what does depression feel like?

Hi ... you sound a bit like me. (And that is not a good place to be!)
Low opinion of self
Envy of others: Everyone else is better/ happier
public face at odds with your real inner world

It may not be just self-pity, it could be actual depression. And I would suggest you read up on it, get advice from a doctor, or a school counsellor to help you along.

To counter it ... "getting yourself out there" is usually good advice... Socialise more, join activity groups and generally widen your circle of friends. Don't stew in your own juices or isolate yourself..

Virtual hugggg to you ...

 

Exactly. I feel like everyday I put on a show for my friends and keep them smiling and happy, but I only feel worse and worse. It's a helpless feeling - like no matter what nothing will get better. When talked to about taking medicine it just makes you more upset and the talk of seeing a therapist makes you a bit angry and even more sad because it's embarrassing to sit there and tell this person everything even though you don't know them.

You also lose the ability to trust people. No one can know how broken you are because then they will pity you and treat you like you are fragile or completely distance themselves from you.

It's the worst. But there is help you just have to fight against how you feel and ultimately yourself for the help to work. It isn't easy.

 

Depression is like being in a dense fog unable to move and not knowing where to go

It's a numbness. Nothing is happy or good. And nothing is terribly sad either

Its better staying in bed with the covers over you or sitting on the sofa for hours watching junk tv

It's wanting to be by yourself always, and yet not

It's being unable to think of any way to make yourself or others happy

It's like being right at the edge of a huge black pit. And you know you'll fall in .

And once you've fallen in, there seems absolutely no way out

Depression sucks

If I can help, private message me or write on my wall

 

For me, its an unbearable boredom that permeates my very being and fills my entire mind with grayness. It also makes me feel sick.

 

People have described what being depressed feels like well so far.

I just wanted to echo this advice, and add onto it with a piece of wisdom someone here once told me: "when you're depressed, the things you want to do the least are the things you need to do the most". So for most people, if that means holing yourself away from any social interaction, force yourself to get out of the house and be around other people.

If you're concerned about your mental wellbeing, please go see a professional about it. The longer you wait the worse it'll get. No harm in playing safe, right?

 

What does depression feel like?

In short, it's a very intense and constant sadness. Whenever I get depressed, I feel like I'm unimportant, and just want to be alone the whole time. I cry over nothing. I sleep a lot more and constantly feel tired and isolated, almost as though I'm in this "bubble" of sorts. I usually end up not going to work, and just want to stay in bed all day. And this intense sad feeling I have usually lasts for 2-3 days, but it's worst on the first day, then subsides a little, and returns again. I feel hopeless, useless and incompetent. I, too, suffer from low self-esteem, non-existent confidence and self-hatred/self-loathing. I constantly beat myself up over small, insignificant things and end up feeling worthless and sad.

As a sidenote, I'm bipolar. Here is some interesting reading about the symptoms of bipolar disorder. It's important though, not to self-diagnose. I'm simply sharing my personal experience(s) surrounding this. When I was diagnosed back in 2010, I immediately began researching it, and found this particular page very helpful and interesting.

I hope you feel better soon. Best of luck (*hug*)

 

You'll feel like a hollow tree just only focusing on breathing and your heart beating, and nothing else. you will be preoccupied in your own thoughts and have trouble sleeping. you get lazy and think you have no future, you cant savor any good things in life just stay in torment until you do something about it. I can relate to you. I have only one best friend whos been with me since fifth grade and im a senior now. I realized that comparing myself to him will only get worse and it demotivates me in everything. i dont do that anymore because i looked at it in a bigger picture. i compare him to other people who are more popular than him and stuff. Now i know what are his flaws and my advantages. it sort of balances it out.

 

Depression for me is like an endless night, you cannot see where you are going, but you also don't care.
It takes away all energy so you don't want to do anything, and that solitude thing, You do want someone to notice, but you don't want to make an effort to talk about it, sometimes you feel justified to be depressed.

I haven't been down that road in a long time,...

 

i view depression as not being truly who i want to be and you can't describe it to others. Its the feeling of being thrown into a bottomless pit (endless and neverending emotional aching)

 

You feel completely empty, nothing amuses you anymore. There's a new episode of your favorite show on and you watch it unexcitedly as something to pass the time. Your family/friends surprise you by bringing home your favorite kind of take out food, you aren't hungry. Someone makes a joke at the table, it's hilarious and everyone laughs, you just sorta smirk as to not insult the person who told the joke.

Yeah, it sucks.

 

Having been through it for years, I believe the above summarizes it most accurately, at least for me anyway.

All the best.

 

For me it was intense pain, emotionally, because I was pretty deep into a major depression.

However it started of like a minor depression. I would isolate, spend my days doing meaningless things. Finding that things that I used to take pleasure in no longer brought up any actual joy in me, and it was all just about passing time. I slept too much, some days I didn`t sleep at all. People would talk, I would pretend to listen. I felt like I didn`t really care. Like my days were this well I kept having to climb out off, until it came to the point where I no longer bothered, and moved back home. There I would have this constant feeling that something had gone wrong, that I was supposed to not be alive, and that somehow nothing could get better, because I wasn`t meant to be there.

At some point, it went from numbness and darkness to downright emotional pain. Just breathing made me feel a sort of grief. I hated that I was still alive, yet so many people out there who smiled, had valuable life, died in meaningless accident. I`d pray for a meaningless accident to happen to me. The only thing that stopped me from doing something, was because I knew it would destroy my family.

So, depression can be a lot of things, and it usually has stages. It can go down in a quick spiral, or it can develop gradually over time. But the symptoms usually are social isolation, either physically, like you stop calling/picking up calls from friends, you don`t attend social gatherings, you stop taking that weekly shopping trip with a friend, to the more emotional detatchment, where you still hang around with friends, but you feel like you`re not really there with them, that nothing they say is interesting or awake any emotion in you. Like the statue in the room feeling.

Change in sleeping patterns. It can be from not sleeping, just lying awake, to sleeping all the time, always feeling tired and unmotivated.

Simple things, like taking a shower, caring about appearance can become very insignificant, sometimes when the depression gets worse you don`t even want to!

Eating problems. You may find that you comfort eat, eat to try and feel better, or lose appetite.

All those things are symptoms of depression.

From your description, I would definitely say you are in a negative spiral, although I am not an expert, and you cannot get diagnosed online. It sounds like you have been living with this for a while, and I understand that it is difficult. The turning point for me came when I realized I just couldn`t live my life that way. We only have the one life, and we have to make the best of it any way we can. The situation seem really bad to you right now, but whether we are in a negative emotional spiral, or in a deep depression, there`s always hope to turn it around. Picture your life in five years from now, and consider how you want it to be. Then start taking the steps to get there.

You are an unique individual, we all are. You are not your best friend, not should your emotions depend on your success compared to him. If we compare ourselves to others all the time, we are bound to be disappointed, because we will have friends who`ll succeed somewhere we don`t. And sometimes we`ll succeed were they don`t. The important thing is that we only deal with our own shadow, no one elses. I think going to a counselor or a therapist (cognitive) could help you. If you are still in school, talking to a guidance counselor, or something similar would be a good start. It`s important to talk about your feelings, and not hide them away. If you just hide, and never reach out, no one can help you. We can give support here, but you should recieve some from those close to you as well. Can you talk with your parents about things like this? Close siblings? Any of your friends? Don`t sleep-walk. Be honest about your feelings.

Believe me, the faster we start working on getting to a better emotional place, the faster we`ll get there. I waited 2 years. It was 2 years I could have spent getting better.
Don`t wait, it`ll only spiral further.
(*hug*)

 

So true ... so freaking true...