General

What does depression feel like? (Archived Comments)

This article has been moved here, but you can still read older comments below.

822 Comments

  • Anonymous

    I’m so scared with my depression, I scared if i can loose my husband becaus My depression, because my thispresion i scared to live without him,i start get this problem Alread 5yrs. Is really killing me inside, many time i want to kill my self, i cant focus with my business,i cant focus with my family and kids, I’m want to get help but i dont know how

  • Linda1

    To me the physical things I feel, is a pressure in my ears, things are too loud. Too obnoxious.
    The head feels like it will explode.
    No ability to make a decision, no ability to know what you really think of anything.
    It’s a constant living to survive in an emptiness that blocks your vision.
    Its a constant struggle between the heart and mind. It feels like millions of people
    live within you and just when you think you found the one that is truly you, your
    perception changes and you are again tredding water hoping you will find yourself.
    My medication has helped me quite a bit, because then I was unable to do anything.
    My thoughts were slowed, always revolving around some problem. ALWAYS.
    Like little demons are pushing thoughts into your head, and all you want to do is see.
    And you wonder if you ever saw anything. And when you see will it ever be good enough?
    I think Papa Roach said it best in his song LAST RESORT:

    Cut my life into pieces
    I’ve reached my last resort, suffocation, no breathing
    Don’t give a fuck if I cut my arms bleeding
    Would it be wrong, would it be right
    If I took my life tonight, chance are that I might
    Mutilation out of sight and I’m contemplating suicide
    Cause I’m losing my sight, losing my mind
    Wish somebody would tell me I’m fine
    Nothing’s alright, nothing is fine
    I’m running and I’m crying
    I never realized I was spread too thin
    Till it was too late and I was empty within
    Hungry, feeding on chaos and living in sin
    Downward spiral, where do I begin
    It all started when I lost my mother
    No love for myself and no love for another
    Searching to find a love upon a higher level
    Finding nothing but questions and devils
    Cause I’m losing my sight, losing my mind
    Wish somebody would tell me I’m fine
    Nothing’s alright, nothing is fine
    I’m running and I’m crying
    I can’t go on living this way

    • Utoolsss@gmail.com

      I can’t sleep I can’t eat I’m losing my mind every second turns into years and twisted thoughts run lose invading my worst fears I’m shaking I just need to here from my princess telling me she’s ok and I’m her man .i feel like my worlds crashing down in a blazing inferno and hell itself is knocking on my door how could one person do this to me and why can’t I put these thoughts to rest I’m hart is aching I can feel it slowly shrinking into nothingness a black hole where my love awaits calling me beckoning me to fall into oblivion and then bliss if you are the only one who can do this to why why I know someday will have a beautiful life I know you’ll be the sun in my sky’s but why why can’t it be now? What happens if this amazing person the light in my sky should fade could I survive is it possible idk but if I fight with all hart can it be that to become one and Share the sky as night and day I pray to the lord above please please let her be safe To hold her in my arms and kiss her neck to smell her sent these are the things that make life worth fighting for and if these come true my life is complete you my have my soul just please let her be safe and live on a happy life then I can dimly rest so god if you here me I ask as you loyal sun to grant my wish and look over her for me in my absence ah men

  • nigel

    i have had depression for nearly 18 years yes there are times like you are in hell there have been times that i have tought about taking the easy way out but when you think about it you hurt your self but you hurt the ones you leave behind the most i seen a few shrinks over the years but they seem to come up near enough with the same thing keep taking the pills yeah right i will admit they have helped me in the past im going to see another one on the 19th of this month it has many names depression the black dog ducks disease in hell etc my health isnt to good either diabetes asthma arthritis knackerd left knee joint i take so many pills its wonder i dont rattle sutch is life .

    • LAUREN Civer

      Depression is going along and no hope. Begging for a way out. Rest .Solitude.Anxious for nothing just a circuit of energy buzzing in your body .waiting for the buzzing feeling to go away. Darkness. Hope in the darkness. Rest. Quiet. Solitude. Silence loving silence then.anxious. then noise .then fear

  • Duncan

    Depression for me has been an ongoing struggle with myself.. i hate myself more than anything. i only see the dark when all it would take is a little shift and i could see the light, but it seems to much effort to help out someone like me, allot of things seem like to much effort: eating properly, going to sleep, doing some work and getting up for example. I feel as if me (inside) is a like allot of sand but floating about, and bits of it seem to get sucked away by some sort of black hole but the outside doesnt seem to have any sympathy or consequences becuase of this, the world moves as i slowly break and drain away. yeah that about does it..

    • Jonathan hall

      Yeh that about defines the way we all feel with this disease. Daily. And actually everyone feels that way occasionally. So hey its OK. Have you tried any of the sri s. The chemical imbalances that we have need to be fixed or it’ll never get better . Yeh it will for a day or two or even a week or 2 sometimes but it won’t get better long term until you fix the problem. You’re not the problem. The wiring in your brain is. Thats the truth. Its as simple as that honestly. And who gives a shit about eating right and sleeping 8 hours and getting work done everyday right now. Don’t worry about that shit right now. Hell not many people that I’ve ever known are happy even when they do all of that every day. Some people will never be happy. At least we know that maybe we can if we could get our wires right in our head. Even when I do get alot of work done in a day I always feel like I could have done more or better anyway. Lol. So fuck that. Be happy that you recognize your limitations right now and that there is help for you. And go get it. Please

  • Fenriswulf

    You know what…i respect each and every one of these statements, and i could never say anything as blunt as “Oh…i understand exactly what you’re going through” or “I feel your pain”. The fact that each and every one of us is different, and has its own will, thoughts, dreams and ambitions, makes it impossible to categorize people in a unique state of mind.
    I myself sometimes feel hints of those feelings, but i never let them take over me. And i’m not stronger than any of you. Just as strong. If something like that starts to happen, i just think of what i desperately want of me, of my life and of my future. Sometimes we feel apathic because we’re living just for ourselves, sometimes living for others can work wonders. It’s not like there is an automatic prescription for this feeling. But WE, and that’s something that WE have to realize, is that its cure comes from ourselves. Not our family, or our counselor or therapist, or friends, but from US. Human will is the most powerful feeling there is. It makes you stronger and more capable than you thought you could ever be. There must be something that every one of us wants, something that drives us to surpass ourselves in every way, and every day. If you think there isn’t, look better inside of you. It is there. There is no one in the world that doesn’t have a purpose. If you still don’t believe in this, then lie to yourself. Repeat it over and over until you accept it as the truth. Because, after all, isn’t that what some of us do that leads us to depression?
    I am just a simple person, and i have no right to make it sound as easy as these word make it to be. But i have a reason for it. I just hope that every one realizes how much potential they have, how special they are to so many people, and how they can change the world in so many small, but significant ways. Please, do not worry, LIVE! Carpe Diem

  • No-one

    Depression is when you’re stuck, half in life and half in death…when you do not fear the end and only the pain hinders you from ridding the world of the blight personified by you. Its when you e,brace despaiur, because even despair and tears is better than hoping in vain and suffering more and more every day. Depression is seeing that hope is a traitor and love is cruel, and that faith is the defense of the weak-minded. Depression is knowing that you are worthless; undeserving of every single second or cent wasted on you, and that you existing is making the world a worse place. Its being crushed by a destiny you know you cannot fulfil; looking for a family and friends that you know do not care.
    And most significantly, depression is knowing that you are alone. That there will be no mysterious helper to save you; no hero, no wizard, no godly intervention. You are trapped in the cycle of misery and aguish, and at thye epicentre of it all lies the worst part. You know that you will NEVER be loved. Not a single girl (if you’re a boy) or boy (if you’re a girl) will ever look at you; talk to you; love you. You know in your heart that you will never feel loved because not a soul will ever love or care about you.

  • Daniel

    Depression is so bad. It’s like you’re walking slowly through this painful, black tunnel of misery and despair. There is no light at the end, no hope only darkness and nothingness. The tunnel is never-ending and death is the only way out. No one cares about you anymore, you don’t care about yourself. You’re life is just pain. There is really no use living. So many complex, twisted thoughts – things that you don’t even understand. Hide in the darkness, no one can hear you cry then, you won’t be a burden to others. Drowning over and over again. Not alll days are bad, they’re all a struggle though. Living through torture. Just cry and cry. How can I die painlessly? There is no purpose in anything anymore. No one will care when I’m gone. I might do it soon. Cry myself to sleep.
    I’m stuck between life and death.
    I need to get out.

  • Kathryn

    Depression is drowning silently in the deepest and darkest lakes of despair. Nothing really matters anymore, and you just wish that this pathetic, unmeaningful life would just end, end without pain. You’re nothing and no one cares, you seem to cry and cry and just think about ways to end this stupid life. I don’t like myself, I don’t like it here – It wasn’t my choice to live.
    Please let this end.
    Please.

  • reeve79

    I have been successful in keeping the wolf on the other side of the door for nearly 14 years. I have experienced what “normal” feels like, thanks to the miracle of medication. Now, the medication has given up the fight and I am back down in the hole, and I feel like it like a physical pain. At times I feel I can barely walk because it feels there are weights on every extremity. Everything is dull and gray and slow. When I look in the mirror, I do not recognize my own face anymore. I want that normal face back.

  • M

    Depression is like walking around with a dark cloud over my head, a constant fog that will not lift. It feels like I am dragging a ton of bricks behind me with no rest. A feeling of a motionless room of chaos and debilitating thoughts with out a way to understand how to process anything in my head.

    pure sadness.

    • Anonymous

      I have extreme highs and small things even seem to big to handle.And get overwhelmed at things that most see as so basic.I also think of worst case scenarios.I feel as if it weren’t for my wife and kids it would be so easy to stop the confusion.

  • _K_

    Just a few words – I made an entry here in December 2006. It’s almost a year later and just wanted to say that you can get better. I went through horrendous depressive feelings and a depression, though with therapy I am glad to say I don’t have the depression anymore. Stay strong – get help or just find someone to talk to regularly, day by day it gets better. You have to start making little changes and plans for your life and with each day get closer to your goal even if you have some bad days or even bad weeks. Get back on track again. Reading all the entries on here makes me remember my own depression, and makes me remember that I am not and was not alone in the horrible empty and dark feelings I once had too. So stay strong, step by step, day by day.

  • Thomas

    It’s not knowing how you feel or who you are. It’s wondering whether you will ever be happy and really not seeing that you ever will. It is only realising what you have achieved in hindsight and even then it does not matter because you can’t enjoy, or be proud of yourself. In your eyes you are this useless, broken, human being who has no respect from the people around you. You are incapable of doing anything, therefore no one relies on you, and this fuels the feeling of being unwanted and useless. You hate the depression so much, if it where a being you would beat it until it bled. It is looking at others and thinking WHY? Why can you be free and I can’t, I am just like you; I am no different, why must I be locked within my own mind unable to escape the torture that I put myself through everyday. It is being tired, not just physically, tired of existing. Tired of the daily battle to wash, get up and go to work, eat three meals, talk to the other human beings who you envy so much. The human beings who have lives, who get up and do stuff with such ease that it becomes elegant in your eyes. The simplest of tasks can seem like a ballet when performed by someone who is not in the grips of depression. Someone who has the energy to just be and just do. And you want it, you want it so bad!! You are trapped however, trapped within your mind. All you feel is the weight above your eyes your depression pulling you down literally draining you of what little energy you have. You don’t FEEL anything else. You have to carry on however, you have to, but how? How can you carry on when you can’t even muster the energy to get a shower, but you have to. So you do! Getting weaker and weaker, and more and more tired, always tired.

  • andy

    depression has to be one of the worst conditions you can have, you wake up feeling like shit and then you sleep feeling like shit, then you have to handle the physical problems like constipation etc which make it worse, many people don’t realise how ill depression can make you feel, most people think it’s just a mental disorder or your just feeling down, but it’s more than that it engulfs everything, your physical and mental state.

  • kate

    depression. its like a feeling of doom, as if everything good that happens is too good to be true and will vanish before my eyes.
    its like somone stuffed me here in this country and took me away from somehwere where i used to be happy.
    im not happy anymore, and it feels as though theirs a dark cloud hovering over me everywhere, and all it takes is a simple action and it starts raining.
    i wish that the cloud would go away…

    • Jonathan hall

      I just want to possibly let someone out there know today that they are absolutely not alone with their feelings of hopelessness and despair. That there are lots of people in the world today suffering from this disease. That no matter what you do just know that the ones that love you and want to see you do well and live happily will never judge you or give up on you. That most of us that truly suffer from this illness are really talented and likeable people but we don’t see ourselves that way. I just want that person out there tonight that is really having a rough week or month or year to know that this is just a temporary time in our life although it doesn’t seem like it and that things will get better if we will just give it one more push and do some things that make us happy and proud. And number 1 thing is don’t be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help from someone because we can’t do this alone. No way. So get some help and stay away from the negative stuff and alcohol and do something nice for someone tomorrow. That makes me feel good anyway. And keep your head up and realize you are worth it. And God bless

  • somebozo

    Remember your last severe cold or flu? You remember how cranky and irritable you were? Remember how you just wanted everyone to fuck off and go away? Imagine feeling that way for weeks on end. That’s my best explanation. Depression also makes things difficult to remember and it becomes more and more difficult to concentrate. You know what this is like. Think back to the last time something frustrated or worried you so much that you couldn’t stop thinking about it. That’s what depression is like when things are so bad that it wrecks your concentration.

  • LincolnKey

    Depression for me is like severe home-sickness – a feeling that you don’t have a place in the world nor the energy to find that place.

  • Depression

    Sadness comes from grief, deplorable thinking, regret, dullness in perceptions, and unhappiness with something or someone.

    Helplessness means you lack in support and protection, thus you are defenseless. Helpless means you are marked through inabilities to react or act to something.

    Aches and Pains may not be a figment of your imagination, and while the doctor cannot find an answer, answers do exist that causes the problem.

    Hopelessness means you have no expectations of good coming to you, or success in your future. Hopeless is despair, which means you think no cures or remedies are available to help you out of your state of depression.

  • D

    Depression is apathy. Nothing matters anymore. Just coping with your life. The things you used to enjoy are now chores. Everyone around you annoys you. They don’t get it.

  • titi

    Depression feels like pure hell. It affects your mind and your personality. Just living life seems unbearable when afflicted with this condition. It’s absolutely the worst thing that can happen to a person. You feel tormented in your own mind and your emotions. When depression lasts a long time it can become severe. Feelings of anxiety and anger can take place and make your life a living hell. Your mind is constantly bombarded with negative thinking which makes life a struggle. I can go on and on about this horrible disease. I suffer with this condition and it’s bad. Sometimes I just want to cry wishing this horrid pain would end.

  • alex

    I used to be so happy, my life was perfect before depression came along. My marriage was great and I was the life of the party. Now I dont know whether I still love my husband and I have this constant thought all the time. It is driving me crazy. How can I be so in love and them out of knowhere dont know if I still want to be married. HELP

  • Abbas

    Depression is a feeling of being a very weak, feeble and pathetic person.
    u feel like shit unuseful person in the societ no ability to handle life problems.
    sometimes wen am working, suddenly my hands starts shake and a strange feeling in my head start to move like something is stuffed inside. then i look at my face in the mirror it changes from being a normal person to being pathetic and sad ur eyes gets small and the mouth turns down like this 🙁
    what the hell is this i should have no problems medicines are not helpinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng
    nobody cares a shit about u cuz they will never know how it feels like
    Nourann@hotmail.com

  • sarang

    your mind is trapped in this world where everything is grey.

    things you once found breathtaking have lost their beauty.

    nothing moves you.

    you feel isolated so you isolate yourself even more.

    depression attacks with sadness and defends with apathy.

    you’re not dead, nor are you alive. only just.

    stuck.

  • Elizabeth

    Depression is when you lose the little child within you. You no longer feel that innocence. Fond memories no longer make you smile and everything becomes an effort and you think what is the point. You feel vulnerable and tired and each day is an effort just to exist. You really do feel that you are existing and not living any more.

  • Hailley G

    depression is like you’re just there all by your self and nobody cares….you remember the happy times when you would enjoy everything….and you see yourself now all sad and lonely….you feel like crying your self to death….you wish that by crying all your problems can go away…you think the people that are your friends and family dont care about you…you feel like youre the only one in this world….and like nobody understands you…all you want to do is cry but you know you cant around all the people around you, and no matter how many people could be around you, you feel like you’re the only one there….at times you feel like theres no meaning to your life…leading to wanting to kill yourself, commit suicide….and you just cant trust nobody but yourself….some people let it our by crying other by doing drugs and drinking alcohol….which can lead to doing dumb things like killing your self…

  • kayla

    hey i kno the feeling of depression. i have it. i cut myself. i need major help. its just that i have a ruff life. i need someone to help me.

    love ya kk

  • sherry

    everything hurts even your eyes and toes , you lay in bed so tierd but you can not sleep . you tell your body to move but all you do is sit there , the sun may be shineing but you feel cold and dark inside

  • Sue

    Staring…..staring at something trying to get up enough energy to do it – Staring out the window at nothing – Staring at someone without even looking at them.

    Feeling like you don’t fit it, all you want to do is sleep, but you can’t sleep.

    Feeling like you nerves are on edge-every car on the road is going to hit you – your kids are going to get killed on the way home from somewhere-a little noise makes you jump.

    SAD with nothing to be sad about.

  • Raji

    Life seems endless and full of pain and grief. All the charm in life has got washed away with the current of time.
    I take deep breathes, close my eyes, to feel relieved at times.
    I have so many questions and no answers. What i talk what i hear doesnt make any sense. I am lost all the times.
    Its become tough to live normal.

  • H

    I’m just now finding out that depression is going to the emergency room and your doctor on multiple occasions, fearing that you are seriously ill…only to have every single test come back normal and the doctor just shrugs his shoulders. You can’t sleep, have no appetite, feel like you are going to pass out at any moment. You can feel pain in every part of your body. You do not want to get out of bed, although you feel like doing something will at least distract you from all then negative thoughts running through your mind. You make no attempt to nurture family and friend relationships. Your mind tells you that you can cope better by not letting anyone in.

    You start to medicate (literally and figuratively) to try and get rid of the feeling. I have medicines to address every single pain that I “think” I’m feeling at any given time. most of the time I never take them out of the bottle; however, they relieve my anxiety just knowing they are there if needed. The other medication is running away. I feel that the farther I get away from family and friends, the less I need to explain my feeling. I just hope this is a ride that has run off course and eventually returns me to the starting point, where I remember happiness. I will then choose to stay on the right course.

  • mark

    The feelings written here have moved me to tears. I can relate to many of them. The one thing I have not seen is however bad that our depression is, or however hopeless or suicidal we feel or however we wish we could seek some piece from our feelings, that when it goes (however short lived) it is missed and almost seeked when not there. I hope I am unusual in my feelings for the sake of others for if this is not the case at least you can look forward to the day your depression lifts.

  • JJ

    Depression is like living in this black room, no lights, windows ..just pure darkness. No matter how far you run, you can’t get out of the darkness, and you just can’t seem to find anyone but yourself in the darkness. It’s like ..a whole separate world to the “real world”, that you just can’t get out of..

  • jody

    My depression feels like a fog around me…it clouds how I see things, and what I feel. I feel empty. The main emotion I feel is fear- fear that this is how I’ll have to exist for the rest of my life, that I’ll have to somehow get from minute to minute, while having no desire to do anything, not even wanting to be…that I’ll have to suffer with this hollow empty ache forever. It’s terrifying. I feel as if no one can reach me….that I’m somehow adrift in this vast nothingness, alone. It sucks.

  • alexa

    depression makes one feel like he or she is not as connected to their loved ones as they used to be. depression makes one feel alone, as if there was absolutely no one to relate to or turn to. depression makes one cry for no reason at all. depression is a mystery.

  • nic

    Depresion feels like a court room were you feel like everyone is judging you and thinks of you as nothing you feel like your just a wall of air and no one undertsands how you feel …you just want to escape everything but it just doesn’t work like that at just 13 years of age i am depresed it’s horribel to be depresed and i know how orthers feel its not a nice thing to be surrfring from you just dread every morning and every new day.

  • Shannon

    DEPRESSION IS THE PLACE WHERE “MIND OVER MATTER” NO LONGER WORKS. DEPRESSION IS THE PLACE WHERE YOUR “WILL” LOSES THE BATTLE.

