comes and goes, I want you to think of this quote from one of my favorite films to help you through: “Everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, then it’s not yet the end.”