What depression feels like

Despite more awareness in recent times, and the empathy and goodwill of the people around me, I still maintain the thought that you won’t completely understand depression and what it’s like unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. This causes me a lot of frustration and makes it very difficult to explain to those around me, causing me to feel yet more alone and isolated. I have read countless analogies and descriptions of depression over the years in an attempt to make sense of it and explain it as best as I can myself, though I have always found this challenging to do. The description I relate to most is in Alastair Campbell’s book ‘Living Better’ which sums up what it’s like really accurately for me. I fear that a lot of this blog post will just be rewording what he has already written, so apologies in advance if that is the case. Here is my attempt to explain it…

What I think many people without direct experience of depression fail to understand is that there is often no direct reason or obvious trigger for it, unlike normal feelings of sadness where there is usually a clear identifiable reason (which still makes the feeling of sadness unpleasant, but much easier to deal with.) On a recent Friday in March, I had a great day – I went for a lovely walk round some fields in Warwick, photographing impressive trees and appreciating the scenery in the afternoon. Much to my surprise, I then found out I got another first on a university assignment with the most amazing and complimentary feedback, which always gives me a boost of happiness and a real buzz. That evening, I was in a cheerful mood as I enjoyed a glass of wine with my family whilst watching Gregg Wallace explore York on TV. Anyone would assume that would be an ideal set up for the start of a predictably good weekend, myself included.

On the Saturday morning, I woke up with a sudden feeling of heaviness and emptiness engulfing me. I struggled to get out of bed more than I usually do, while feeling a bit flat and lacking in energy all day which are always telltale warning signs. I didn’t feel absolutely terrible, but I didn’t feel quite right and could definitely sense it coming on, creeping up on me. Sunday was worse, when I ‘should have’ been feeling cheerful for my Mum’s birthday, and Monday was worse still where it progressed to the point that it impaired my ability to do anything at all. Most of the time, I can feel it as soon as I wake. I usually visualise it as a big black cloud coming towards me and looming over me. Other times, it occasionally surprises me at random times of day when I’m perfectly happy one minute and then anything but fine the next, usually in the evening but it’s variable.

Logically, I know it is an illness that I cannot control in the same way as any other illness, but when these plunges happen, my brain is increasingly unkind to me and I feel an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt, especially about putting my family through it. All the ‘should’ thoughts come in:

• I should be able to control this like everyone else can control their feelings. Why am I so weak and pathetic that I can’t just deal with things like the rest of my family?
• I should be able to isolate what caused it
• I should be able to make it go away and snap out of it
• I should be able to be productive
• I should be able to deal with this on my own. Why do I have to ask for help when everyone else can control their thoughts and feelings?

This then causes a feeling of anger towards my emotions and myself generally, probably exacerbating the low mood further, and so a vicious cycle is set up when I don’t accept it and try to deny it.

Emotionally, I do often feel sadness but it is a lot more intense than that; again, I feel this is another misunderstanding among people who are lucky enough not to suffer themselves. There needs to be a distinction and more awareness between normal feelings of sadness and debilitating depression; it’s feeling absolutely wretched. Powerless. Helpless. Thinking really badly of yourself for no obvious reason. It’s like being in a permanent war with yourself, a battle with your mind every day. I often don’t know what I’m crying about, but the tears won’t stop. Sometimes, I don’t feel anything – I don’t know which is worse; feeling everything at once or feeling numb and a strange sense of emptiness. Even talking to family becomes really difficult; I very much agree with the sentiment of telling someone and talking about it openly, but I don’t know how you’re meant to articulate it clearly to someone in the moment when you can’t explain what’s going on yourself. I also worry that people I know will think badly of me for suffering, like it’s a character flaw or a personal failure.

It isn’t just ‘all in your head’ either. The physical side of the illness is often misunderstood and unrecognised because it’s not visible. When it’s particularly significant to the point where it affects my ability to function, everything aches. As much as I know I should eat something, I should get outside (things that usually require me no thought or energy), during one of these plunges my whole body and mind feels a strange sensation of being heavy and I become physically drained to the point where simple tasks and basic daily functions become a mammoth and often insurmountable effort to do; even peeling myself away from my bed becomes near impossible as it feels like there is a weight holding me down. The motivation and energy usually within me to do helpful, nice things for myself is suddenly gone. Things that usually bring me a great sense of joy, like the prospect of going for a walk immersed in nature, suddenly cease to and instead feel like a chore. I lose my appetite and can’t bring myself to eat anything in the same way that your appetite sometimes goes when you’re physically ill – it is the most frustrating, debilitating and soul crushing feeling.

What I always fail to understand is the triggers to my crashes, which is maybe even more confusing now the nation is going through such a weird time – I cannot seem to pinpoint how much of it is due to the current pandemic situation and my life being limited by that, how much of it is grief, how much of it is hormonal, how much of it is due to the stress of university, whether or not I would have had the crash anyway regardless of the worldwide situation. My depression struggles predate the coronavirus pandemic, but it has certainly made life more difficult. Maybe it is always a prolonged build up of a combination of different factors over time; that is what I think is most likely. I believe my dyspraxia and subsequent speech, language and processing difficulties have always had a huge impact on my mental health, though I can’t isolate whether or not it is the sole cause of my anxiety and depression issues.

The aftermath is sometimes nearly as hard as the peak. When the depression passes, sometimes I feel completely washed out and physically exhausted for a day or two, just like you would if you were recovering from a cold or flu. My cognitive function remains slow, meaning I’m still unable to be as productive as I’d like and rest becomes the best thing to do. I know that self care is a necessity sometimes in order to feel and do my best at university and other life areas, but engaging in acts of self care can prove to be challenging when I feel frustrated with my lack of productivity levels. I always feel like I need to be busy in order to feel ok and push the negative feelings aside, perhaps neglecting the importance of breaks and the value in pausing in the process.

When I’m well, it is both a gift and a curse that I can’t remember exactly what it feels like when I’m experiencing a bout of depression; a blessing because I forget the utter wretchedness of it, but a curse because it means that each time it happens, I feel like it’s the first time. This means that I forget the healthy coping mechanisms that have aided me amongst the chaos in the past and I suddenly feel powerless in the sense that I have no idea how to help myself, which tends to make me panic even more. Additionally, it makes it hard to explain to someone else when seeking help for it.

Lastly, I have a strong dislike of people using depression and other mental illnesses as descriptive words. Even when it’s well intentioned, hearing someone say something along the lines of ‘that is so depressing’, it makes my blood boil because it underestimates how terrible the condition is and I feel it undermines what I go through with it. Depression isn’t an emotion and I think we should be more careful about the language we use to describe every day emotions or situations.