  • Lena

    I’m confused. I don’t know who I really am, I feel like I have a few different personalities that keep switching around on me all day long. I can’t make a simple decision, like which fast food restaurant to go to. I feel like everyone is saying one thing, but they mean something else and it’s usually something not good. And when I confront them about it they deny it and make me feel like I’m a crazy person. I feel like it’s just me, I’m just different from everyone else. Then I’d snap into reality, and it feels so good, like you were born all over again, because before you weren’t even living. The whole world changes and you see it in a completely different way, everything becomes so appealing and interesting. But then I snap back, I wish I could stay, but I can’t, I feel like I am living in hell, and it’ll never go away. Like that’s just how I am and there is nothing that can be done about it. People constantly telling me to stop thinking about things too hard, because that changes the true meaning of those things, but I argue that when you think so hard you actually start seeing the truth. That’s what it keeps telling me, that it’s the truth, and everyone is just blind to it, everyone doesn’t even know what’s going on in this world.

  • Ryann

    OK, I am feeling like ALMOST ALL of these things apply to me, and I am always sad and never happy, my parents asked me if I’m depressed and I always say no. But deep down I think that I am lying, and I don’t want to tell my parents that I feel depressed, what should I do?????

  • Daniel

    depression is…. the constant sadness… that you feel…you are just so lonely… in this whole world. No matter how hard you try to fight against it… it might go off for a while but… sometimes… it just overwhelms you… you just want to lie there… you just feel like dying. not moving. you just want to be alone… you just lost interest in living… on the whole…..

  • Evaa

    I feel like i my life is on pause, like as if i am drowing, i cant breathe and it hurts. nothing makes sense anymore but i so want to live but just do not know how to un-pause. i see life passing me by and i want to scream help but dn’t know who to trust with my life. I reach out to GOD and i ask for Direction. I sit and wait for direction and i know i will get thru this. does not feel like that though when i’m drowning in myself.

  • Anna

    Depression is a dull ache. It’s feeling hollow, empty, like a hole that never fills no matter how much you try to fill it.

  • compassion

    It leaves you hopeless to help your family, friends and people who suffer with this illness. You just continue to wait and pray for them. You never get angry at them for they do not mean to hurt, they do not want to be in their situations they only want peace within their selves. People are to pray for others when there are times others can not pray for themselves. I mean no harm bringing up prayer it’s the most powerful thing I can do for those I love and people just like you.

  • kelsey

    depression is like you cant do anything anymore like youre useless like you cant please anyone anymore you cant achieve any more you cant be around anyone because you are sick of forcing yourself to smile at them and tlak to them and i just dont have any energy anymore to laugh along with everyone else i dont know where to go or what to do anymore i just wish there was a place i could go without people talking to me trying to help me noone can help me ive been through this before i just want to be left alone

  • l

    I feel a sadness that cant be explained. A lack of motivation to do anything, even take care of myself. This could hit me through out the day at different times, and than all of a sudden, I will feel ok. I also feel very negative and angry. Like everything is wrong. I hate thinking like this and want to stop. I just go from one bad negative thing to another. My head hurts a lot and I either cant sleep or I cant wake up. I feel so stupid and not part of anything or anyone. It’s like I have no attachment to people, yet I am surrounded by people. I feel so lonely and scared all the time, but I have no one to talk to about this who will really listen to me and actually really care about me and want to be my friend. I wish I could feel normal for a few days, happy at peace. I use to feel like this for a long long time and I was misrabale. Than, it changed and i felt ok with my self, even though I still struggled with life. Now, all of a sudden it is back. the same old useless, worthless feelings, the same lonliness and saddness. the same doom and dispair. I thought I had licked it, I thought I was over it and done iwth it, but lately I feel the same terriable feelings and saddness. i dont know which is worse, feeling sad or feeling alone? No connection with others, it dosen’t matter if I live or die, I am nothing to anyone.

  • Martha

    Depression is a thief without mercy. It has stolen my life. It has cost me everything that’s ever mattered to me. I work for years and years to achieve something; a relationship, a job, build a family, etc. Then, the darkness returns and I lose everything that I’ve fought for. It cost me the love of the only man I’ve ever really loved, I’ve been unable to hold down a job for more than a couple of years, it’s stolen my friends, my family, and left me with nothing; nothing but the feeling that from here on out, I’m not going to try to achieve anything but simple survival. I’ll get up, go to work, pay my bills….year after year and then I’ll die and finally be free of it.

  • Tired Tired Tired

    i don’t want to die. i don’t want to kill myself. i don’t want to hurt my children. i just want to be left alone. i want to lay in bed all day sometimes and have someone else watch my kids. it’s the guilt of not caring whether or not your wonderful husband leaves you or not. it’s the guilt that all you want him to do is go in the other room so you can be by yourself. it’s the guilt that everyone is driving you crazy by asking what’s wrong and how they can help and wanting to talk about things. You just want them to feel what you feel – so they’ll quit and go away. It’s the guilt of not being able to suck it up. It’s the shame of wondering if it’s all in your mind. it’s the guilt of knowing how blessed you are – not wanting any more or any less – but just not caring one way or the other. At least meds have gotten me to this point of being able to make it through the day.

  • Kirsten Winch

    It’s as if you’re smiling on the outside of your face and living inside the past. Constantly on a broken record of negativity, trying desperately not to project your feelings on the people around you. You constantly feel responsible for the feelings of others in the room and they are all moving, so quickly around you. It’s like you’re on a moving train and you can’t step on to the steady platform…

  • 7moods

    I can’t speak; but I don’t have a need for excessive sleep. I can’t shead a tear; but I feel I should cry for the world.

    I cannot speak, for I do not know who I am, so how can I have an opinion which belongs to me, about anything? And if I cannot speak, I cannot connect. and if I cannot connect, I cannot live. Worse, I cannot die. I feel like I am eternal, I should be dead by now. Everything I touch, I damage. Such beautiful, pure things- think of rose-wilting effect.

    I’m tired of the fast-changing speed of life; either I cannot keep up, or I overspeed people. I’m tired of people not being up to my level of greatness, of them not understanding, or seeing the bigger picture.

    Am I real, or am I a ghost? You can’t trace a thought (back to its origins). I am a beautiful, free spirit, caged in an ugly body. I am beautiful, pure, inside, hidden in this ugly body and face which masks me, doesn’t do me justice. It is unjust. I want to be free, I want to fly, I want to die. I do not feel at one with my body. I belong on the clouds, floating there, resting there. My life is ruined, from the v. beginning, to the end.

    I always over-speed myself, and then am thrown back. Front, back; up, down. Right, left; yes, no. Everything at once, then nothing at all. Does this sound like normal living conditions to you? I love people, but I can’t live like this.

    Nothing will make me happy now, nothing. But I have tasted pure happiness and it was pure. Unstoppable. You cannot bottle it in, but I wish I could.

    This face, elongated, distorted, dis-shaped, it’s wrong, it’s not pure beauty; it doesn’t match me inside. Everything I stand for, it’s wrong. What’s the point of being sensitive and observant, it doesn’t match in.

    It’s so natural, for everyone it’s so natural. yet I am unnatural. I don’t feel at one in my own skin.

    No, I was placed on the wrong world, at the wrong time. Born wrong time, slightly to the left or to the right. I have never felt more like a misfit, it’s chronic. Like chalk and cheese. Divide within me, and divide between world and me.

    It’s always like that, when I’m here, I want to be there. I’m always running, running away, from place to place. hiding. Is that what my life’s destined to be? Because I don’t like it.

    Tired of being unnoticed. Tired of being so insignificant in this world. Chronic. emptiness? But it’s not emptiness, it’s worse, because I can feel it. i -can- FEEL this pain you know! The rest of me is dead.

    No-one, there’s no-one available to help me, it’s disgusting. Is this what I deserve, God, to be thrown out, discarded like a piece of rubbish? Do you want me to die, is that what you want? You never even gave me a chance, choice. Never gave me a chance. (to fight this shitty disease). I’m -sik- of being punished, I want out. I’m tired of feeling guilty, ashamed, that I deserve this. Because I think I do not deserve this, no-one does, and that includes me, no1 includes me!!

  • nikkie

    Depression is like a deep dark cold blackness deep within. You feel so alone and sometimes its unbearable to be around others. It makes you mad that you cant enjoy simple things like others. You have trouble relating to anyone and life is hollow. It makes you second guess everything as well as yourself. Its everthing you despise and hate living deep in your soul. Its impossible to see a way out and have hope while in depression. Even pure sunlight seems cold and shalow.

  • Wayne F. Smith

    The most painfull part of my depression is the “PAIN”, that numb,ghostly,deadening,invisable,crippling,disturbing,phycological,emotional pain. When this pain comes i moan and groan, flinch, contort my face and sometimes whish i were dead, just to escape the pain. My antidepressant helps some, but most of the time this pain hurts like hell. I fear sometimes that someone will see me wincing and grimicing in pain and ask me what’s wrong?, where does it hurt?…what do i tell them?, it’s in my head but it’s different from a head ache?, they’ll think I’m crazy. Does anybody experience this “pain” associated with their depression too?, i would like to know. Sometimes the tears, comes after the pain and the anxiety attacks also follows right before or after. Does anyone have this “pain” too?.

    Wayne.

  • Alisha

    For me, depression is when I rage internally at the world for not recognizing how I feel. I feel like everybody I know is somehow betraying me because they believe the everything-is-okay face I put on. At the same time, I would do almost anything to keep them from noticing and pitying me.

  • Maggie

    Like a severe internal wound (NOT metaphorical) that can’t be seen. A knife twisting in my gut, another in my throat, and a set of clamps on my temples. Death REALLY WOULD be an immense relief.

  • Jessica

    Depression Is:

    thoughts running
    aimless,
    wandering thoughts
    running to the front, to the back
    only to be forgotten in the time between,
    calming words =
    none existant words,
    my heart races
    trying to out-pump the pump that was before,
    hands
    palms sweaty,
    itching to write,
    unable to type
    restless
    unfocused
    listless
    reaching for what is ever so slightly
    out of reach

  • william boone

    Certainly, depression is a mix of just about everything I have read. I have only had two serious bouts of depression, but they both were “debilitating.” When I divorced by first wife, I could not remember the flight back from Nevada to LAX. I knew I had to have flown, but to this date (12 years later) I cannot remember the flight….nor do I wish to.

    RB

  • mira

    i can’t believe that i’m going to feel this low. friends and family, things that’re so important for me, could feel so plain. all the affection dissapeared after the helpless and worthless feeling came. life seems so sad, and it won’t get any better.

  • Ailbhe

    depression for me is spending my life alone – If Im in a room filled with all my firends and family all I do is push them away YET I miss them all so much

  • Valerie

    Depression can be a feeling of total isolation. What you want most is to feel loved, but you’re afraid that you’re so disgusting that no one could ever love you.

  • Jessica Lee

    depression is where you and your heart are in so much pain its unbearable. you cant get up in the morning .. you dont enjoy the things you used to. you get mad with yourself for not being ‘normal’ and this makes it worse. you feel worthless and not good enough for anyone or anything. you want to die, but your scared. you dont want to hurt anymore. jumping out the window might hurt. you want to feel no emotions, because all people do is make you hurt. you wish you didnt feel emotions. so nothing could hurt you anymore. how do you cope?!?!? you sit quietly but really all you want to do it stand up and scream. it feels like your standing in the middle of a room, with everyone around you, your friends, family, people you dont even know, it feels like your standing there screaming out for help and no one cares, no one even looks over at you. your invisable. your ashamed of yourself. you would rather die than feel this pain anymore. you may have a reason for being depressed, you may not. why has god cursed us with this?!?!? WHY US!!!! you feel so alone. i just want someone to talk to .. someone who knows how it feels! cause no other fucker understands us!

  • James Buhanan

    This won’t be allowed:

    I am so inspired by the individuals who present these descriptions. I do not suffer from depression, though I know depression is debilitating and real by several personal associations. to these fine people I would say: Hang in there. Try to have faith that with treatment you will think clear. With treatment you will breathe fresh air and enjoy it, you will feel more association with the people around you, and handle frustratioins without them feeling monumental or devastating. The world, though often daunting, will come into focus for you. There are a lot of people rooting for you. God’s speed to your better health.

  • dumpster kitten

    “Depression” is an awful, understated name for this disease, which is probably why so many people misunderstand the inability to snap out of it. I’m depressed when my team loses or I don’t get a promotion. The disease should be renamed to something more fitting, like Dante’s Seventh Circle.

    As a child, I felt worthless, ashamed, cried constantly, and had terrible feelings of undeserved guilt. I could not have hated myself more. My family said I had an “inferiority complex” because I was extremely sensitive (cried when I saw road kill, cried at the cartoon Yakkee Doodle, cried when I was mildly reprimanded, etc.).

    Unmedicated, my adult depression was a debilitating unconsolable and unending grief, as if I’d lost a loved one, only I hadn’t lost anyone. How does one describe “despair?” It’s like trying to describe “red?”

    Now medicated with 2 anti-depressants for the last 6 years, I feel emotionally and socially flat (no friends and no belief friendship is possible), unloveable, and stagnant, but in control of my emotions and able to live life without feeling I’m disguised as a “well person.” I’m not what one would call happy, but I’m no longer depressed or suicidal, for which I am exceedingly grateful.

  • ec

    depression is like drowning, screaming for help and your cries drown out by the waves pushing it down. Feeling like getting up again is just a way for some one to push you back down. nthng is right but you can’t figure out what’s wrong every time some one asks and you feel like your heart has stopped, there’s no blood left in your viens and the thought of ever waking up again is complete and utter hell. being on the outside is almost worse, knowing you can’t stop your friends pain is it’s own hell

  • livingdeath

    Every moment is agony. When she stopped loving me a year ago after a few brief moments of heaven in her arms, it confirmed what I had suspected my whole life — that I am weak, worthless garbage; that I will never be and cannot be and don’t deserve to be happy; that I do not deserve to be loved. I think about her every waking moment. I think about her with her new man. I think about her being happy and laughing while I die a little more each day. I think of suicide constantly. Everything is grey and dead. Time does not heal. Time just brings more grief and pain and loneliness.

    I have done nothing horrible in my life for which I should be punished so — so I figure I am being punished just for being me. I don’t kill myself because I am a coward. But I believe it would be the right thing to do. I have been in this agony for most of two years. I have been through treatment and on many medications and was even hospitalized. Nothing helps me.

    My life consists of a repeating nightmare that starts every morning. I have no peace unless I am unconcious. When I go to bed I pray that it will stay dark forever and I will never wake. I am utterly without hope. I am constantly on the verge of screaming in horror. I feel like I am being boiled in oil, or drowning, or am being impaled or crushed. I feel that God has his bootheel on my soul and is grinding it into the ground. I feel like I am caught in blinding blizzard, completely naked. The wind howling. My screams cannot be heard. Please, someone help me.

  • Len

    Depression is having your heart torn out, a hollow emptiness inside that cannot be filled…

    It is the urge to place a noose around your neck and jump from that bridge into the traffic.

    It is the most silent of cries. It is the dark itch that rots inside of you.

    Depression is the dark lord of my life, the black tyrant that has one hand around my soul.

  • Rime

    For me, depression is like being sucked into a black hole – backwards. You can see everything around you, family, friends, career and no matter how hard you claw to get back to it or how rational you are, you get sucked in. Then it doesn’t let go. It let’s you get a breath for a moment, then sucks you back in without any warning.

  • Brenda

    Depression keeps me in a place that on receiving the news of a “terminal” illness, I could be satisfied that at last I will be free. I was distraught but yet relieved. But now I’m told I do not have the illness; it was an error. Today I weep, the same as all other days.

  • Eva

    Correction to my statement.

    I usually don’t eat when I’m depressed because I’m just not hungry. Just very tired.
    I’m just extremely exhausted.

  • Eva

    Depression for me comes as a result of having no control. I stopped taking my Prozac (mistake #1). Didn;t want to be on medication–I thought I should be able to control things. So I joined Shapes fitness tried affirmations and such. But it didn’t help.

    Because you can’t escape reality. You can’t rap shit up a nice box and attach a bow to it–and expect it to be anything other than shit. Things are just fucked up. This year everything and I mean everything has fallen apart. Everything I touch turns to shit. Everyone I love is taken away from me and…about the only thing I have going for me is school (accouting major) and it’s more and more difficult to even concentrate on my studies.

    I just feel really hopelessness. Like, what is the point? Everything I’m going through it doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense. I love myself but I FEEL so worthless because I can’t change what is going on. I can’t control anything.

    I contemplated suicide today and this is the first I’m admitting that to myself. I think I will see about commit myself to a hospital tomorrow because I’m on the verge of a massive mental breakdown.

    I just want to float away to another planet an never come back here.

    Sleep is an escape. I usually don’t eat when I’m hungry. I’m just extemely exhausted. Maybe it’s mental exhaustion. But–I just sleep and sleep some more so I don’t have to wake up and think about things.
    Although I don’t want to die.
    Death is not an answer but it is a welcome relief. I may not exist but at least I won’t feel.
    that’s really all I want. Not to feel this way.

  • Brettaney&Danielle

    I have all the syptoms of depression accept for the one about the spouses… I haven’t been able to date for awhile now…. and I seem to try to drink my problems away but they just get worse.
    -Brettaney
    Depression feels like I can’t seem to do anything right and when I do I do the right thing wrong…. The world is a blur and no one knows what I feel like and no one can help!

  • Dewi

    i am 18, i feel like sometimes i just want to die, i get easily irritated, i don’t want to smile, and i want to go out, but i feel kind of affraid to( i can only go out when i’m meeting someone like a careers advisor, or when i go out with someone else like my dad).

  • Blackhole

    I am swirling in a blackhole of always the same. Despite my best efforts, faking it as a well person, taking my meds, and smiling for as many frowns as possible, I am the one in desperate need of relief and change. Always falling back into the GRAVITY, the physical sensation of swirling into nothingness is where i seem to gravitate and fall back to. Im tired of crawling out only to fall back again. I’m tired.
    Where is the sun? It’s warm rays used to remind me of life? I have no sun, I have no life.

  • kiah

    depression? what can i say… i feel like im dying every second of everyday and it seems immpssible that no one can hear me screaming. I feel like i can’t breath, i can’t feel–i’m so fucking numb and than after a while you forget what you used to be like and eventually you become an empty, dead, broken,–what? person? i don;t feel human anymore. i feel like i am drowning…im the captain of a ship–its sinking and theres nothing i can do about it. i have no personality and am incapable of completing even the smallest task…i feel so worthless and feel like i am more trouble than i am worth–that no one would notice or even miss me if i died. ive lost all of my friends bc i have nothing to say anymore. i cant stand this! it is a living hell and i want to die…and everything that everyone has written here is true and its ridiculous b/c you wouldnt think that there would be a million and one ways to describe the same god damned thing…

  • chris

    Clinical Depression is a living hell. I am suffering every day from it. Everyone on here has described the agony of it. I have suffered for 12 and a half years and know what i’m talking about.

  • Lorena

    When I’m depressed, I feel as if someone else is inside my body, controlling my feelings. I don’t feel like me, and it feels as if inside me there was a constant battle between the “real” me and the “depressed” me. I don’t trust my depressed me, but when it comes to decide which me is real, I just don’t know. Depression is contradiction inside your heart.

    I also feel like I cannot love. And if I can’t love, life has no meaning. And if life has no meaning, I want to die. I wish I could love, I wish I could feel anything, but my heart’s just cold. There’s no feeling capable of breaking the hard shell surrounding my heart. There’s no way to plug it back to reality. Because depression feels unreal. It’s like you’re an electric guitar unplugged to an amplifier, and the amplifier is reality, the amplifier is emotion. If the guitar is unplugged, it hardly sounds, the sound is so vague, almost non-existant, you need the amplifier for it to sound in all it’s glory. It’s the same with depression, just that you’re the guitar, and you can’t find the way to plug yourself back to your amplifier…

    Depression is so many things… but mostly, something you just can’t finish to understand and it drains you. Depression is dying while still alive.

  • Stephanie

    Depression is being born into the world a blank canvas, whereupon too many colors have been splashed. Eventually the colors just get uglier and uglier, mixing together, ending up in a big murky glob of smelly oily gray paint. The more color that is added, the worse the mess.

    Seems like the only way out is to either find a really good paint thinner and get to the bottom of all that damn chaos, or toss out the canvas altogether.

