Depression Isn’t Pretty

Depression isn’t just “feeling sad” and crying all the time. It’s not just cutting. It’s not just committing suicide. Depression is the constant feeling of hopelessness and numbness. It’s when the mourning or event occurred long ago but the effects still last. It’s giving up. It’s not caring anymore. It’s isolating yourself from everyone else because no one understands you. You don’t really know why you feel this way, but you can’t help what you feel. Your brain is suffering from a “disease” that kills millions.

Depression will consume you. It will imprison you in your own body. It will keep you from eating, sleeping, and feeling. For some, they eat and sleep more to cope. But for others like me, the nights are long. Depression will keep you in your bed because your body feels so heavy, it’s like there are bricks piled up on top of your body. You’ll lose the ability to feel pleasure in the things you used to enjoy such as sports, music, and even sex. What you’re passionate about will slowly crumble away.

Depression isn’t pretty. It isn’t like what the movies make it out to be. It’s the blood running from the cuts you made to satisfy the itching in your wrists, it’s the crying at 3 AM, it’s the dark thoughts that cloud your head, it’s feeling cold, it’s feeling so hopeless and worthless, it’s breaking your own heart, and it’s watching your inner demons winning the battle.

Recovering from depression is a process and doesn’t happen overnight. Depression doesn’t disappear just because you met someone who “lights up your world.” Sure, they will make you happy, but that doesn’t scare away the inner turmoil and doesn’t calm the storm in your head.

Then you’ll be OK for a while. And you’ll smile because you think it’s over. Then comes the relapse.

Depression will become a party-crasher, only this time it’s a life-crasher. You’ll tumble back into your old ways, falling right back into the dark abyss that you’ve tried so hard to escape. You’ll have triggers in your everyday life that will immediately put you in a dark place. Sometimes these triggers are a word, song, or even months.

Depression isn’t a John Green book. It shouldn’t be romanticized. Depression is smoking cigarettes until it hurts to breathe, it’s drinking until it’s the only thing to keep you sane, and it’s using drugs to take you to a better place.

Depression is the cousin of many different mental disorders. Depression could just be a factor of a disorder that is much more destructive. Depression could also come with anxiety, making things a lot more complicated. Depression is drowning your system in meds in hopes that you’ll feel better.

Depression is seeing things in monotone. Everything is grey, blue, or purple. There’s a huge spectrum in the world of depression, and everyone’s case varies, but the symptoms are always the same.

Depression is internal. Depression is a killer.