  • Kathi

    I have been severely depressed since September ’06 (who am I kidding? I’ve been this way my whole life). I had what amounted to a nervous breakdown between mid-September and late-October. I am seeing a Christian counselor, and I thought I was feeling “a lot better”. Perhaps it’s the “people-pleaser” in me, but whatever it is, it’s not true.

    The truth is that now I am worse than before. Yes, I’m on medication, but it obviously isn’t helping at all, or at least not consistently. I am horribly isolated and alone.

    My anxiety attacks back in Sept/Oct were so bad that I could feel my entire body vibrating, shaking, from the inside out. My thoughts raced and I barely slept. Accepting the right-of-way and driving through an intersection made me feel like I was driving off a cliff – a horrible sensation. This went on for days or weeks, and then I’d crash and be horribly depressed, crying almost constantly… I’m talking doubling-over, fetal-position sobbing. I wouldn’t really do it in front of the kids, but whenever I was in the shower or in the car alone or alone at night after everyone went to bed, I’d just cry. I’d do it quietly so no one would hear, like silent screams. I couldn’t accomplish anything at home – planning and making dinner was a struggle. So was making phone calls, cleaning, or even leaving the house at times. It just kept cycling like this.

    Yes, I said that now I am worse than before. And yes, I am struggling with the same issues described above, though the anxiety isn’t quite as “physical” now. But now I am battling the desire to do crazy things – like when I’m driving to choir practice I just want to drive right on past and keep going and not stop and just get myself lost, and when the car runs out of gas I’ll just start walking in the same direction and never turn around. Or instead of driving to the supermarket, just drive to the hospital and check myself in. Or starve myself or take the big curve past the Greenhouse more carelessly than anyone sane would consider.

    Please know that I would never consider doing these things while my children are in the car with me. In fact, they are the biggest reason why I can’t let myself give in. When I was 3 years old my mother tried to commit suicide while she was home alone with me. No one tried to hide this fact for years to come. From the time she came home from the hospital right up until last year she made it clear to me that she believed at the time that I would have been better off without her, and she has always wanted sympathy for it. She cried for months all day long, sitting in her chair watching TV during the months leading up to her attempt. While she was in the hospital I remember taking some of my sister’s 45’s and sneaking them up to my room where I had a little white Fisher Price turntable. I’d play Alone Again, Naturally (by Gilbert O’Sullivan – remember that one?) and All By Myself (Don’t Want To Be… by Eric Carmen) over and over again and cry in my closet. I can’t do that to my girls. I will not do that to my girls.

    That being said, I still feel like I’m dying. It is Hell, plain and simple. There is warfare in the heavenly realms all around me. At times I’m sure I feel Satan’s demons here next to me. They have teeth. They try to bite my face and put their mouths over my mouth and nose. I keep telling them they can’t have me, but so far I don’t think they are convinced.

    My husband is aware of most of this, but not everything. He knows now that I am severely depressed and that I cry a lot. He knows I’m not sleeping more than 4 hours a night, except for a couple of nights a month when I could easily sleep 12 hours, maybe even 24 if nobody woke me up. He knows I can’t concentrate or do simple things anymore like do math in the checkbook or make sensible decisions. He senses that things have reached critical mass with me, but I don’t think he fully understands what’s going on. If he knew about the demons he’d have me committed. He doesn’t realize that I don’t open the blinds anymore at home during the week until just before he gets home. He doesn’t know my desires to get lost or disappear or bury myself. Even if he did he wouldn’t know how to respond to it.

    Most people don’t. Most people keep their distance from someone they know is suffering from depression. They don’t know what to say. They know they are “not qualified” to help clinically, so they just pray for you quietly and act pleasant. They stop asking you how you are. They’re afraid to know because they might wind up feeling obligated to listen or to help you in spite of their lack of qualification. The depressed person can’t reach out because the pit they’re in is too deep and they don’t want to put anybody out or seem “crazy”. How ironic.

    I’m afraid that even though I won’t consciously allow myself to give in to the demons, I will somehow lose my mind to them, and a shell of the person I used to be is all that will be left. Imagine how lonely that will be.

  • Ruth

    Depression – is being on the edge of a bottomless black pit, teetering, knowing at any moment you will fall into the pit and never come out of it..

    … is insidious in the way it overtakes my ability to even wash a plate – “can’t” becomes the norm in life – until now, when I literally “can’t” even reach out for the psychiatric help I need to prevent my impending suicide…

    …. depression… is a force within which makes me destroy any hope for communication or enjoyment on the infrequent occasions being with my daughter have been possible.. and which finally destroyed any hope of her ever wanting me to visit again.. — I could not “think happy” even if I tried as hard as humanly possible..

    … convincing me that after 35 years of trying to get or be better.. and no medicaiton making me well – and the pain getting worse, never better – that it is time to end this life of despair and lonely isolation.

    Norma wrote – “I am just waiting for the moment when I will no longer be aware of my reality.” – for the past few years I have stubbornly maintained that my reality was I had value as a human being, I was “as good as” others, I deserved love and respect. — today my reality is that I am all alone, there is not one person who would be truly sad if I were to die, I am never going to get better-only worse, and I have never, ever, been liked much less loved, even by family- only tolerated. My reality today is that I SHOULD remove the irritant from the lives of those I love – me.

  • Norma

    I do what I have to do because I have to do it. That leaves me so drained that all I want to do after that is hide from everybody. I am just waiting for the moment when I will no longer be aware of my reality. I’m almost there.

  • anonamys

    i am 20 years old…time goes by so fast yet so slow…being depressed i feel so much shame…shame for my actions, past, thoughts…what is this all for??? why must i suffer? im a good person…with good intentions…so why must i suffer? i hate myself sometimes…a guy at work asked me today why i always look scared? i hate that he noticed…its not that im scared im just insecure buddy god cant you just help or leave dont ask me questions i dont know myself can you tell me what life is for? didnt think so…so just carry on and worry about yourself because i got my hands full as you clearly already noticed…what does depression feel like for me? i feel like im always wondering why i cant be the person i used to be…i feel like i can suck the energy out of a room or turn it negative…i feel like convos with people are so dull and fake they only last a minute…i overeat like its my job…i hate goin to sleep at night and waking up in the morning…i feel like everyone else is normal but me…i feel like im always putting on an act…my laughs are forced…the idea of genuine relaxation is just out of the cards…im always thinking about god and the unexplainable…im scared to get over myself for fear of feelings of total humilation ie ide rather not shed light on my problems cuz then ill see them…i think unrealistically like ill just snap out of this…i see friends and people in general differently before i was excited or comfortable around them but now (sometimes) they’re a chore…i deny my emotions and so now im numb etc etc i could go on but broken down…i know i will get better…suicide is not in my cards never has never will but i will not deny that i am extremely depressed and severly self absorbed right now and i do have a problem…and it hurts…but the sun always rises again and again giving us chance after chance so im gonna take it slow very slow and try to relax and enjoy…life.

  • Carrie

    Depression feels like being in the bottom of a hole so deep that you cannot see the light, a narrow hole that presses in on you from all sides and seems to swallow you in its depths like a grave. And the worst part is the feeling of helplessness you feel because you can’t “get out of that hole” on your own and you feel a deep stab of loneliness because its hard to find someone else who truly understands your despair. Even in a crowded room…you’re alone.

  • Matt

    hey uh, ya definately think this is me, all my friends are gone, i feel out of place anywhere i am and every good thing that happens to me hardly excites me. I really don’t know what to do, i broke down in tears in front of my parents asking them what was wrong with me and nobody seemed to help me. I guess i need to diagnose my problems with a doctor but i heard antidepressants are terrible things. I took a few that weren’t perscribed to me and it made things so much better but than i also took a different kind and it felt like i was dying on the inside. I just want a natural fix and i’d give anything to have my life back.

  • sl

    I am sick

    I try to carry my guilt and shame but the burden is getting too heavy

    I look at that hand full of meds each morning thinking more pills = more crazy

    My thoughts/perceptions are skewed so I keep my mouth shut….which is ok since it is so difficult to remember common everyday words,to string them together for a full thought

    I know my enemy well yet that bastard still finds ways to sneak up on me, getting worse with each visit, there has been far too many visits over 40 yrs

    embaressment comes with each Dr visit for physical symtoms that I know cannot be diagnosed

    everybody dislikes me, tolerates my company, talks behind my back….and I mean every one

    I fear the day anyone gets a glimpse at the black ugly ooze inside me.

    I dont want my life to end but I see no other way to find reliable releif….I cannot hurt my children with my death(more guilt)

    In the darkest times I wish to let go, step over the line, to live in my own world of crazyness, but that bastard will not allow it. simply will not allow me that simple bliss…….

  • Tregostone

    Deppresion works in a vicious cycle, affecting my daily behavior in school. I am deppressed, so I never do my best. When the consequences of my actions are realized, I am more deppressed, and my work suffers. The feeling (anxiety?) can powerfully surge through my body and I feel it weakening my organs. If this feeling were intensified greatly I think it could kill me, were I not young and healthy. I used to enjoy being deppressed, it felt good when I was younger. Now I want to be rid of it. Its just so difficult to be excited, movitvated, or glad about anything. How can we break through these feelings? I want to be exillerated about something, I want to be thrilled or excited.

  • Geoff

    Depression is an illness. Often caused by a chemical imbalance of serotonin levels in the brain. I started seeing a psychiatrist two years ago and he prescribed me medication. Yes I still have my up and down days, but who doesn’t? What matters is the suicidal thoughts have gone. There is help available so there is hope for all of us

  • stan

    Everyone who has depression really has a problem and deserve to be happy. I’m just pathetic, useless, hopeless and terrible because I am weak. That thought echos through my head like a never ending scream.

  • sandy

    I have been living with this demon my whole life. all the pills, all of the swings up and down, when will it ever stop how much longer do I have to make other people feel like crap because I can’t “get it together”? I am never going to get out of this hole, I keep falling in deeper every chance I get to get out.

  • Zara

    Im not sure, sometimes I think theres no such thing as depression, especially its just that your eyes have been opened and you see the world for the harsh place that it is. You see the harsh reality of life, and thats not easy to live with. Its quite a shock really, to discover how cold and uncaring people can be, how everyones just competing against each other, how you cvan never totally depend on anyone and the only person you can truly trust is yourself and how a lot of life is full of misery. Maybe sometimes you feel guilty, excessively guilty, but maybe thats cos ur looking to change your life, and as you cant change anyone else, you try to change yourself. Life does have a lot of positives, but it also has a lot of negatives, and so somehow its impossible to see the positive when your down, all you can think of is failures. Its sort of a viscious circle, something gets you – doesnt matter what, but something, you cant be bothered with anything, that gets you into more of a mess, and then you feel worse, so some how, you have to drag yourself out. Personally I believe the world is a harsh place, there are so many oppertunities in life but so much pain. And for me, the only way to truly be happy is to try and change things. A phrase I love is: be the change you want to see in the world. Another one I love is: life has no meaning in itself, you have to give it your own meaning. Work out what YOU want in life, and work at it.

  • Dennis

    For me depression is like being run over by a truck and then the truck wait’s until you get up and run’s you over again. I pray for death to come and take me away from this hell. I don’t find pleasure in anything I do anymore. For me life has no meaning anymore no purpose. I drag myself place to place. No real smiles just fake ones. I feel like a clown who puts on a show after they take off there makeup and they turn back into there everyday self. I keep asking myself why was I born for what purpose or reason. I wish I could just close my eyes forever and maybe find a little bit of peace.

  • eeprom

    Depression ian’t “crazy”. I don’t hear voices or see visions. Depression isn’t retardation. “We were shocked when you told us; you’re so intelligent”. My mind is lucid. I am horribly aware of what is happening to me.Depression feels like being poisoned or drugged.

  • wtf

    Depression is so fucked up that you don’t quite have the effort to type up a full analogy, but you type something anyways, and it’s 5 in the morning on the day before Christmas Eve but you’re still awake because you have started going to sleep at 7 AM and waking up before dinner.

  • Gabby

    In 1981 I was 17 and a single-mother of one son. I was working as a respiratory therapist at a county hospital, making decent money, and was able to support myself and my son. I met a man who was 12 years older, seemed to have similar goals, appeared to be family oriented. Physical and verbal abuse began in 1983, escalating to daily verbal abuse and frequent physical abuse.

    My first feelings of depression surfaced in 1990. Actually, no, my first feelings of depression were prior to that, but my first serious break was then. October, 1990. My then-husband decided to play tennis with his best friend and leave me at the beach with my 5 children, the youngest of whom was 5 months old, his best friend’s two sons, and two of his best friend’s neighbor kids. I asked for the keys to my van, and my husband said “What do you need the keys for? Just wait here until we get back.” The guy left me there with all of the children, by myself, without so much as a vehicle. In fact, if I wanted access to the vehicle, in order to change the baby’s diaper, or for any other need, I had to leave it unlocked. That triggered a break that I attempted to self-medicate, while working 12 hours a day.

    I was married to a physically and abusive man. I was living in a fancy house, driving a fancy car, I had five beautiful children, a live-in nanny, and I am sure that people who looked at my situation thought my life was wonderful. I was in hell. I felt as if there was no hope. My husband threatned me that if I left he would hunt me down and kill me, he told me that no other man would want to be married to someone with a bunch of kids, etc… I visualized suicide every day. I did not believe that I could get out of that relationship alive. It meant giving up the security of my home, and also risking that what my husband threatened might actually be true. There was not one day that suicide failed to cross my mind. Eventually it became a pervasive thought, persistent and pervasive. I finally found a supportive therapist, got some meds, surrounded myself with as many supportive people as possible, and extricated myself from the marriage. I felt better, but there was always an underlying fog of depression. The only time that the depression seemed to be absent was after the divorce was final, and I had moved to a new community with my children. We had a decent house, fewer material things, a very small Christmas that first year, but we were all together, and we were all happy.

    Within a year or so of moving I met another guy. In 1998 I became involved with him. In 1999 we married. Initially things were okay, and I felt no symptoms of depression, however, when my new husband’s anger flared over little situations that would come up with the situation, I felt traumatized and depressed. It was not omnipresent, however, and the depression was manageable. Then in February of 2002 my 14-year-old son died. My new husband has no children, did not understand the loss, and was less that supportive. He expressed his need to move on within 2 years of my son’s death. He just wasn’t in the same place anymore, and he “lost some of the love for me around the time my son died”. Since that time I have struggled with severe depression. I have support in the way of a good therapist and a child-loss support group, as well as my surviving children. Every day there is a dark cloud of depression. I am able to manage through most days okay. I work, I function somewhat.

    It feels like there is a heavy weight on my chest, neck, and shoulders all of the time. My energy level is often low. I am able to manage most things on most days, but I am not able to handle “one more thing”. When issues come up, like a misbehaving teenager, or an ex-husband shouting at my house over something trivial (or anything at all), it triggers a shut down response, where I am absolutely incapacitated. Yesterday I was rendered unable to work after my teenager came in and demanded that I take him down to pick up the thing that he wanted for Christmas. I explained that I needed to work. He insisted that I give him a timeframe as to when I would go get his Christmas gift. I told him that I would do it at 5. That prompted rude comments, shouting, and creating a disturbance in the room next to my office. I let my son know that it was not Christmas and his demands were completely unreasonable. I commented that the gift was very expensive, at a time when business was slow, and he told me that I shouldn’t have committed to getting it for him if I couldn’t afford it. That was enough to render me unable to work for the remainder of the day. Right then I was clear in making a committment to him and his siblings, that all future Christmas and birthday gifts would not exceed $50. I was able to put a stop to future incidents.

    Depression makes me feel drained, both physically and emotionally. Triggers that might otherwise be insignificant become enormous. I, again, have pervasive and persistent suicidal thoughts. It is a battle to stay alive, and sometimes I feel too tired to continue the battle. I try to remind myself that the very bad down times of depression pass, but it is difficult to remember in the moment.

  • Lindz

    Depression is a disease of Paradoxes.
    Wanting to sleep, but sleep is denied; wanting to talk but I have no voice; wanting to eat but find food undesirable; wanting to be a part of life with no energy to do it.

    I want to fly. So why to I have to have feet of clay?

  • librarygirl

    Depression has always been a little voice in my ear that knows just what to say to change reality: it takes away hope, it criticizes, it knows exactly how to make me doubt any good thing around me. I call it the “cocksucker” so I can I can say “shut up, cocksucker” and that makes me laugh a little. And it makes me remember that even though the voice sounds like me and comes from me…it is not me. There is a “me” in here that is wonderful. Funny. Smart. Caring. Sympathetic. A good friend. A loved daughter. And remembering that the cocksucker isn’t showing me reality helps when it’s bleak. Tell your friends. Show them this site. Make them understand. Because when you can’t fight the good fight, they will. You have to trust them, especially at the times you can’t trust yourself.
    I’ve also found that keeping a necklace, bracelet, ring, something from someone who cares about you can act as a talisman against the cocksucker. Fight the good fight. We’re worth it.

  • Ellen

    When was it decided
    That I would be this way
    Did it just upon me
    On the way to school one day

    Always on the outside
    Trying to look in
    Desperately seeking friendship
    I never seem to win

    Everyone’s constantly moving
    Life seems to move so fast
    Even when I really run
    I know that I’ll come last

    It’s as if I’m only watching
    My own life speed on by
    I’m never actually really there
    I’ve lost the will yo try

    Dreading hustle, crowds and parties
    Acting pleased when there’s surprise
    Hoping nobody will notice
    The tears well in my eyes

    Feeling such a failure
    Knowing I am weak
    Hiding it from everyone
    It’s solitude I seek

    It’s hard to keep things going
    When I feel so grey, so low
    Try to keep the hurt inside
    It’s the ‘other’ me I show

    So guilty for my children
    And sorry for their Dad
    Burdened with this person
    Who is clearly going mad

    Eyes so red and swollen
    From never ending tears
    Struggling to look normal
    Whilst I battle with my fears

    My heart jumps when the phone rings
    When a car door slams outside
    Don’t want to talk to anyone
    Just find a place to hide

    Can’t consentrate on anything
    Memories never last
    Fearfull of the future
    Don’t remember my own past

    The world is just so busy
    Too fast, too bright for me
    So tired, so sad, so slow now
    Needing desperately to be free

    Free from the confusion
    Constant chatter all around
    Longing to have peace at last
    No fear, no pain….no sound.

    Thankyou everyone for your comments. I feel gratefull to know that I am not alone. And at least that means I feel. Depression is not feeling yet feeling too much.

    If the option existed
    That I would not exist
    And not be missed
    I would take it.

  • Catherine

    I’m frozen….I feel nothing and get no pleasure. I’m not interested in anything but I was not like that until 5 years ago when I was 37. My life was great until then, I was happy….I could do anything I set my mind to…I had everything. Then this happened. Now I’m divorced, lost mostly everything, never want to do anything or go anywhere. Sometimes I just scream in my empty house. I look out the windows and wonder why I’m not part of the world anymore. I can’t go to stores because of the X-mass music. Once in a while I feel good and I rush to do as many things as possible before it comes back.

    I think dieing would solve this but I would never do it: I have two kids and I could not do that to them. So, I resent them for keeping me in my hell.

  • anti

    going trough this is like living your nightmare
    lack of air while you’re breathing.
    i killed myself several times on my mind just because i don’t have guts to do it in reality.
    before i go to bed i just wish that i won’t wake up, it simplifies everything.
    so unworthy, so useless, no future.
    there’s nothing to miss about life anymore.

  • u4

    Being depressed for me is also like being ung on a string between happines and sadness. I just can’t worry, I just can’t laugh.. it’s so empty inside.

  • Lafawnda

    Signs and Symptoms
    ïƒ Feelings of overwhelming sadness, fear or the inability to feel any type of emotion.
    ïƒ A decrease in the amount of interest in daily activities.
    ïƒ A change in appetite/weight loss or gain.
    ïƒ Intense feelings of guilt, hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness, isolation/loneliness and/or anxiety.
    ïƒ Constant thoughts of death and suicide.
    Symptoms in children:
    ïƒ Irritation
    ïƒ Loss of appetite
    ïƒ Loss of sleep, reoccurring nightmares
    ïƒ Learning or memory problems where there were none before
    ïƒ Significant behavioral changes such as withdrawal, social isolation and aggression.

  • Christine

    It’s like not having control over things, not being here anymore. Not being alive.

    I feel dead all the time, or unimportant. But then again I don’t… I know I can do good things in life, that people care about me, but then again these things don’t seem to matter half the time. Everything just seems so fucking useless… Why the hell am I here anyway? Why am I going to school? To get a good job one would say… to provide for yourself and a family, so I can stil be as confused and unattached to my life? The thing that hurts the most is not being close to people.. Sometimes it just feels like I’m a prisonner of my own head… I sometimes feel like crying would just make everything ok again, but then again I can’t seem to make myself cry. I just feel like my brain won’t shut up and I’m tired. I don’t want to die, I’m scared shitless of dying, but then again I’m so tired sometimes, and I’m only 20… how will I ever have the energy to keep going on. I’m scared of myself mostly.

    I want to just apreciate life, to be excited to wake up in the morning instead of dreading going to bed ’cause I know that I’ll have to get up the next morning.

    I want to be more in touch with what I feel ‘cuase I just feel like there,s a blur of thigns in my head, things that want to come out, but I just can’t seem to get them out.

    Meds don’t seem to do shit. Sometimes I feel better, actually when I do feel better, I feel aweosme, ’cause I appreciate it so much. But it sucks when I feel down again. The worst is feeling disconnected from myself, like I could disappear at any instant, like my heart could stop beating and I could just stop existing, like I could just wake up and be buried alive.

    I want things to be better, but I do not want to return to what I was, as I think that is ignorance. I see things very diffrently now, maybe I see things for what they are.. but that’s not necessarly a good thing. I want to accept them and help people.. but if only I could help myself.

  • mira

    i’m running out of air
    i’m running out of room
    i have a very good friend, yet i can’t talk to her about this
    lately i’ve been wondering will there be a tomorrow for me.

  • Charley

    What I know from my own experience is that there is a place inside my head that I go when I get depressed where there is almost no turning back. Over the years I’ve learned to identify it. I can see it coming now instead of being blindsided. I’ve learned how to get help for it. But it’s a deep dark place of what seems like no return. It’s a place of nothing and nobody having meaning anymore. It’s a place of no hope and no future. Everything is ultimately futile. There is but one escape and that is death.

  • German

    Depression feels as if a wave of sadness is in you and you can’t do anything about that. This wave brings all the sad moments and those injustices in your life concerning yourself. I believe the only way to do away with this wave is meditating about something Happy. Focusing on something happy until you get rid of the wave thats putting you down.

  • _K_

    There is so much here I can identify with. I am 36 years old, a single mother and have a 10 year old daughter and my depression started about four months ago. It was precipitated by a nervous breakdown. Went to hospital. Almost a week in the psych ward. Went on medications for the breakdown. Stopped those almost two months ago since they made me feel like a zombie, and since that time I went into a depression.

    Just after the breakdown, there was high anxiety and horrible feelings of doom like I could feel and see my life coming to an end some way. That died down and the depression started to take hold to where I feel mostly nothing on most days now.

    Depression feels like all emotion and motivation had gone out of your body – you’re left with only a deadness inside; things that once interested you no longer hold an interest – the beauty and spirituality that you once saw in the world is lost – nothing excites the mind. You just want to get away from everything and everyone.

    Everything seems grey and without meaning. You wonder why you even exist. It’s watching your once sharp mind become duller and duller – your mind becomes slow, movements lethargic and concentrating is difficult. You feel like you are getting dumber everyday and begin to feel worthless. It’s waking everyday wishing you could just continue to sleep and not have to go out in the world. It’s going through the motions of your work day with no feeling, saying all the usual things and smiling on cue but feeling nothing in what you say and do and you can’t wait until the end of the day to rush back home to shut out the world.

    It feels like something constantly pulling you down and there is an all pervading sadness and apathy that can’t be shaken – when emotions do come up, they are usually tears and resentment and confusion at life. It’s wondering what happened to you and where has the old you gone.

    It’s waking daily to a pain and anxiety at the thought of living, imagining instead of cutting your wrists at the thought of having to go through another day of feeling nothing, feeling like a walking dead that has no direction, purpose or inspiration. You feel like a mindless machine, not a person. Day after day the only thing to look forward to is crawling into bed to sleep again, and it seems you never have enough sleep.

    It’s spending the weekend on the sofa watching documentaries or movies and not wanting to even go out to buy groceries – no energy, no motivation, no desire. It’s living a complete flat existence, doing the bare minimum of what you have to do to survive with no joy or pleasure, and all the while part of you is wanting and part of you is fearing you may soon give up because you just don’t feel like anything is worth it anymore.

    Depression drains you to a hollow inside and you feel weak and empty; it leaves you wondering if you will ever feel yourself come back to life and feel any vitality or real happiness ever again. It is wondering when you wake up if you will feel normal again and becoming more depressed when you realize you still don’t feel normal and just want to crawl back into bed and forget the world.

    It’s been hard keeping it together. I have no family to speak of and no one I can really confide in. It’s only the fear of completely losing my mind or giving up and ending up destitute and failing my daughter that has kept me going, to try to get better. It’s been very hard. I am glad that I had at least my sister coming every weekend since my breakdown – she’s at least kept some happiness in my daughter’s life. Right now, I can barely get through each day, nevermind being/acting the interested and happy mom. I do try to not let it show too much to her, though I know she sees I am not myself these days. It’s hard to explain to her what’s wrong.

    I’ve started to see a psychologist and it is starting to help. Still, most days are still without much feeling for the moment. I do think about suicide a bit less, but it is not completely gone. It is especially strong when I first wake up and realize I have to fight another day of living.

    I have a doctor’s appointment later in the month and will see about possibly asking for some anti-depressants to see if that will also help the situation.

    I do wish though that I had the option of just being taken care of for a while so that I can get back to some semblance of strength of mind and body again – the way I used to be. Unfortunately, that’s not an option and makes things all the more harder that I have to do.

    Slowly I am coming around to not want to give up, though the thought of doing so is still very tempting at times.

    I hope all those reading and going through depression will find some glimmer of strength or thought to hold onto to not give up. But yes, I know the feeling and thinking that it seems this is all there is left of life, that it might as well all be over. When I get that feeling too strong in my mind, then I find the numbness actually helps until I can change my way of thinking. I try to remember that I did not always feel this way, that life was not always so bleak and empty.

    I am hoping in time and with some changes in lifestyle as I slowly get stronger in mind, that I will begin to feel like myself again. In the meantime, it feels like I am just barely hanging on.

    No, you are not alone ..and I realize too that though we all have a bit different stories, I am not alone either with this and I am glad I came across this web page. Nice to be able to just let it out sometimes where you don’t have to pretend or fake that you are okay, when in actuality you are not.

  • Bella

    depression feels like the little guy on the zoloft commercial who retreats into a dark corner by himself with the saddest look on his face. my heart connects with his because i am him.

  • L. J.

    Depression is when you dread waking up when you haven’t even gone to bed. The sick feeling in your stomach without a cause and a change in appetite. The idea of hurting yourself and crying uncontrollably. And if you can’t do it, because you don’t want anyone to know, because you would feel worse if other people knew.
    No matter what happens there is still this sadness and loneliness that you cannot escape.
    Not apathetic because you do still want one thing and that is to be happy.
    Self worth and esteem is gone and the only reason you’re still there is hope for the future and possibly other people, but mostly hope. when taken away there would be nothing stopping death.

  • Karin

    Depression – is that what I#ve got? It might just be, but I don’t have the energy to think about it to much, in fact I don’t have energy for a lot of things, instead of being unhappy and tired…. It just feels like there’s no way out of this intense black long deep whirling tunnel of unhappiness. Why do I live? I don’t have the guts to kill myself, what about my children? If it wasn’t for them I would really see no worth in living… If only I was never born…

  • Existing and not existing

    I have been in depression all my life since I can first remember and will probably be trapped there long after I die. There is no point in living or in dying, just in wondering why I was ever created in the first place.

  • 7amood

    Driven to solitude, unworthy to share consciousness with the rest of humanity, the tortured self-loathing soul is a nocturnal creature. The dark emptiness of the late night hours are full and eventful to the troubled soul. Much judgment and scrutiny is to be undergone, and the night is the perfect podium for such a task. Anxiety, distress, and confusion find there refuge here neighboring fleeting illusions of escape, peace, and stability. Escape? From what? It is this body, this mind, this history of experience from which escape is vainly sought, or alternatively, to which destruction is directed. Destruction for this mind that is the creator of unbearable thought, this body that incarnates it and its creations, and this life in which it had all come together leading to the genesis of this infernal predicament over the years in which it all was.

    All alone. No one to share this pain with. All I need is someone to talk to. A sympathetic ear. Someone who can listen and feel, sparing me the one-liners of cliché advice that are only too well known to the plaintiff. Darkness, emptiness, loneliness. Where do I go? How do I get out of this hole I drove myself into. I spent my life knowing, loving, and giving to others, and now I find no one to give to me. My own partner preoccupied with her own needs, wants, and pleasures. Too distant to feel me, too self-consumed to listen and feel with me. I am taken for granted and left to suffer alone. And yet I seek her, not out of love. There is no place for love in my heart, for contempt has driven every other emotion I know away. Contempt for myself, my life, my actions, who I am, all I’ve ever done, for everyone I know and the whole world around me. I want earthquakes to rip the earth apart, fires to consume cozy little homes with old couples in love sitting by fireplaces without a care in the world, storms to carry innocent loving children full of trust for humanity and optimism for their lives to come to their doom. I want to see all the edifices that glorify the history of civilization crumble to the earth, monuments to shatter, all the happiness in the world from which I am sanctioned to be blown into oblivion like burnt out stars and big bangs. I hate the perfection in the world for all the imperfection in me.

    I seek her out of desperation. I know that somewhere in the back of the mind that has forsaken me that a feeling of duty, some unstated unsigned obligation to listen to me still lives. A clause in the contract of partnership that despite the lack of any pleasure or feeling still holds. The need to be heard drives me now, keeps me from letting it all go to hell. Maybe there is some sampling of salvation to be found in another’s sympathy, regardless of who they are or what they’ve done

    She spites me. My misery is cumbersome to the running of her schedule, and I do little more than interrupt her routine, invade her day-to-days, break her train of thought, and shake her peace of mind. She has no time for consolation, little time to give to a tortured mind and an aching heart that is given to her time and time again. Her resentment of me grows with my predicament, and the more I suffer the more I lose my appeal to her. I am no more than a pathetic needy shell, remains of what was once a man.

    It is all my own doing. My own fault(s). Who else is to blame? I live with my torment, no other. Surely I deserve it. Surely it is of my own making, and as much as I loathe it, it is only fair that I suffer it alone. And so I do, with no seen end…

  • Angel Yu

    Usually it hits you unaware. One minute you’re going about your life then when you sit down and start thinking, it hits you. You feel bad, hopeless, unimportant and useless. your brain starts thinking of reason to keep you up float but you get distracted anyway, you forget engagements, start not caring at the same time you think is this even worth it?… You are unimportant so you start thinking everything else is also. You start shutting down people and you keep quiet because you think people won’t get you anyway. At its worst it feels like physical pain that doesn’t want to go away no matter how many painkillers you take in or how long you slept. The next time you awake its still the same grime.
    Basically depression is pain that you can’t explain, that you seldom can hit the right words to even describe because it emanates from within.

  • Sara

    Depression for me is that constantly tired, never being able to sleep, always hungry, never being able to eat, alone, dark, miserable feeling like no one is ever there and no one ever will be. I don’t feel any emotions except, anger or sadness. I forgot what is feels like to look forward to something. Nothing makes me happy anymore and i’ve lost my love for everything that used to matter so much.

  • jan

    My depression lingers even with meds, my 6 amazing children, husband, pets, and my log home on a beach. What more could one ask for . . . and yet I have to force myself to talk to them, to anyone. I hide. Tea helps me start a cleaning or kitchen job, sometimes many jobs, but I can’t/don’t finish them. Frustration when trying to put clothes away makes my body constrict, and I feel like screaming because I can rarely cry.
    And I have to act like things are ok for the children’s sake. When my lovely pigeon died, I was sad but could at least drop the vivacity for awhile. I fear helping with Gr. 3 math homework because it’s so involved, yet I was a teacher. I’m afraid of losing disability after 30 years of contributing; but I’m sick of telling the doctors how messed up I am — I feel pathetic and terribly inferior. Depression for me bounces from how my family is affected, to feeling like my thoughts and words are slow motion, to numbness (which is better than pain), and to anger at so many people that I just want to stay home.

  • Faith

    Depression feels like my skin and emotions have been rubbed raw. Everything hurts, simple things take more effort than I have energy for and the rest of the world wants me to wear a mask and pretend to be someone I’m not. Most of all depression feels like I’m in a black hole, mired in mud or quicksand and sinking and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel this way. In a simple word…depression makes me feel like I want to give up.

  • ash

    sometimes its normal and everything’s okay one minute. the next everything is so terrible that you cant even function. it is sitting down to do your homework, then, two hours later, having nothing done because you’ve been sobbing hysterically or gotten sidetracked thinking about the horrible pain you’re experiancing. it is waking up every day knowing that you have no friends to talk to, but knowing its your own damn fault because you are terrified to even speak to anyone because of either getting hurt, or you think they might realize that you’re such a ridiculously bad person that they’ll hate you anyway. sylvia plath once said something to the effect of “there are those who are not made to suffer hell when they die, because they have already experianced it while living” its hard to say what exactly is the worst thing about depression – the excruiciating pain of the sadness experianced, or the incredible fury that comes from the ‘irritable’ symptom. thus, even if some thing is just slightly wrong or annoying, off you might go. or it could depress you. you never know what you will feel next, ever. you cant tell other people how to help you – something that is so nice and comforting one day might infuriate you the next. and no one can tell you what is wrong with you – you’re just screwed up is about all they can say. some lucky people get on the ‘right’ med and they are never depressed again – as long as they take the pills. i have been on over 20 types of psychiatric drugs, none of which helped. i have been in therapy for 8 years, in a therapeutic school for one and and residential treatment center for another year. i am still depressed and no one knows why, no one can say if it will ever go away or tell me what will for sure help. that is the worst part – no one seems to know anything, the only constant thing i’ve heard is that i will probably suffer from depression for the rest of my life, and i need to learn to deal with it.
    it sucks the life out of you. it makes you feel like you cant breathe – like a boulder is sitting on your chest all day long. sometimes you clean out the whole fridge with your eating habits, other times food makes you want to vomit. sometimes you could sleep all day to escape having to deal with anything just for once (except the nightmares i have, which are one of my symptoms, supposedly) other times you cant sleep at all and just have to lie there with nothing but a hollow shell.

    sometimes its painfully sad, other times filled with rage and other times it is a complete void just filling you up. anything would be better – sometimes even death however slow and painful. i hate being stuck inside myself all the time like i am. and then i hate myself. and now its a cycle; a neverending downward spiral

  • Patricia

    Depression is everyday coming into work and breaking into random acts of sobbing. Not being able to read your email without it bringing you to tears…not being able to go for a walk without breaking down completely. It is the empty ache that you feel in the center of your chest that sits there, keeps you from breathing…makes you feel physically ill every single day that you wake up.

  • Emilee

    I used to be a very happy person who was a social butterfly. I smiled and laughed all the time. Now, I walk around in a haze. I don’t feel much, except this constant nagging, unexplainable sadness. I wish I could remember what love felt like, so I wouldn’t have constant negative, questioning thoughts. I want to sleep all the time, but when I try to sleep, I wake up constantly. I feel like I just exist and that’s the only purpose I have in life. Where did my passion for religion go? Where did my passion for music go? Where did the passion in my relatinoship go? All I have is that single hope that I will return to this shell one day and pick up where I left off………

  • Terry

    Depression robs you of energy, utterly. Physically, it saps stamina, makes you tired, lethargic, weak. I feel like I have a clamp on my head, and it squeezes constantly, pressing against my temples. Mentally, it saps willpower, the ability to care about anything. There used to be things that I enjoyed, but now I simply can’t summon the will to bother with them. Each time I try, my mind feels like a computer, trying to boot up only to suddenly crash and reset, over and over.

  • D.

    Depression is a paralyzing combination of irrational fear, profound sadness, and intense self-hate, often steeped with ugly side-ingredients of guilt, paranoia, and constant physical ailments. My heart beats rapidly in antiipation of an imminent crisis, yet the rest of my muscles cannot muster the energy to leave my bed, or eat, or dress, and when I do perform a routine vital activity I wonder, afterwards, what the point was. It is streaming tears, hot water running behind your neck and into your ear canals without the usual catharsis, claustrophobia and agorophobia, and, at its very worst, a simultaneous fear of death and decay and a desire to end one’s life. It is an infection that attacks the brain through chemical messages, but seems to inflame and antagonize all of the vital organs, and the blood. And it is a lonely journey, a sort of solitary confinement.

  • The Wise Old Unicorn

    When you’re depressed, you can’t find a reason to keep going. It’s like you’re dead on the inside and you’re only going on out of inertia. Life has nothing to recommend it anymore…death would be easier, but you don’t have enough motivation even to go through with that. And logically you know killing yourself would hurt others, even if you don’t feel it in your heart, so you feel incredibly guilty for being selfish enough even to want to, even if you don’t actually go through with it.

    You just can’t find motivation for anything, even getting out of bed in the morning. You can’t find happiness in anything. Even if nothing bad is happening, nothing good is, either. You can’t find anything in your life to be positive about.

    You’re just empty. You’re apathy incarnate, and at the same time overflowing with pain. Even if you find some way to drain yourself of the emotions–whether it’s through something constructive like writing or something like self-harm–for a while you feel numb, and then eventually the pain comes back.

    You feel like you’re going insane. At best, your life isn’t going anywhere; at worst, it’s trapped in a downward spiral. You’re afraid you’re going to fall into a million pieces. You’re tired of everything and you want it all to be over, and that makes you terrified of what you might end up doing to yourself if you finally lose it.

    You just want it to end. Everything seems hopeless. You try to involve yourself in things that let you escape from your life, but you can’t even concentrate on them. You make mistakes on the simplest of things. You feel distant from your loved ones, or even irritated by them.

    You have no self-esteem left. You despise yourself for feeling this way; like you should be able to be happy, the way you have been before. You blame yourself for being selfish and wallowing in your pain instead of trying to be better.

    You just want to scream. And you feel so incredibly lonely, because of course you can’t show how you’re feeling to anyone else. You don’t want to bring them down. You don’t want to be looked at like you’re a freak, and you feel like no one else could possibly understand what you’re going through. You’re convinced you’d just get told to snap out of it. So you hide everything you’re really feeling, and fake a smile to everyone. Which makes you feel even worse and hate yourself more for living a lie. And it makes you feel like you’re all alone even when you’re surrounded by people that love you more than anything.

    Depression…is hell on earth.

    And yet there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to get better. Even if you get better, you tell yourself, you’ll just end up back here eventually anyway. So what’s the point? It’s safer to be depressed than to have to feel the pain of experiencing true happiness and then having it all come crashing down on you again.

  • Sam

    Depression is a feeling of being insignificant, and also a fraud. It’s the misery of one living a double-life. On the surface one behaves as though he/she has it together, is in control, and worthy of other’s respect. But on the inside, he/she feels manic, incompetent, guilty, and even weird. Most of all this person is afraid of having no value in the world – being completely insignificant.

  • Gary

    Depression is a comfort sometimes. I don’t have to try when I’m depressed. I just blame everything on everyone else. I have highs and lows. The highs are much harder to sustain. The lows are much much easier to sustain. I’ve always found it easier to be negative then positive. The meds I’m taking don’t really work and I’ve tried to commit suicide several times. They were half assed attempts but they got me the attention I was thriving for. I need help but I don’t know where to go.

  • pmag

    I used to like so many things…..running through the forests, gazing with my telescope, reading a book, or just talking with friends. Now since april i have nothing. I feel like i will never be the same. I have accomplished so much in my life and want to ‘be fully there’ for the next stage of it. Why does this happen to me? I’ve always been a great person to everybody….i don’t deserve this. Now i realize how foolish i was to complain about anything previouisly in my life. I wish i had it back; i would give all my money in the world for it. I want to live, i love life, i love all my friends, but if this continues for a few months, i fear what i will do. Right now, my life is really not worth living. All i do is sulk in despair…i can’t do anything. What is the point in living if all i do is suffer?

  • Rebecca

    For me depression is when I can sit on the couch or in bed and just look out the window from the time I wake until the time I go to bed- with a silent house, frequent napping, avoiding any and all connections with people- all the while feeling guilty and ashamed of myself because I just cant find the strength to move.
    Depression is the never-ending nothingness- it is empty-VOID- except shame and guilt I am swimming in that.

  • phlootz

    Depression has been with me for at least 25yrs.

    Despair , constant despair… loneliness even when in company , keep people distant , can’t function up close.. need to push them away. Who can know me , who can love me , who can see me, who wants to… I don’t exist , I am a non-entity the invisible man with invisible pain. Everyday waiting for tomorrow and fearing today wondering where it will lead. I am two , one lives inside my body as if trapped and looking out sees others living whilst they see this shell and think it is also living but thye cannot know the depth and the darkness nor would they want to. No job , no career , no qualifications , no money , no family , no light , no tunnel just this cave , this prison of doom and despair. Suicidal thoughts every day… don’t want to go to bed because that signifies the end of a day and if it ends like this what worth has it been to be so unproductive… don’t want to wake up because it signifies the start of another day of failure and pain… This man was once a little boy who had love in his heart and joy in his soul but somehow it has been snatched away and now only the cold lonely void is my constant cwelling. Tears so many tears my only strength is my weakness.

    I am 42 yrs old.

    Why is it like this ?

  • mandy

    Depression feels like dealing with death of someone you love, over and over and over again. It feels as if i have died and the world keeps moving on and on. I feel like jello. I feel lile nobosy I know knows how it REALLY feels, I keep goin on and off my wellbutrin but it doesnt seem to help cure me, i need to stay on it. I am so sad, i throw up, get nervouse, dont want to go outside and when I am working i just want to cry. The worst part is that I DONT want to feel this way I want to snap out of it, but unfortunaltey you cant snap out of it.It just sticks with you like a thorn in the side, feeling of great sadness and despair. I am lucky that I do not want to kill myslef, i just wanna sleep all the time and when i am awake i want to be happy and try so hard to be and i cant conquer the feeling of being happy anymore. …when will this feeling go away…

  • Peter

    Depression, for me, is longing.

    Longing for the brief moments of love for my son and the new person in my life before it gets swamped by bleak despair, longing for a decent sleep, longing for the return of an appetite, longing to actually enjoy something again.

    And longing to put an end to it all and stop being a prisoner inside my own skull..

  • Maryval

    Depression is feeling like your head is one of those magic 8-ball things…You’re just floating around inside the dark liquid and you shake it trying to get the answer you want, but it is very hard to make that happen. It almost never does.

    It is like you are deep underwater and keep trying to swim to a surface that doesn’t exist. You just go limp, out of air and motivation to breath, and sink slowly back to the bottom.

  • wendy

    depression to me is this horrible feeling that just wont go away. It is like everyone is out to get me, everyone is just going to hurt me if i let them close, depression has made me less of a mother and a wife that my husband cant be around, I am always parinoid just waiting for him to leave and really what i am doing is causes him to leave by feeling this way. The best way for me to decribe it is to say that i feel like i am good for nothing at all in life, I have horrible dreams and thoughts of things that will happen. I live in constant fear of losing my mind if i dont talk about it but also in constant fear of losing my husband if i do talk about it. Depression to me is the death of my soul and personality….

  • Ellwood

    Depression feels like an Overwhelming supirior emotion to any you’ve ever felt. You feel constantly confused and hopeless. You don’t easily enjoy things you used to. Music doesn’t make you move. You don’t laugh at things as easy as you’d like too.
    You cry about things that are little or noting at all. You cry everyday. Everybody irritates you, and you hate to live and every breath you take hurts.

    A hollow pit in your heart. And sometimes you feel like a souless and spiritless body. Like a corpse without a soul. Like you don’t know why you bother to wake up every morning.

    And you take everything out on those you really love. ANd it only tears everything apart.

    Like a giant wave swallowing you.

  • Brandon

    depression doesn’t feel its that you aren’t and you are too out of the fabric of anything to realize you are not well until it’s too late. un provoked anxiety is the worst part of any of this, everyone doesn’t matter. Once you find your fix if you have one you tend to feel great but acheing for some feeling.

  • lucie

    it is when even ice-cream doesn’t taste nice anymore and blackadder doesn’t make you laugh. that is when you know something is very wrong.

  • Eva

    I am walking through the fog and watching my body living a life that is not my life… I lost it somewhere along the way. Don’t know when, don’t know where. I am a prisoner of my own feelings, of my thoughts that cannot stop in my brain. Can’t breathe. Physically my body is in the same world as anybody else’s, but I am just not here… I am not part of it. And I am only watching, watching other people’s life, fun, love and joy. People are around me, but I am alone, so goddam alone. I AM the fog.

  • doomed

    Depression, we are told, can be treatable with drugs and psychotherapy. Often explained is that friends and family can often be a source of posititive support.

    For me, I had both forms of support. However, it does not seem fair to bring loved ones into such a dark place within this lonely world I’m forced to live. I keep it hidden from them to the best of my abilities and when I can’t, I push them far away. I’ve been in therapy for the past 10 months, on psychological drugs (lamitcal and wellbutrin xl) for the past 5 months. I’ve been told I have some form of bi-polar. Although, in all honesty, the manic highs can be worth the depressive lows. Unfortunately, drugs diminish the highs and therefore seem, at least for me, to provide nothing more than constant lows with some “neutral” feelings.

    Psychotherapy is not my first attempt to decrease this hell I live in almost daily, the drug regiment is my second. Depression has been a part of the majority of my life, but two years before moving to a city to better my life, I had it under control.

    Then, I found someone I loved. At first the relationship (my first) was one I thought would last forever and she assured me we’d grow old together. In all honesty, I experienced depression on and off during the relationship, but when encouraged by the one I trusted-her, I sought help. Her lies and deceit lasted almost 8 years, then came the cheating (10 months ago). My life was destroyed and the depression I mostly had under control two years prior to the relationship, could not be recalled.

    I’ve had 4 sucide attempts in the past 10 months (hospitalized for 2) and I can feel another (hopefully successful one) sneaking up on me. I think some people will just never be able to move beyond such pain and misery. I also think that people that “love” us, should be happy when escape becomes reality, no matter what means are used to escape the pain.

    I would strongly encourage anyone who has felt or is feeling depressed, manic or suicidal to seek medical and psychological treatment. For many, these methods can prove to be successful and after having worked in a Psych. hospital, I’ve seen them work! Unfortunately for me, the outcome seems inevitable and sometimes fate prevails.

    Good luck depressed individuals, the journey can be long and painful, but strength can provide success for many! If you have a family (wife, husband, partner or kids) consider them and let that increase your strenth. If you don’t, hopefully something will draw you to stay in this life.

  • patti

    To me it feels like everyone around me is happy and okay with there life. I feel alone and very sad.I want to get out of the house and when I do I want to go back home and crawl back to my bed. At night I never turn on a light I just sit in the dark. I’ve felt like this for 6 years and feel like I should be better. Ipray there will come a time when I will be happy again.

  • louise barker

    sometimes life feels like a thing most people find as pointless and it sometimes seems like you’re in a fight to survive lose and you get death and win makes no difference anyway but makes you more determined to give up on all your hopes and dreams

  • Tim

    Before I start telling about how depression feels to me, I want to tell you that even though I am still being treated and its only been a few weeks things are getting better and their is hope. I can’t tell you what will make YOU feel better but I can tell you to not give up and that as low as I once felt now its seems that somedays I can see breaks in the clouds and their is still blue sky and a sun behind them. So when you are up for it if you haven’t already go to a doctor, and the biggest thing that helped me was to talk to people who I felt safe talking to even if you don’t think they will understand or you don’t think you can I hope you try because the relief was imidiate. The strange thing about depression is that it will affect anyone. Some of the happiest people you will ever meet are people who strangely seem like they have nothing to be happy about. Well conversly I find myself someone who has everything or apears to have everything unhappy, and I would trade anything to feel “normal” again. It’s funny because you can logically think about your situation and you realize that you have no reason to feel the way you do yet you can not help it and this only makes you feel worse. The way I feel is like my heart is broken. You feel helpless like you can’t do anything right and no matter how hard you try. There is nothing that gives me pleasure I don’t enjoy activities I used to love (even sex). I don’t sleep I lie in bed awake and just worry and fret. Feelings of hope, happiness and love are traded for feelings of fear, and dispair. I used to be one of the happiest people you would ever meet, energetic loved to be out doing things always something to say, and now I can’t even love anyone. I don’t feel anything only sadness, emptyness.

  • Anon

    IT FEELS JUST LIKE the lyrics to this song, if you allow “trouble” to be a metaphor for “depression,” or “melancholia,” or whatever name you give this sickness:

    Trouble

    Oh trouble set me free
    I have seen your face
    And it’s too much too much for me

    Trouble
    Oh trouble can’t you see
    You’re eating my heart away
    And there’s nothing much left of me

    I’ve drunk your wine
    You have made your world mine
    So won’t you be fair
    So won’t you be fair

    I don’t want no more of you
    So won’t you be kind to me
    Just let me go where
    I’ll have to go there

    Trouble
    Oh trouble move away
    I have seen your face
    and it’s too much for me today

    Trouble
    Oh trouble can’t you see
    You have made me a wreck
    Now won’t you leave me in my misery

    I’ve seen your eyes
    and I can see death’s disguise
    Hangin’ on me
    Hangin’ on me

    I’m beat, I’m torn
    Shattered and tossed and worn
    Too shocking to see
    Too shocking to see

    Trouble
    Oh trouble move from me
    I have paid my debt
    Now won’t you leave me in my misery

    Trouble
    Oh trouble please be kind
    I don’t want no fight
    And I haven’t got a lot of time

    –Cat Stevens

  • Todd

    Be careful what you wish for.

    I used to wish that I would feel nothing, hoping that I could block all pain and only be happy and have fun. Whoever granted my wish misunderstood…all I am capable of feeling is pain, fear, loss, emptyness, worthless, sad. Not sadness in the sense that you would hope for where you cry and feel better. I just read about 100 of these comments hoping to shed a few tears for some sort of emotional release…NOTHING.

    I told my Dad I was depressed(it took me a lot of courage to talk to him). He told me everyone gets depressed from time to time. Some time’s you just have to fake it(happyness that is)…How long do I have to fake it!

  • amiee

    Depression is exactly like drowning. You are struggling to get air everyday and you become so tired. Once you get air you feel better, but only for so long and then you are battling with the fatigue and the feeling of helplessness over and over again.
    Most days when you do get out of bed (one of the hardest tasks you do everyday) you want to just crawl in a hole and die. I am just so unhappy!
    I have been dealing with Severe Depression for almost 20 years and yes I am only 27 years old. It starts with a troubled childhood with an alcoholic father and then my mother’s terminal illness at age 14 with her death at age 19. I am on Effexor, but on a low dosage and it is not working. I am happy to say I am on my way to a mental health clinic soon so I am thinking positively in hopes that I will cure my illness FOREVER! I just want to be happy again.

  • mayri

    Depression is like, you constantly need someone to hear you. Not advise you but hear you out. A sense of loneliness 24/7. Not wanting to do anything but sleep all day.

  • Denny

    For me depression is a feeling that everything is happening at once and that I am utterly powerless to prioritize. Often I have equated the feelings to George Bailey’s profound disorientation and panic in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” when he sees what the world would be like if he had not been born. I am reminded of Shakespeare’s observation in “King Lear”: “The tempest in my mind/
    Doth from my senses take all feeling else/
    Save what beats there.”
    The main insight I have gained is that clinical depression is a chemical imbalance of serotonin and/or norepinephrine and has absolutely nothing to do with being a “bad” or weak person. Thank goodness for Effexor and an excellent therapist!

  • Jess

    It feels like I was clinging to the end of a rope and then the rope snapped and I’m falling down into a bottomless pit, trying desperately to cling to the rock sides as I fall.

  • julie

    Depression, how can i be depressed i have two wonderfull boys and a careing loveing husband,a great home so why? i dont go out,i dont speak to people anymore,i find it hard to concentrate on anything for a long time.i keep telling my self how lucky i am when i look at others,this use to work for me but now i look at others and feel nothing.im sick of my fuzzy head every day all day it feels like im drunk.im slow at eveything.i use to go out sining at karaokes loved it now i cant face it.i want to live life too the full but theres always something missing.im seeing a doctor at the moment then i think WHAT can she do is it worth all the crying why do i fell none likes me and my husband dont love me,when other days i feel his love so great.why am i like this how long will it last will i ever be ok again…so confused…im in a bubble and cant get out ..

  • Shiraine

    Depression is the worst feeling that I’ve ever been through…
    It is going to sleep every night…wishing that you never get up again..
    It is gettin up every morning and feeling that thing long, dull day will never end.
    It is snapping at everyone over stupid things and then later feel guilty for snapping back.
    It is having so many feelings cropped up inside yoursite but not having an outlet for it all.
    It is the feeling that you are unwanted and hopeless and just a burden on everyone.
    It is the feeling of not being good enough for others.
    It is crying over nothing but feeling that you’re crying out all of the pain inside you
    It is finding relief from crying.
    It is the feeling that everyone has abandoned you…even God.
    It is the feeling that life’s not worth living.
    It is everything I never wanted in my life…but it makes me feel like I don’t even have a life.
    It is the feeling that everyone is constantly lying to me.
    It feels like things will never turn out OK…I can never be truly happy and I’m destined to go through all this pain and suffering….i just want for all of this to end…and the only way it can end is if my life ends….but deep down..i’m not really sure if I want my life to end…
    I’m so fustrated, lost and confused!

  • Rikki

    I sometimes think that i shouldnt be so un happy like i am because i have it so much better than others. I have friends and family who love and care. I have a lord and savior that i confide in. but then i think that maybe thats part of my problem i feel bad for feeling so bad. I have only been diagnosed for 2 years now but i havent been on medication for a year because my mom doesnt understand the severness of depression. She says I dont need it and then she says besides i cant afford it. It has really taken a tole on me physically and mentally. not being on my medication i mean. when I was first diagnosed and i was on my medication i felt like i had been cured for a hirrible sickness I was happy and i was trying to stay healthy i ended up joining a gym and losing the weight that i gained before i had medication and got help and i had stoped using drugs. I was so happy and I felt great which i hadent felt since before i was depressed.but I then felt that i needed to be with my mom and i ran out of my medication about a month after i moved in and she said that she couldnt afford it so i had to quit taking it she said besides you dont need it your so much better now. She didnt understand that i was better because of my medication and the help i was getting.i kinda put on a show for her. like i act happy.I have learned to wait till she lieaves to let everything out i mostly cry myself to sleep. i was on the drugs again for awhile. i was stealing them from a guy who needed it medically. I dont do the drugs anymore and i dont cry as much any more but everything is all mentally now than ever. i get confused more often thatn not. my eye sight is really starting to go. i feel sometimes like i have a high that i dont want or enjoy. i somtimes get to the point where i feel as if im going to faint from what im not sure. im not sure if its exhaustion or confusion or anxiety i dont quite know. i somtimes scare myself but im 16 and i feel that i can keep toughing it out till im 18 and can get my own insurance so that i can get the help i need with out my mom and everyone knowing. I’ll just be better to them and i’ll just keep letting them think that i dont need medication to be happy. i am a normal girl just like everyone else. Its not just drugs. but then that scares me that the only thing making me happy is drugs the only thing keeping me sane is drugs it pisses me off that i have to rely on drugs to be normal.

  • Rikki

    depression is like being stuck in a hole. your so far down no one can see you or hear you and you cant climb out.Its not really dark but shaded. you know theres light but you dont feel it. you cant feel its warmth.No matter how loud you scream for help no one comes. No one understands how lonely it is. you know your loved and you love those around you. you can have someone sit there and be with you all the time but you dont feel them like you dont feel the light in a shaded hole. you want so much for someone to be able to understand and take away the loneliness and they try so hard but nothing helps its as if theres a clear wall, like a window between you and you cant get it open. Depression is the worst most scariest feeling in the world. its not just the feeling of being alone but all sorts of horrible feelings all mixed in to one. and on some day its so great and you never want it to go away and then poof you feel like it was snatched away from you like your being teased. Like a taller kid took your toy away and is holding it just out of your reach but everyonce in a while brings it down just enough for you to touch it and to give you hope and then in the blink of an eye they bring it up just out of your reach taking away your hope and making you feel so helpless and small. ANd you feel like well i might aswell just kiss that toy goodbye.

  • pam

    i hate the way i feel i just see the picture and there is no feeling of me or my life, i dont understand why i feel like this every test came back normal dont know what else to do any more cant keep feeling nothing. it seems that the picture is to my face and there is no feeling at all can any one help me. i am on prozac and ativan but nothing seems to be working. Help thanks

  • debi

    I am a young attractive female with a PhD and a job most people would kill for. I am the life of the party and I have more friends than I have time for. I am the person people envy and have the life people say they want to live. So guess what happens when I even dare mention that I am having a bad day? I am also a neuroscientist and I know that depression can be chemical and can have absolutely nothing to do with your environment. But even depressed people who have gone through horrendous experiences in their lives look at me as though I’m an insult to their existence. But… I have gone through those horrible things. I have kept them secret and played into that persona everyone expects to see. Until one day it all came crashing down on me. There was no thought or reason and yes, I did want to die, more than anything I’ve ever wanted. But 5 years later I am still here and I cannot honestly tell you that I am happier or that I do not regret dieing that day. But I’d like to think that everything happens for a reason. So I live every day – simple as that. I take it day by day, I think of suicide most every day, and while I do not feel an overall overt happiness, I am grateful that not every day is as bad as it can be. I tell myself that no matter how bad today is – how badly I want to die – tomorrow is another day. If I can just hold on until morning… And I know from experience that tomorrow morning this will all just be a memory. Tomorrow will be better than today.

  • Jason

    I’ve read a few, I don’t know how I got here.

    I am:
    Two People: My mind fights and falls over itself. I am “good”, you know…I know whats bad and good (like drugs, alcohol, and courtesy, and respect). Yet my “depressed” side pulls me to what to rebel, to do something….to run away or…*gulps* suicide. yet in this battle, the “good” prevents me from such actions. Yet I don’t think ‘good” will prevail.

    I think of life and depression as a Well. The eternal darkness at the bottom and the shining light at the top. I KNOW i need to climb out and reach happiness or some version of it, thast what i would want..to feel happy. Yet it is hard to climb up, it takes too much effort. Not to mention the constant pulling down… the events that happen…could be as simple as being ignored (even if not intentional). I just WANT to give up and fall into that eternal darkness.

    Serious: I am way too serious. I cannot be that fun-loving type of person. My “friends” always joke around..about issues mainly sex jokes and stupidity. I cannot laugh at their jokes or feel some sort of comfortability.

    Faithless: The world…everything has no purpose…I question everything about God and faith and laugh at others who believe such things.

    Out of Place: I walk around in school afraid of what others think. I am too shy to “take the plunge”…as in be spontaneous and talk to people. Even when talking to people, I can never release my mind….There is always some sort of silence. I rely too much on others to spark conversation.

    Avoiding…: I just want to be left alone. yet i want to be near others. my “friends”…I used to be friends with, when situations pulled me to them. Now everytime i get near them i try to avoid them. I just feel out of place. And because of this, i feel as if they try to avoid me.

  • naomi

    Depression can sometimes feels like a fat parrot sitting on your chest, making it hard for you to take a breath. That parrot also squashes your hopes and you feel like you are seeing everything through a cloud which won’t clear.

  • emma

    depression is such a small word for such a complicated thing. how do you explain something so confusing to people who have never experienced it? for me, it is as though my world around me slowly gets turned a greyish colour, off white and dulled. my senses are dulled and i have an overwhelming urge to cry a lot. i am finding it hard to even write this. nothing matters. you constantly try and tell yourself ‘its my brain playing tricks on me’ like everyone tells you to. inside, you know that makes sense, but thats like telling someone ‘dont worry ignore the pain because you know whats causing it’. i dont know anymore.

  • Rebekah

    I have only had depression for two months, and i knew when i started feeling the way that i’m feeling that it’s anything but “normal”. I’ve looked up major depression and to the “t” i have every symptom. Let me explain….. I can barely wake up in the morning and by the time i do and get out of the house with much effort, i’m late to work by then anyway. when i am at work i can’t concentrate or think, it takes me great effort to go about a day of activity, i work at a speed that’s 10X slower than my normal speed, i’m fogetting everything that i know b/c my minds pre-occupied with stress. I’m physically sore in my back and muscles and i cry for no reason all the time. I feel sick to my stomach all the time and confused like i can’t make any decisions for myself and everything i do takes SOOO much energy, that i don’t want to do anything. No one around me understands what i’m going thru and it makes it so much harder b/c they get frustrated i know, especially when i’m having my “episodes” and there’s nothing they can do to help. I haven’t gone grocery shopping in almost a month i have no food at my house, b/c it’s too much effort to go to the store and go shopping around for food that i probably won’t want to eat anyways because i have no appetite. Or when i do eat it’s “comfort food” that’s so bad for me but makes me feel good for the moment. Everyone around me irritates the sh*t out of me. i wanna scream at everyone, especially my friends who are so happy it makes me sick. I don’t remember the last time i had “Soooo much fun” when i went out with my friends….i force laughs at things i know i would’ve thought were funny, but really nothing makes me happy it’s all an act. Another thing is that i’ll get anxiety for no reason and want to isolate my self from everyone and everything in the entire world. I am in a living HELL. I could go on for so much longer, but honestly it’s too much effort to type anything more, although it was only a few short months ago that i was happy…and i know that there is help out there, which i am working on…i don’t know how long i can live like this it’s torture

  • kim

    Without medication my life was ruled by my responsabilities, what I “had” to do, because there was nothing I wanted to do. I felt wooden, as if there was wood and glass slowly replacing muscle and bone. Some days I thought I was walking around under water with lead diving boots while every one else strolled around the beach in sandals.
    The only thing that kept me from suicide was my hopelessness. I couldn’t even scrape together the optimism that my attempt might succeed. I saw only the endless life of a parapalegic stretching before me if I tried and failed.
    Even medicated, I still have to work up my enthusiasm level for an hour before getting out of bed. But at least now, it is possible.

  • Dj

    This is the lonliest feeling, to feel so much pain and fear and anger, and yet feel dead inside as well. This is not my first time down this road, and it really scares the hell out of me, because suicide seems like the only way out. But hey, I couldn’t do that right either, so here I still am. I know there is help, but haven’t yet convinced myself that I deserve to get it.

  • raquel

    I feel that depression is like a disease that slowly trys to destryo differentparts of your body. It takes over your emotions, then it will take over the way you look to others, and then finally it will isololateyou from anything or anyone that you used to enjoy being around. I have tried so hard to get rid of the dull feeling, and still it fights me moree intense. i just need someone to talk to…

  • No

    You may have felt some or all of these symptoms wether or not you have the OCD/Manic depressive cocktail. The days when you feel doomed, ruined, and all around hopeless are that much more painful when thought of in contrast to days of enebriation and joy (that you fear will never come back). Even if you know that those days will return, and manage to feel comfort due to that fact, it wont remove the strife & stress induced wrinkles under your 21 yr old eyes. As your disease maifests during youth, you combat it in ways that you do not relied are a 180 of the cure.You form a tough shell with an even tougher membrane between it and your self, eventually you have convinced your self more so than others that you are a tough and competent person.Your ego is tough but the rest of you is no tougher than it ever was.You and you embark
    on a journey, a journey with the sole purpose of freeing your self by doing the opposite. You align your will with your disease, while the faint whisper of truth is barely audible. Every thing is fine because your doing what you want, right? You may even become your own enemy (purposely) and secretly lust for pain… as a remedy. Your as smart as a button yet simple truths within your self are denied,painful are these truths when shoved in your face, they are not part of your agenda and are just as easily re-repressed when denial is your best friend. Maby you can use these truths to free your self, but you tear yourself apart with them because your allegiance has not changed.You feel grate, nothing is wrong , as a matter of fact you can do anything you put your mind to with the help of no one.Perhaps you don’t feel like you are on top of the world, but you feel good, you’ve discovered so many faults within your self that maby nothing has to be wrong, you’ve proggressed.You read books about your condition, you gain understanding, you read ‘Power vs Force’ and your awareness soars. 15 minutes later theres a reason why you wont be ok and and unlimited amount of reasons waiting to replace that one. Magic no longer inhabits your flesh, at least not nearly as much. Your soul is Swiss cheese and you are doomed.That doom which was thought to be waiting for you is now realized to be eminating from your self, effectively smashing hope more so than ever.All the bullet proof vests and body gaurds in the world cant help you, you are the grim reaper as much as you are helpless, as much as you don’t want to be.You awake feeling good,not even remembering the horror that was the night before,you must be fine, and in no need of saving. Now you remember ,and if that alone doesn’t cause you to regress you wonder if you want to go on.You know that you will once again reach the part of the cycle you fear the most.If you are member of the hand full of people in the world who actually experience lasting physical harm or deformation during the worst part of the cycle, you really consider if you want to go on; mean while a desire to live burns as bright as ever. Can I be saved, will I still be doing this when I’m thirty? Should you go on another day fearing for your self or one of your loved ones until you develop a disease in your thirties and commit suicide after reflecting on a decade of meaningless days void of passion and life.Thoughts like these promise to haunt you for the rest of your life.I will never be ok, even if I discover all truths, or will I, probably not.To some I am dumbass without the resolve to do something about my life, to others I am a lost soul enduring suffering greater than the intensity of joy felt by a man winning the Nobel Prize, a horrible waste. Maby their both right. I will continue to live in this great world, experiencing days of great passion, and days of horror, surrounded by people that don’t understand or respect my problems.My problems aren’t just in my head, the physical effects that are so embarressing and unbelievable that I will not mention them are tearing me apart. I would love to mention them but you would not believe me, its like a Sci Fi movie and I really wonder if noone has ever experienced this.I actually manifest harm/deforment, and I’m glad I have isolated (limited) it to one thing, but just talking about it makes me fear I will lose control over it.
    It.

  • MASCHA

    don’t know what to feel anymore

    tonight, I listened to music that I know would bring out big emotions, just for the sake to confirm that I could still feel, and cry.

    It seems to be, that if it wasn’t for the music, I really would be a heartless bicth like everyone else tinks I am.

    I wish I wuld never have to wake up, but I know that is not my reality.

    so in the meantime I just try to feel my pain through music and cope with it alone in my bed

  • ciara

    being depressed is like being in hell. nobody understands you and your mind goes around in useless circles. I have suffered from this affliction since I was 17 and it has done nothing but destroy me. in fact, it probably goes back further b/c i knew so many messed up losers when i was growing up. as the years go by, these a/holes just assume that i am the loser, and quickly forget that I was once the smart and capable person.

    i am so sick of this dumb disease. i hate it and i hate the way it has fucked me up. i don’t even think of the day when i will be a healthy person anymore. i just assume there will be more crappy days of carrying this dead useless invisible appendage around and facing the world that sees nothing but judges everything!

  • kent

    it feels like the whole world is messed up but I know it not. It seams like noting is worth it but I know it can get better and it like living in a whole and every day you dig deeper. wish I could find some material to replace what iv taken out.

  • the amort

    i have all the symptoms in the selfscreening test link on top of this page. yet my therapists say im not depressed…hmm :/

    i sure have been though.
    i experiance it in this order:
    drowning in the whirlpool of stress, falling through the bottomless pit, floating through the breathless void, lost in the jungle of doubts, crawling through the quicksand of unreachability.

    when all gets too much and i feel nothing i do helps and everything is working against me, eventually i shut myself out from everything and get lost. now i dont feel life anymore, i can see its there and try to reach, but i cant feel and it all slips by, like im ethereal. my thoughts keep going and going, and it has one main theme, negativity, towards me, my life and the world. i cant focus on anything else, it keeps me awake, and in the middle of the night these thoughts wake me up. i feel i dont deserve this world, but cant decide if that is because im not worthy, or the world is more cruel then i deserve. i feel i and the world are better off with me dead, i feel that is a rational conclusion, but fail to realise its an assumption. i get regular daydreams of me killing myself.
    most of the time i cannot understand why iv never done it…

    to me it seems the core of a depression, the “it”, the inviseble hand that keeps pushing you down, knocks the will out of your soul, blocks life from entering your mind…is the internal everlasting battle between selfpity and selfblame

    it personaly feels, at certain moments, like my fate is the worst of all 6 billion people in the world, and no one will ever know the pain im in. like i played dice with the gods and rolled snake eyes.
    later i just feel rediculous for thinking that.

    its like a lost emotion filling up throughout me, but never coming out, though it blocks all else

    also i feel guilty over every “good” thing i may experiance for its wasted on me, since i dont fully enjoy it as much as someone else would.
    and it kinda hurts to see other people care more about me then i do

    take care all. if it significantly hinders your functioning or if your suffering is more then you can take and no improvement noticable, go get help if you dont have it. dont hold back, just open up, they know what to do with what they hear, but there terrible at getting the right info from you.
    know which friends to talk to.
    and if you find yourself planning a suicide, go ring a metaphorical bell at someone appropriate asap.

  • Toni

    Depression is like riding an emotional roller coaster. There are days when you fight your mental demons and win then there are the days when the demons win. Highs and lows. The days I appeared the happiest were the days I fought the demons the hardest. For thirty five years I fought my demons because I thought if I ever gave in that I would never come back and my children would have no one (their father was deceased, he had already committed suicide). I tried suicide at 16, 21 and 40 years of age. The last time I knew that I had to put myself in the hospital. I was one of the fortunate ones. I had the proper counseling, doctors and medication. I was on medication for only 6 months. After a couple of weeks on the medication I felt as if someone had turned a light switch on in my mind. I no longer ride an emotional roller coaster and haven’t for sixteen years. There is hope out there, just keep looking. The quality of life is so much better when you can control the emotions instead of the emotions controlling you. If you think of committing suicide remember the ones you leave behind are the ones who will suffer for the rest of their lives. I was diagnosed with manic depression

  • Deb

    Depression is the overwhelming desire to cancel my $250,000 life insurance policy to stop the even stronger temptation to kill myself to not only stop my pain, but the pain I must always cause to others.

  • sharada

    This site has helped me understand what I am going through is depression. I have been facing severe bouts of sadness, hopelessness and a lack of interest in all things that I used to do. and a host of other things that I have understood, thanks to this site that I have depression. I really hope things will get better and I will move ahead in my life. and so will others facing depression.

  • sabina

    Depression is… wanting to die every night before you go to sleep…for years… and nobody knows it… it’s a guilt of being born… it’s feeling guilty that you’ve got a child and a nice husband and you’ve tryed to commit suicide twice… It’s a guilt that I was born in Bosnia and had a nice life and everything was o’kay till I got Reiki… I hate it… I can’t explain to anybody what it did to me… My whole life goes through my mind every day. Everything got mixed in my head. And I used to enjoy life therefore. I could speak 3 languages fluentlly (Bosnian,
    English and Dutch). But after getting that stupid thing I got so emotional… Me,I was always so down to earth..I got so vulnerable. And I begon to hate myself. I got so touchy.. But worse of all it likes like I begon to hate everybody… even my husband (although I know that he loves me, what he got through with me is beyond imagination)Sorry, I know that I make mistakes…Meanwhile, my English and Dutch and even Bosnian language got worse.I even hate that word.Sorry… it looks like I’m telling to the world:” Sorry that I exist.” And of course I hate myself becouse of that.Yes, I got to conclusion that I’ve been hating myself for years..And nobody knows that… And nobody understands that… An intelligent, good-looking woman, nice husband )he is really good-looking and I adore him. But I hate myself, all that hocus/pocus things, all the books that I´ve read, therapies… Shit, shit, and once again shit…Sorry for the language… Greeting, Sabina, 41 year old Bosnian woman comletelly lost in this world..

  • trecia

    depression:
    It feels like a black hole that sucks you in and never lets up.Your whole like is effected by it from your kids you raise to your relationship.I never think about death, but I think everyone would be better off with me gone.I am always left feeling bad about myself in every way,I want help, but without all the medication that leaves you to feeling worse.I want to be better ,but never have the money.Matt Blunt made sure low encome families are screwed.So if I have cancer or some life altering sickness like depression I have to sufer and wonder will anyone notice and maybe come off there fairy tale lifes with a different house for each season to help the people in America instead of everyone eles out of the United States.

  • sarah

    it feels like if you died, noone would even notice.like you’re the most worthless, useless person who walked the planet, yet you can’t think of a reason why this is. Its just a cloud of black that never seems to pass.

  • Liz

    Depression feels like everyone around you has energy to accomplish the things in life that they must, and enjoy the things that they do and you envy them, and to get out there and really “function” is a huge task. …and not worth the effort, and the energy to expend the effort is just not there.

  • Greg

    I would just like to leave a comment that I feel many people with depression may actually agree with, myself included and perhaps someone could confirm this as one sign of depression, whilst being quite a mild sign. I use to love to read a lot, especially about things that helped me better myself, but now this whole thing was too long and to me at the time bored me. I will read this article in full (probably after I type this) and the comments included, it’s just something I felt at this time and the way I am feeling. I am happy at the moment but the depressing part is that I could be name 50 things that could make me happier.

  • Steve

    I googled “living is a chore” and saw a post (532) that matched this term exactly. This is precisely how I feel, trapped in my own personal grind. I worked very hard to have a professional career, lucky to have a loving wife, and a supportive (though remote) family.

    Yet, I loath myself deeply. I am in my mid-30s and feel life has passed me by. I hate happy people, since I often wonder if anything adverse ever happens to them. I know it does, but how do they manage? I feel I have nothing to look forward to. I am the outsider looking in.

  • Danielle

    Depression is feeling that no matter how hard you try you can’t seem to get ahead. You want to enjoy life like everyone else seems to be, but you get stuck in a hole without a shovel. Eventually, you just feel like it’s hopeless.

  • Marcus

    Like Simone, I have been in this darkness all my life, except up to a few years ago when the doctors finally gave me some AD’s that worked and cleared my head of all the fog within 3 days. I also have lovely two daughters that I talk too about this illness and pray they will not suffer from it.

    Like Susan, all I want is to be loved and held sometimes, yet I have pushed everyone away from me. I have lost too many relationships (g/f’s and a wife), and hurt too many people that I just hate myself.

    I now know this illness is like having a horrible person inside your head. You can’t touch, smell or see “it”, and there is no blood test to tell you “it” is inside your head. It will hide your memories, stop any feelings of love, give you panic/anxiety attacks when you try to fight it, and “it” will tell you there is nothing wrong with you.
    Time slips away only to be replaced with a numbness of nothing – an emptiness, like I have lost my soul.

    I am now divorced, I have no wife or g/f, very few friends that understand, and two daughters to bring up. I wish someone would come into my life and save me from this hell.

  • Renee

    Wow I have known how i felt for yrs. and had my own words to dscribe how i felt.Ive read all these stories and couldnt not believe how many others described just how I fil.Just last week I thought to myself boy I fill i have weights tied to me and it fills like somthing sweezing the lfe out of me.Others have said the same thing and its a comfort to know Im not the only one that fills this way.To me deppression is so lonely.I fill no one has ever really loved me.I was abused all my chldhood and told i was worthless.I married a husbamd that I thought loved me only he turned out to be abusive also.I tryed to talk to for former pastor only to be told i was filling sorry for myself and was blamimg the past for my wicked heart and if i got right with god I wouldnt have these so called depressions.Ive had so many people reject me in my lonliness times.I dont trust anyone.I only want filled loved and that Im worth somthing.I dont want to live. Ive tryed so many times to keep the hope that one of these days I will get better and be happy and maybe I will have a time now and then that that happens and i do good then out of nowhere I plunge into that blackness again only a little worse each time.The people who should of loved me the most rejected me.I see happy people that are so cofident and sure of there self and think wow I wish I could be that way instead of fear all the time.Ive always been ashamed the way i fill and Im so exhausted trying to be there for everone else but being fake.My smile is fake my laughter is fake.I wish it was somthing to snap out of too.I consider myself a pretty strong person but I have no energy anymore and Im loosing hope that Im ever going to get better.Im always looking for another pill that might work better than the last but I realize now that they dont make the pill I need.I dont know where to turn or what to do it does no good to talk to people who have not been there they just dont understand and think all you need is to think different and trust in God and if you have him thats all you need.Ive been a Christian almost all my life but I still fill there is no hope for me and I never can be good enough or do enough and still fill lost.Ive put walls up and dont let people get very close because Im so afraid of being hurt again.This is no life!

  • lluiza

    I feel like there is no reason for me to live like there is this big rock on my chest i have to breath very deep just to feel better i cry a lot for no reason the things that use to make me happy dont anymore i worry about everyone and everything i worry about my life.The only time that im really happy is one im on vacation in a different place but as soon as i get back home it starts again im always angry there are things i want to do but cant i wish someone or something can help me because no one understands what im going through and im only 16 and i have thought of killing my self many times i have been depressed for 2 years now.

  • Alice

    i am 17 years old. i never thought i would be depressed. i have always been a happy-go-lucky girl. but lately, because of number of problems overwhelming me and the pressure, i have been more and more “sad.” when i wake up in the morning, i feel like a failure. and because of this, i don’t want to face my family. whenever i am in the house, i feel trapped and going to combust anytime. when someone asks me a question or even when someone talks to me, i become nervous and anxious. especially with people that know me very well. it feels like i live in fear constantly. the only way i can releive the feeling is when i read a novel or watch a movie or show. then i escape reality. it is only that moment, i feel the pressure in my heart go away. but when i stop, the feeling comes back. i also want to leave this world. the only thing that is keeping me here is because i am a christian and if i do commit suicide, i will go to hell. but i fantasize committing suicide. i imagine my family finding out and i am actually happy because my family and friends grieve for me. i never realized how sick i am until i wrote that down. i guess it makes me feel important. i hate myself.

  • Simone

    As far as I can remember I’ve always felt like this, All of my life has past me by with only one accomplishment and that’s my beautiful child making sure my childs life is fulfilled
    and all dreams become reality,hoping and praying that depression won’t exist in my child’s life. It’s like i’m sleep and I want wake up and live, But I don’t at least not yet.

  • Susan

    When I am depressed, I only want to be by myself…but I also want my husband to hold me but if he were to try I would push him away. It is terrible to know and see what I am doing. I have started carrying pictures of myself when I was happy so that I know that I will once again be that person when I dig out of this whole. It also helps to keep telling myself that if I die, it will be once. But my family will feel that death every day. Every day.

  • J

    I … can:t think.. I can:t function.. I try to get up try to do stuff, but it just keeps getting the better of me. somebody help me please

  • Oscura

    Depression feels like…: In my case, 18+ years of this condition has slowly poisoned my psyche akin to how smoking as long blackens and weakens the lungs towards cancer. Terms that are commonly associated with depression include “low self-esteem,” “anxiety,” and “sadness”: all and sundry are useless, weak, inadequate, and otherwise a joke when used to describe what goes on in my heart/mind/soul. My self-image isn’t “low”; it is toxic. I don’t just think I’m a stupid inadequate failure; I am convinced that I am more evil than Hitler. I am not “anxious;” rather, life is a constant state of panic and horror. “Sadness” doesn’t begin the describe the abyss. We often talk of suicide as a welcome relief. But suicide is too good for me. My mother (who has a reputation of being a sweet, caring, generous kind person) once told me I “suck people dry.” Taking all of this into account, suicide is too easy; the only way to make proper amends for being the succubus I am is to become volunatarily homeless and/or work as a sex slave who is guaranteed to be abused on a daily basis.

  • Sean

    I feel like, whenever I wake up in the mornings, life has no meaning; I don’t really see any point in going about everyday business, or what used to be my favorite sports. Whenever I finally decide to ‘change’, then nothing seems to work. At the moment I am confused about certain aspects of my life, that I really find no logical answers to. Are these really symptoms of depression? I hope not!

  • alisha

    to me depression is the wost thing in this world.it kills us slowly.In depression i am not b able to make decision. i feel myself hopeless. i think i am the worst in this wold . nothing seem to me right. i feel very lonely. i want to kill myself but my religion condems it . i feel myself help less.i want to get out of this wold and sucide seems to me right. life seems to me full of sorrow and burden. no one like me i cant make other haooy . every one hate me dislike me. every one want things which r bad in my intrest.dont ever love any one if u feel depress as if u find no love at other end u vl suffer more than a normal man

  • Char

    I lately have been feeling overwhelmed with the thought that my heart is going to stop or explode. I’m going to have a heart attack or something. Is this an anxiety attack? Every night it feels like it’s going to beat out of my neck or chest. The pulse is so strong. I’m afraid to die. I don’t want to die. I have a baby angel girl who is 3 years old. I have a wonderful husband who just doesn’t understand when I tell him, that just lately I have the feeling of “doom”. I’m afraid to go to sleep every night for a few weeks now, afraid to not wake up and my husband find me. I’ve been really angry alot. I never used to be like this. I’m 34 and I want to live…but why does my heart beat so strong every night before I go to bed? Why do I fear dark shadows will appear at the foot of my bed and take me away??? What is this feeling??? I miss me :o(

  • atlas.shrugged

    Thanks for setting up this website, and to those of you who comment. For me I could hardly describe it as “pain,” more like numbness. The void, sort of… but heavier. It’s like I’m carrying a huge heavy fog on my skin, in my head. “Luckily,” I suppose, I wouldn’t have the motivation or energy to hurt myself even if I wanted to. I honestly don’t think about suicide, I just think about not feeling, anymore — it’s different. I have to believe it will get better. I consider myself a strong person, but for now one foot in front of the other is the best I can do, and it takes superhuman effort just to roll out of bed and put those feet on the floor. Anyway, yes, I just wanted to thank you all for making yourselves vulnerable so that we could feel just a little bit less alone.

  • josi

    for me depression is having no one and nothing.You become suspicious of evrything and everyone, nothing is right. you feel like you are being consumed by lonelyness as though it has a grasp on you that you can’t escape from yet you have family and friends that are around you. I don’t feel safe everyone must be out to get me, if anyone is pleasanrt to me i question there intentions….they cant actually care.
    everything begins to pile up little things like school seem like a drag I can no loner stand to be there another minute yet I question why???
    why have I fallen in this dark place, why do i feel so cold, why have those closest to me not seen the way i am feeling why cant somebody anybody help me……. why at 15 years old cant anybody hear me even when i shout at the top of my voice…..why do i feel like nothing??????
    that surely is depression either that or life is a complete bitch!

  • c

    im 17, soy mexicana, maybe i havent lived as much as to experience what is called “real life problems” but unfurtunately ive suffered too, my father just abandoned us a couple of years ago, ive been said he’s now a homeless person, he’s been dropped out from the place he used to live, he comes from a very wealthy family, i guess he couldnt stand the pressure, and he has always been a hippie, he has no responsabilities and he care too much about al the spiritual stuff, my mom she’s so destroyed i cant stand watching her like that shes got so thin ever thiner than i am, im skinny, she has always worked as a psychologist she cant afford am in the most expensive schools in mexico el tec de mty, i lost my scholarship, hearing her crying every night is painful, ive also been crying every night since quite a long time ago, i feel so much pressure from the guys at school, i cant seem to express myself, eventhough i used to be so happy younger i was called a hiperactive little girl, ive eaten my nails to a point where you cant stick your teeth in them, well i dont know what else, buyy i feel so bad at in some places, but not when im with my brother hes my best friend, eventough my best friends have moved to another country and my ex well what can i say?

  • Katie

    Depression feels like everything about you or your life is wrong. It’s like a wave of all the bad things in you life, that can engulf you and drag you down with it.

  • Jonny Z.

    Depression is like a drink of absinthe, followed by a deep sleep in which one never wakes but seeks to have a re-connection with reality that never seems to come but by one’s own inner drive and causes it to lose touch with whatever reality there seems to be at the moment of insanity that overcomes a fear of dying.

  • only body here

    I feel like I do not deserve to be happy and therefore will sabotage any glimpses of happiness. Anyone that tries to make me happy will be shot down for doing so (inother words severly hurt – usually verbally) I feel like the bad person – like the bad guy and just want to hurt and crush anyone that comes within sight. Then I hate myself even more for being so mean and hateful.

  • only body here

    I know I am being destructive, almost like an out of body experience. I look down upon myself as I go crazy. My mind makes things up or can only focus on the negative to the point of obsession and then implodes and explodes atthe same time, accussing people of things not done or said(or maybe I just misconstrued what they said), making crazy demands or threats, running away then charging back at them like a rabid dog, blaming myself, doubting myself, fearing myself. In the end I feel like a nut. Oh I have happy days still, sometimes even weeks or months where I seem to be up more than down – where I seem to be able to push away this dread, this blackness.In the end though it always wins, it always gets it’s claws around me while laughing in my face and sucking out all of my will to be all in one breath. Those that are the closest to me get the worse (really only my husband now, the others I have done good at pushing out – maybe to protect them form my harsh reality or maybe out of fear that they would run and would not be around for even the pleasurable times). Of course my husband does not get me and does not know how to respond (let’s be truthful – anything he says or does is wrong during this time). It is almost like I set him up to prove myself right – like I set him up to say the wrong thing(he always does) to make it seem like I am right and I should just get a divorce and everyhting will be better.I have been told that this is a choice – that I just need to change my thinking habits – focus on the positive and put away the negative.I have tried to believe it was this simple – have longed for this to be truth, but if anything it makes me feel sh*ttier when I am unsuccessful – look I failed again – just me the big ole loser here – never able to do anyhting right. Either I am that loser or this is a disease – I’m going to try some positive thinking and say it is a disease. I have tried drugs before but maybe they were not the right ones – so I’m off to the doctors again to again start the search for my perfect drug. I guess for now anyhting is better than where i was 2 years ago – almost succesful with a suicide – which really makes me a failure at even suicide. There was such a peace that came over me once I had decided to go through weith it. That peace remained until I awoke puking with my husband calling and then rushing me to the hospital. I long for that peace but fear failing again. Really all I want is peace and happiness within. They say life is what you make it – Maybe I need to be reprogrammed so i can make a better life for myself and my husband. So far meds have not been able to do that for me – but maybe this time will be different. I will try to be open to the possabilities, but is is so hard when the darkness is so thick. I want to see clearly, want to trust myself and others want to love myself and others. I know it has to start within before I can give it to otheres or for that matter recieve it from them when they go to give it. Maybe with a bit of wisdom and strenght along with some pills I can find what I so desperatley crave -Peace within.

  • Sara

    Wel Depression is really obstacle for me I fell that every body doesnot accept my comments. I fell something bad will happen to me. I don’t sleep in the night. When I take depresant medicines they make my heart beat fast and that still makes me disturbed.

  • bronca

    People around me assume I am depressed!!! Am I??? I think everything is sad. animals are suffering by human. Human is killing the Earth with greed and selfishness. I feel plants, fruits and flowers have feelings and the right to live and we are not supposed to cut them or pick them before they fall off trees and complete their natural cycle of life with dignity.
    Am I depressed or I see the truth, the bitter truth of life.
    I need to talk to God, to all mighty one.
    AhhHhhhh… Dear Lord if you are all mighty why don’t you fix it? Do something please…
    And the best cure for depression is love and at my age it does not happen….so, hey..I live my life aily to …..I even do not want to continue….write my feeling …so what?//

  • emily

    for me depression feels like i’m constantly trying to remember something i’ve forgotten, but i’m not even too sure, if there’s anything to remember, so it’s like everything is on pause till i can remember.
    it also feels like being completely confused and lost, the only way i could describe it is being lost in the lost.
    It’s like an uncontrolable draining feeling with a firm grasp on you, making little tasks, large, anxious and tedious, so you put them off.

    anything to escape thinking is welcome, eg. long hours infront of the television, or computer and sleep.

  • Jenny

    For me it’s the nothingness, as i call it. It’s like being in the middle of a crowd and having no one hear you or see you. It’s like chasing the “happy” you but never catching up. It’s like sufforcating in the middle of a busy park and having no one see you slowly dieing. It’s like crying out for help and no one caring. It’s the fact that i feel so alone in this world, that no one understands. That i can not convey my feelings to others, i can not get my point across no matter how i try. Which is why i “loose” myself in music. It says the things i can not. It’s hating myself. It’s seeing what i’m doing, knowing that it’s not how things really are but not being able to change my mindset. It’s the never ending circle of dispare. It’s the fact that no one seems to realize that even on the days i seem “happy” that i’m just fighting the depression. That it’s an act. That my whole life is pretty my a play, that i’m on stage 24/7 and i need a break.

  • Laiel

    Depression is unreasonable… it is the opposite of who I am, yet somehow it chases me down and consumes who I should be. There’s no where to hide in this house. I run from room to room crying trying to find a safe place. I want to break things and punch the walls until it stops, but I know if I break a dish or put a hole in the wall then I’ll have another insurmountable task to weigh upon me. I’ve erased so much of what I’ve written… I feel like my feelings are so baseless and overblown. Maybe someone will understand this, maybe no one will.

  • Taleia

    Depression feels like being locked in a cold, completely dark dungeon somewhere deep underground. There is no one else there to offer any comforting words. But perhaps on occasion someone might come by to visit not to comfort you, but only to mock your predicament, leaving you feeling more alone than you did before. You’re so worn down from being in this cell for so long that you lie on a bed in the darkest corner of the small room without the stength to do so much as even lift your head. The shakles on your wrists and ankles are so heavy that you have no hope of moving, no hope of trying to make an escape. The most you can do is stare blankly at a spot on the wall. there is no use trying to do anything else, because nothing would bring you anymore pleasure than slimply staring at the wall, so there is no use of making an effort. but the worst part is, you feel as though it’s you own fault for putting yourself in this situation in the first place.

  • Garrett

    I am a 26 year old male, and I can never really remember ever being happy in my entire life. That sucks. So why bother? All I want to do is sleep. I isolate myself from other people. I don’t like talking on the phone to family. Sometimes I don’t leave my apartment for days on end. I sleep all day and stay awake feeling miserable all night. I don’t have a job. I don’t want a job. Because I doubt I could handle the pressure. I used to do artistic things to cope but even that seems pointless anymore. I know something isn’t right. I shouldn’t waste the only life I am ever going to have like this. But it is very hard to carry on and I just want to escape. I only know one way out.

  • turk_1923

    I feel like I am totally useless in this world. I have no hope, no prospects, nothing on the horizon. 25 years old and never had a girlfriend, don’t think I ever will. Friends say that I am good-looking and fun to be with but I do not feel that way. I wear the mask of the joker to be socially acceptable because nobody likes a downer. I am tired of being funny, I do not know who I am anymore. I feel like I “should” be happy, because of all the evil and peril people are suffering in the world but I cant help it. I keep on living because I am curious of the happennings in the world. I have lost all personal ambitions, lost my will to make music, have no will of achievement, no purpose, only this enourmous feeling of loneliness and emptiness. I wait for the sweet breath of death to end my agony. Living is hell for me. I do not know why I bother waking up in the mornings. Nothing would change in anybody’s lives if I were to die right now. I am no different than a house plant, I live for the sole purpose of living. I hate myself for consuming the world’s resources.

  • dalton

    depression is like punnishment. it taxes your composure to the point of social poverty. it amplifies setbacks into monumental failures. i lost the woman i love, and lost the love she had for me, completely by my own stupid volition. i am 38 yrs old, good looking, rather intelligent, and i cry at my place of business. people tell me i shouldnt feel that way, i have a lot going for me. it is almost like they are annoyed or feel like i am preying upon their sympathies. i legitimately feel like curling up and dying, convinced now that i am of little or no consequence…

  • KimD

    It’s like being in a black hole and not having the energy to even try to find a way out. I feel that’s where I belong because nobody wants to see this ugly me. I have used up my friendships whining about my pain and how I want it to stop. I’m afraid my marriage is next. I feel very alone and very hopeless. I can only think about all the negative things that have happened in my life and can’t see how it will ever change. Zero self-esteem. I hate who I am now and don’t know how to find the old me. When I’m depressed but not suicidal, I understand how ending my life would hurt my family. But when I’m in that black hole, it doesn’t matter. Nothing makes any sense except that my pain will be over. I truly believe there is no hope, no place for me in this world.

  • sosadsolonely

    I feel like a fraud, everyday I have to be fake and act like I am strong. It hurts so deep inside. No matter what accomplishments I make it never makes me feel much better. I relate to Shadowgirl from 5/20. I want to run away from everyone to somewhere no one knows me and judges me, somewhere I don’t matter. I’ve built up a fake security, good job, nice home, good husband- what would they all think? Would I really matter to them in the long run? Where does it come from? From just my mother who also battles depression, tried to kill herself when I was seven, was an alcoholic, always more important to be out drinking & with her boyfriend of the time than her children? Did I matter enough to her? Having a biological father that doesn’t want to acknowledge me? He never cared, I dont exist really, much less matter to him! My sister taken away to live with her father & grandparents? They tried to help her, but left me behind. Looking for attention with guys at age twelve? So I got used- they don’t rememeber me… Pregnant at age 13, running away? Didn’t matter, I came home to find my mother packed my things up anyway. She gave up. Abortion. Did I help save that child from a bad future from a young messed up mother or cause myself more traumatic failures to add to the list? Next came anorexic behavior then bulimia- 20 years now. A baby of my own at barely 18, can I handle it? Maybe I could give her a better life than I had growing up- it was a hope only… More depression in between, more pills, more therapy, more addictions, compulsive behaviors, bad relationships- controlling, abusive, indifferent. Now I’m a mother putting a teen child through my problems, how can I take care of someone without taking care of myself? She says I don’t matter to her even, so what purpose is there to the rest of my years??? I’m tired too, maybe I’d be better not to continue my influence on her life? Will it ever get better? I’ve let the real love in my life slip away, pushed them away, they would’ve left too anyways right?

  • scott fletcher

    I Have had two major bouts of depression. I can probably handle this, but my depression is associated with virtually non stop anxiety. In a way i am fortunate thatmy depression appears to be episodic and i come out of it in the end. I hadmy first bout in 2003. One day i woke up feeling anxious and overwhelmed with throughts of ‘why i am alive’. This was scary and throughout the day igot worse and ended up going to the mental health hospital and was given an anti depressant and a tranquilizer. One month later i was in hospital and then attended a day unit for a few months. When i went back to work after four months off, it was very tough, like it is now as the anxiety remained and made it difficult to concentrate in do much. But if i stay off sick it adds to my massive anxiety that i may never work again. Over time between September 2003 and early 2004 i slowly got better and in August 2004 got a permanent job. I got well again and began to enjoy life and experience the ups and downs everyone has. I had a blip in October 2005, but the Doc was excellent, raised my anti depressant and gave me an tranquiliser for the anxiety and four weeks later i was back at work, until April 2006 when i woke up feeling the same as virtually three years earlier. I went back to the day unit on 25th April and was discharged last Friday. I am now back at work part time but still feel anxious and depressed and feel i still need to get better. But there is no point staying at home. I have found lorzepam and diazempam useful but they can only be used short term and the docs don’t want to change my meds, i feel they have stopped working. Deep down tjhere is a chink of me that knows that i will get out of this, i have had the odd good day. I now that i can get lorzepam from the net, but am wondering if i am addicted already but feel that id rather be addicted to this and feel better mentally and be able to work and fuction better. I just feel totally unreal and have to try really hard to enjoy stuff but those good days or hours tell me that i will be well someday and so will you all. For now, i just wait and make the best of things that i can. What is worse is the sucicidal feelings, which are a symptom and not indicitive of my reality, but are very real and tempting to act on, but with my mum and sister still around i can’t do this and it’s worth hanging on despitehow crap, low and hopeless you may feel. The brian is very powerful and can change just like that so despite the fact i have this depression and anxiety i get on and think of a better day and time.

  • Kathryn

    i’m 18, have been feeling like this from being about 14. it’s like being numb. it’s almost as if someone’s pressed a ‘mute’ button on my surroundings, i don’t really hear anything any more, its like i’m in my own world half the time, and i can’t really interact with the ‘real’ world any more. i feel so empty, physically empty so that i can feel it in my chest and stomach, and so, so sad that i cry all the time. i just can’t bring myself to do anything, whether it be studying, eating, moving around, talking, i feel exhausted all the time, all i can do is sit on my bed and cry or stare into space. it feels like i’m totally lost in a huge pitch black space, i can’t see anything, all the noises scare me so badly, and i can’t find a way out. when i’m around people i have to be ‘ok’ so that they don’t notice anything. but inside its tearing me up, shredding my heart up so much it kills me inside. sometimes i ache for death to take me, when i’m lying awake and begging for the pain to stop somehow…i’m always wanting to hurt myself, kill myself…yet always clinging to a hope that one day i’ll beat it…but its so tiring, it seems so hopeless, so pointless that i just want to give up. i’m always praying for the day i just won’t wake up in the morning. everytime something small goes wrong, it knocks me down so hard it feels like i’m constantly falling, and any time i manage to get a handhold, start to climb up again, something else knocks me further down. it just seems so hopeless, so pointless, and i’m just so exhausted from fighting it.

  • Diana

    If

    If I could look into your eyes
    The power of your grace
    Would humbly heal the scars of life’s
    Wrath upon my face

    If I could hear the whisper
    To the answers of my prayers
    Would all my dreams be shattered…?
    By the knowledge you had shared

    If I could see or know the wisdom
    Of why my life was lived
    How it had unfolded
    Was from actions that I give

    So now I learn the story
    Printed on my face and hands
    Silent lines are whispering
    My life that you had planned

    If I could be forgiven
    For the actions that I took
    Would the stains that are in
    The scars of my skin
    Be erased or removed
    From my life… book?

    In mercy as my love for you
    Reflects the blinding light
    I pray for these things
    And forgiveness too…?
    Before I say… good night!

    Summer 2004
    Diana Gossman

    Depression has had it’s tenacles wrapped tightly around me for many, many, years. Living in the dark abyss has become the only form of living that i have been able to do.
    After an attempt to end the pain, (involuntary hospitalization to save life, then locked up in a state psychiatric hospital for 72 hrs.) awakened me to the realization I MUST BE SUCCESSFUL when I gain enough courage to end the pain once and for all.

    After years of pain & hopelessness I had a chance to end the pain naturally. In the middle of the night I awoke to major pain in my arms, which ultimately led to a massive heart attack. Through family intervention, again my life was spared from ending my tormented life.

    In December, I finally admitted defeat and contacted Social Security about claims for disability from my years of depression (robbing mind & body) of normalcy. After 6 months of waiting, finally went to see their psychologist who after 20 minute session determined I was capable of working.

    Now I have the answer that i always ultimately feared. Homelessness or Suicide…the only 2 alternatives available…

    Too terrified to live on the streets…so I guess I need to gain all my courage and end it soon, before I am tossed once more out into the street, like the garbage I have been told that I am.

    Pray that I will find mercy in the destruction of my body…so that I might have a chance to regain my soul.

  • Kian

    For me, it’s just hopelessness. After a certain amount of meds (I’m on my 6th, currently) and therapists/counselors (3 so far) have not helped you, it seems that nothing ever will, and you even fear to hope any more.

  • Dana

    Depression feels like one day you have awakened but it is pitch black and can’t seem to turn on a light to guide your way. Though when there is this sort of “power-outage” we would feel comforted knowing we are not alone- that our household, neighbors and maybe our entire community is out of power- but for some reason- the power outage only affects yourself.
    Everyone else still has light. And for the most part, they don’t recognize that you are in the dark, so they expect you to be the same as always, navigating as normal in the light, that now isn’t there.
    Everything is that much harder by not being able to see the cracks in the sidewalk, or a path to guide yourself to see the light again. All you can see is the darkness.
    But possibly a message of hope in this is that even when there is no light shining on a beautiful creation, it is still beautiful, it is just much harder to see.

  • Grandma

    I agree with col about Munch’s “The Scream” showing what depression is like. In my mind I stand on that bridge, where the sky is a fearsome red and other figures are but a blur.

    You who write here describe so eloquently the vast, consuming darkness in the pit of depression. And yet I know it’s possible to climb out, because I’ve done it, once, with the right help–medication, hospitalizations, and good cognitive therapy.

    I’ve had 15 good years since then, but now, for no apparent reason, the old suicide thoughts have returned. I’m 64, tired and alone, eager for death. For the past two weeks I’ve wallowed in my misery, reading the “how to kill yourself” web sites. Bit I can’t forget the joy that followed my first recovery.

    Knowing that I got better once, I guess I will reach out tomorrow and begin the struggle to do it again.

    You who write here are my brothers and sisters. May we all find hope and help.

  • ///

    I’m glad for finding this webiste. I know the drug companies are happy to find us sick so they can make money, but sometimes they can help. I am not the kind of person who believes all things in the media but I KNOW I am sick. I am so tired of people saying we’re not really sick and it’s all something we are imagining and al these people write these books and say we’re making it up. I KNOW the difference between sadness and blues and all the rest and THIS THING >:(

    I feel like I’ve been poisoned or something. I want God to heal me or kill me with lightning.

  • aisha

    when you listen to music that reminds tou of some thing happened in past or creates the visuals on mind..it hurts..it feels like that you hate music..or become agressive

  • Bev

    I am a 52ye old female from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I have been fighting this “Faceless Disease” since October,2004. Your words read like mine. Even after having been prescribed and tried 4 or 5 Anti-Depression meds as well as an Anti-Psychotic drug I am still no further ahead in putting back the pieces. When I look in the mirror I see my face but I know that’s not me inside. I am still seeing a Pyshcologist since Aug 10/05; a Psychiatrist since Jan 11/06. I no longer want to be that person who is residing inside my body nor have that heavy black veil that covers my mind and body wrapping itself around me.

  • col

    there is no hope,as long as there is profit in sickness

    i wish i could have friends like the people who write here:(

  • col

    i am 35,i have had this affliction since 17
    i have been robbed of all achievement,i have never had a girlfriend.i have lost all my friends,the few that i had,i am so alone,i am a broken man,i am the shell of a man of what i could have been;with the mind of a frightened boy tortured by an unseen enemy and yet.. it seems i am not alone..if only the non depressed could experience what has been submitted here for just 1 day!..i pray for death yet i beg for life.. for a release from this prison…

  • nobody

    i feel like everyone around me is so perfect.
    its like i am standing in a room and everything is in slow motion and my vision is blurred and they are carrying on with their lives as usual and dont even acknowledge my existence.i hate to feel alone and desperate. but sometimes i wonder, if i were to die right now, would i be missed? the answer that i force myself to believe is always no. who would come to my funeral? no one. they wouldnt talk about me when i was gone, because its like im not there to begin with. the neglect and the betrayal of all of my “friends” is enough to drive anyone to the edge. they go off and have fun and i sit home and cry on my bed because theres nowhere for me to go, noone for me to turn to, and nothing i can say to express the way i feel inside. i dont want to smile, dont want to laugh, yet why am i so jealous of the people who are laughing and smiling right in front of me. i envy those content with their lives because i sure as hell am not.

  • KIM

    I have tried for years to explain my depression and anxiety to my family and husband. None of the seem to get it, my husband lets it go in one ear and out the other. I have tried meds, counciling, therapist (currently with meds). I just feel sometimes I have already received the best of what life has to offer. I wear my feelings on my shoulder and am easily hurt. As many advancements there have been in science, why can’t they fix me.

  • alexandraf@sensewave.com

    I’ve always heard that im not the only one who feels this way. ive never actually believed that until i found this site. it really helps to talk to someone who ACTUALLY knows how you really feel. I dont think theres anything wrong with us. if anything, our feelings of depression just show what compassionate and delicate beings we are. The large amount of inconsiderate people and harsh surroundings are the real problem and the cause of our shit feelings.
    someone once told me that only artists get depressed. if you would read some of these posts you would notice that a lot of these writters are very poetic.

  • Wendy

    Feeling depressed and suicidal feels like my heart has enlarged to 500 times it’s normal weight. Sometimes, for weeks at a time, I do nothing but cry. This morning at work, I cried for a little bit, unnoticed, but had to go out to my car to do the rest of the crying. You can only fake the nose blowing cold-symptoms for so long.

    My family knows that I am depressed, but I think they feel helpless. When I was a teenager and threatened to commit suicide, my mother would put me on a guilt trip about how sad it made her feel that I wanted to die. Eventually, she stopped feeling sad and handed me a large kitchen knife every time I threatened. I think she thought I was just trying to manipulate her, but I wasn’t.

    I often feel like I’m trapped by my life committments. When my dearest friend, my cat died in October, I went out and adopted two wonderful sibling cats. I love these two cats just as much as I loved my first cat, but I worry. What would happen to them if I did commit suicide? Could anyone actually love them as much as I do? How lonely would they be without me? I also have my sister and my brother. I don’t know how much my brother would care – I would like to think that it would trouble him, but I just don’t know. I know that it would devastate my sister, who already suffers depression and anxiety attacks as well. I couldn’t do that to her, or my new nephew. About my mother. I don’t know if it would hurt more or be more of a relief for her. I have always struggled from medical problems and she knows how difficult my life is. Would she be able to celebrate my incredibly brilliant (yet sad) life, or would she never be able to recover from it. My father? My father would make excuses and avoid the whole subject together. Whatever they make corian counter tops with, that is what my fathers heart is made out of. So, basically, I just feel too tied down to my loves and committments. Would they understand that I just want to be free.

    I never tell my therapist the truth about how I feel. Like so many have written here, I think he only wants to hear certain things. I’m pretty mad about my Paxil, which normally works very well but isn’t doing anything lately. Sure, when I skip my meds, I deserve to feel like crap, but when I am taking them faithfully, it is so unfair that I have to feel this way.

    One thing I have resolved with myself. When people ask me how I am doing, I refuse to say that I’m fine when I’m not. Instead of lying, I’ve decided to not answer their question but instead ask them how they are doing. I’ve noticed that nobody really takes note of the fact that I never answered *thier* question.

  • Malcolm

    It is a peculiar feeling, almost like a struggle with ones self.

    At times, you want to let out yet, you hold it all back. The expression of your suffering, the tears. And, when you do it long enough you tend to get pretty good at that; holding back. There are times where you feel like letting it out but just can’t anymore. You keep it sealed within you, tightly.

    Then there’s what occurs almost everyday. I might have the occasional self-praise. But, it’s almost always criticism. Even if you do something really good, you usually don’t acknowledge your own accomplishments. You may even downplay its significance and convince yourself that it was no big deal, despite the praise from others. Almost as if you didn’t deserve the success. You doubt yourself and you’re never truly confident of yourself.

    There are times where you want to talk about it but, again, you hold back. You’ve tried to before, expressing your pain to another person on the hopes of understanding. But, instead, you are criticized. Your problem is trivialized and you are made to believe that you don’t have a problem … and sometimes it even works. You manage to convince yourself that you don’t have a problem, yet, you always wind up back in square one. Or, other times when this happens, you end up feeling worse. Almost as if you are punishing yourself for another’s observation; for being what they say you are, being selfish and feeling sorry for yourself when others have it “much worse.” And then you start to believe that you are selfish and then you start punishing yourself again in your mind, convincing yourself of your own convictions; that you are worthless.

    Sometimes, you try to retreat within yourself. You lay in bed at night with the headphones on, listening to beautiful melodies, and trying to imagine a person who truly understands you, cares for you, perhaps even loves you. Providing you with comfort, serenity, harmony, security …. but the moment never lasts. Sometimes you just merely go back to where you were. Or, sometimes the thought reminds you of what you don’t have and you either hold back or actually manage to let out somehow…

    Sometimes, you write about yourself. You express how you bring no benefit to others; how you are a bringer of pain and suffering to your friends and family. You want to rid yourself of existence to rid yourself of your guilt and shame and of the pain. Yet, you can’t. You realize how others may feel if you succeeded. You begin to feel like a paradox; not wanting to live yet not wanting to die. Almost as if you are, yourself, undead emotionally with the only semblance of sanity is when you can distract yourself from ones self. But, when you are alone, you begin to think of yourself the way that it seems that you’ve always thought of yourself.

    You want it to end, but you don’t know how and you don’t know who to turn to for help. Your own being, your own mind, your own soul remains in solitude, even when there are others around you. You feel doomed with no way out.

    All you want is peace, harmony, and love. But you can’t find them and you feel hopeless without them. Doomed to carry on a meaningless existence, unable to act in any way to rid yourself of the pain; you only keep to yourself because you feel that nobody wants to listen to you; that you fear retaliation for your own expression of your misery. You can’t reach out because nobody wants to take your hand and guide you.

    I need somebody…..

  • rootless

    I feel a constant ache inside, like some part of me is dying, bit by bit, from the inside out.

    My work performance has been dropping, particularly after a year in a job with a management tree just like the one shadowygirl describes. I feel like that job really damaged me, even though I pushed back and tried to do the right thing, and was well-liked by most of my co-workers.

    The drop in work performance makes me feel like the death inside me is now really starting to show on the outside. I think about how I am perceived by colleagues. How would you feel if you had to work alongside, and be friendly with, a walking, talking, visibly rotting corpse?

    My physical appearance is not terribly good. It could be better, but I have gotten terribly out of shape over the years and recovery is very slow (I do watch my weight these days, and try to exercise regularly.)

    Finally, I feel like everything I touch nowadays turns to sh*t, and that I suck more life out of the world around me than I put into it. It makes me feel guilty for being alive.

  • Manuel

    I never thought depression could be what it really is. I used to associate depression with sadness, frustration and grief wich is part of what a depressesd person might go through, but I never thought there could be a point beyond that. I am not sad but hopeless. Hopelessness that scarres me. Envelopes me in a mass of darkness. The world outside is not what it used to be. Nothing is exciting, nothing is fun. Everything is cloudy, foggy, no capacity to feel joy. Oh how cliche it sounds, but how true it is! Nothing is what is used to be. No safe place inside youre mind. Anxiety conquers, the world seems like it’s closing in. No God in sight, it feels useless to pray. It feels like I’m being kept in a forgotten place where my pleads will never be heard. I remember when I had hope. Oh how I miss those times. Why do I feel with this incapacity to feel hope? Is my brain really that deranged? Three months and it won’t pass! Depression it’s not a pretty sight. I’m forever in awe of what depression is. A horrible beast that eats your soul away! And I ask myself..why does it feel like I’m fading?

  • Samantha

    I am 26 years old. I was the prettiest, most popular girl in school. I used to be so active and outgoing and funny. I gained weight with my pregnancy, but really, I ‘m not what you would call a fat woman. I have a feeling I can barely put into words that is controling my life, or actually several feelings. I cry all the time. I have changed jobs 7 times in the lst 2 years, but I am brilliant at what I do and catch on to just about anything quicker than most people I know. I throw myself into my work and when I come home, I start drinking as soon as I walk in the door and cry most of the evening. I binge drink and black out. I do crazy things and never remember them, until I am told. I sleep with many men, seeming to have no concern for my body or reputatution. Sometimes I feel so tired I can barely move or think, and then sometimes I am no nervous, I bite my fingernails to the quick and constantly figit and pick at things. I have custody of my daughter every other week, and I swear it is that week that is keeping me alive. I never sleep a full night, even with Ambien, I cry all the time and feel like this exact minute is unbareable, let alone another hour or day. I can fake it good when I need to, most people think I am friendly and would never guess I had such intense issues. I usually will not answer the phone and I avoid my “friends” and social settings. I have to be in a just the right mood to do every little thing, even if its something I used to really enjoy. I am always asking myself, why can’t I just be happy, when will I be happy? What don’t I have that everyone else has? I want to believe that what I have is a real illness, but no matter what kind of meds I take, it never goes away. Relief is only temporary and I think it is really when I am just in what you might call my manic state where I too think it is my defense mechanism for the depression. I was soo stressed and overworked and unappreciated at my job (so I was thinking that very minute), that I quit last week. I went on and interview for another firm the same day and was hired. I started the new job and hate it. It is so boring and quiet. I am at times the only one there and there is no noise whatsoever. I start getting really nervous and almost talking to myself and then the phone will ring and I will snap out of it. I almost think I need the chaos. Even with the new no stress job, I come home and want to drink and go straight to bed, even though I lie awake for hours at a time. I have gone to see a counselor twice, but couldn’t tell him hardly any of this, not bnecaus eI didn’t want to, but because I felt like he was asking me questions so he could tailor make my diagnosis. I dont think he could from the questions he asked and I didn’t have the opportunity to tell him the things I wanted. I am going to try and find his e-mail address and send him this and see if he feel differently or can truly offer me some real help. I want help. I miss the person I used to be. I know she is in here somewhere. I just need some help getting her out.

  • J

    I feel so cut off from life and people. I feel like I am constantly wanting to jump out of my own skin. I can’t authentically interact with anybody. I can’t initiate or carry a conversation, all I can do is answer questions with vague and snipped answers. I act how I think that I am supposed to act (which is usually nice and friendly), but I think that most people catch on that it is fake and then they probably think that something is wrong with me. I have a boyfriend and he says that he wants to marry me eventually, but I feel so emotionally unavailable that I don’t see how I can be married if I feel like this. I think about suicide a lot and wonder, “If I am emotionally dead, why can’t I also be physically dead?” One good thing about all of this is that I have started to think more about God. Maybe He is having me go through this so that I will get closer to Him. I found a cool verse in Psalms that said something like “My flesh and my heart may fail, but the Lord is my strength.” I feel like God is becoming more real to me. I really like what the previous woman posted about suicide. It doesn’t just kill you, it kills your loved ones. That is enough reason for me to not do it! God’s grace and peace be with all of you. “Be anxious for nothing, but by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:16.

  • just a mom

    I am just a 53yr. old woman who has been grieving the sucide of my 26 yr old son for 8 yrs. Today…it’s nothing in particular but I really want to be wherever he is. I have become a loner, chain smoker and gained a bunch of weight. I have a grown daughter and that seems to be all that keeps me here. I can tell everyone who has written that a suicide basically kills the ones who love you. They may keep breathing, but life is never the same. So to all of us who are in pain, let’s try to get through one more day. The brain is a strange machine. It can shift. Right now, I’ll just give it a rest and see. To any of you who have children or parents…Give it at least 3 more days and tell someone your plan.

  • shadowgirl

    I agree with so many of your descriptions of depression. It is hell on earth. Actually, when I die and go to the so-called hell, I’m not worried because it can’t possibly be as bad as this misery that I am in. I have always helped others-why can’t I help myself? I go to my doctors, I take my meds, I go to therapy, but in the end I always wind up crying, alone and contemplating suicide. My depression has manifested itself-now not only am I having “mental”problems, I’m having physical problems as well-headaches, fatigue, nausea, nightmares…you name it, the list goes on. I don’t want to get out of bed and get dressed in the morning. Now I’ve been told that I have sleep apnea and instead of feeling relieved, I’m overwhelmed by the fact that I’ve been diagnosed with yet ANOTHER disease! I just cant’ handle it anymore. Normally I’d just go to the doctor and they’d increase my meds or try something new. But now people at work know about my illness. And you know what they did? They threatened to fire me. Now, I’m not stupid-I know that discrimination against mental illnesses has existed for a long time. It’s not right but it happens. At first I wanted to fight back but now I don’t know if I have the energy. When it happens to you, at first you think “OMG they are right! I don’t deserve to have this job. I am a worthless piece of trash.” You are so depressed at that moment that you leave work in a hysterical mess-you think about running your car into a telephone pole, or when you get home you get out a bottle of rum and a bunch of pills and stare at them until you can’t see anymore because you are crying so hard. You think “should I tell someone that all I want to do is die?” I know there are suicide hotlines but really, they don’t know how I feel! They won’t understand so how will they talk me out of suicide. People that I’ve worked with for a year can’t understand because they don’t KNOW me. They think they know the everything’s-ok-i’m-perfectly-fine me that I pretend to be, but when I’m alone at home I fall to pieces. And then when I do come out of the crying and the pitying myself mood, I get angry. I visualize choking the life out of my boss because how DARE she suggest that I can’t do my job anymore. (She’s the one that screws around all day and blames me for not getting stuff done-total ineffective supervisor). How DARE she suggest that she’s better than me because SHE doesn’t have a mental illness. How DARE she discriminate, harass and intimidate me just because I have depression. On my better days when I actually think that I can get through this (and they don’t occur very often) I want to beat the living shit out of her. Her boss isn’t any better-in fact I call her his puppet. I know the order to fire me came from him. He did this to the person in my position before me-she actually tried to commit suicide and he told her to find another job. Can you believe that people are allowed to get away with that in this day and age?! We talked to HR and they did NOTHING. I talked to Affirmative Action on the campus where I work and they did NOTHING. I would love to have the strength to get through a legal fight because what they are doing to me is SO incredibly wrong, but I’m so physically and emotionally exhausted anymore, I don’t know if I can do it. I’m on medical leave from work and I don’t ever want to go back there. I’ve been looking for another job but what if this happens again? I can barely survive now. I’ve always stood up for other people but I don’t know if I have the strength to stand up for myself.

  • STEPHANIE LA FORTUNE

    I suffer from both kinds of depression: biological and reactive. The biological comes out of nowhere & is unrelated to what is going on in my life. The feeling is this: it is the darkest part of night, totally black, with no stars or light of any kind. I am all alone in the middle of a huge black desert, where no other life exists, and am in quicksand at the bottom of a deep dark dank well, sinking deeper and deeper. I am desperate and call out to god for his help and I hear from outside the well a voice sarcastically responding to my plea: “Sucker” it sneers. There is no way for me to loosen myself from the quicksand — I am hopeless and stuck forever more without one moment of relief. No one or nothing can help me. I remember getting a massage during one of these periods and the masseuse told me she could not feel any life force energy in any part of my body. The only thing that has given me some relief is a blend of five medications, and even that does not liberate me totally, but lessens the pain to a bearable level. I am also prone to reactive depressions, especially when there is a loss in my life. I am ultra sensitive to “abandonment” which I have traced back to my experience as a “preemie” baby followed by time in an incubator followed by a mother who rarely touched or nurtured me. I have worked on these issues extensively, using all the tools, yet I still shatter when someone leaves me or threatens leaving. It takes me a very long time to recover — I am going on the 4th year of almost non-stop grieving at the traumatic loss of my father, who I was close to. And yes, I have tried lots of tools for this type of depression, and they have not been that effective. I have to wait it out, hoping I don’t kill myself during the wait. It is all such a struggle with little relief that dying is very attractive to me.
    I feel suicidal at times but something pulls me back from the edge when the desire hits. I wish I had easy solutions to share but I don’t. There is one person in my life with whom I can be totally myself, depressions and all, and he knows me totally but is devoted to me.And I do recognize his loyalty as the rare blessing it is.

  • someone

    It feels like i dont belong in this world. Everyone always told me college was the best time of their lives, and If i was looking at myself from the outside, I’d say so to. But I’m not really in it…I hang out with friends and have a good time, then go to my room and cry. Last night was the sungod fesival, and I hung out and played with the pep band all day and when to the concerts, and came home, lied in bed for 5 hours crying and wishing to fall asleep so i wouldnt have to feel anymore. I know this will just get worse as i lose my youth and this environment and have to go out into the real world. the only love ive ever known doesnt care about me anymore, and i’ve never had a best friend. all i want right now is someone to care. he only gets mad at me for putting pressure on him, and my roomate, the closest female friend i have, tells me to quit whining, everyone else has fucking problems too. i hate my family; all they do is yell and fight over money and stupid things…I went to psychological and counceling services and he isnt really helping me. I’m waiting for something to happen, something big that will rip me from this cycle of happiness and then crippling depression, that will change my view of life completly. But this is just a day dream. I want to be loved and cared for, but dispite my efforts Ive come no closer. hope continually fades, all i’m holding on to is the hope that someday I’ll be happier and maybe i’ll find someone who will love/care for me, but these are only words, i dont feel them at all. I dont know what I want in life except to be happy, but society isnt based on that, but success. I’ve thought about suicide for a long time, and my future seems hopeless. I’m waiting for someone to save me, even if it is a daydream, its something to hold on to. life is so beautiful, so curious and wonderful, I wish i didnt feel like this. But i just sit here crying as the days waste away…god, please, someone, anyone….i cant cope anymore…

  • sharonrose

    Many of the thoughts and feelings expressed by others who’ve posted here are very familiar to me.It helps to know that I’m not the only one who finds life so relentlessly painful. But I feel like no one else shares my secret shame.
    I wish I knew if there are others who’ve experienced disabling depression because of their appearance.It seems inexcusable to be deeply depressed for a reason as superficial as how I look. People closest to me believe that financial difficulties and the overall stresses of being a single parent are the cause of my unhappiness. Somehow, I know that if I admitted to feeling trapped and hopeless because I’m ugly,they wouldn’t understand. They’d tell me that I was just being vain and shallow. They’d probably suggest that I stop dwelling on things I can’t change(like my hideous face)and focus on improving my inner qualities. What they don’t understand is how extremely painful it is to feel physically repulsive.The crippling self-consciousness and deep sense of worthlessness I feel because I’m so ugly has an impact on every aspect of my life.
    It affects my ability to function normally and take care of my responsibilities. My children are growing up in poverty because I can’t hold a job and have to depend on disability payments. Being a financial parasite just adds one more layer to the wall of shame that surrounds my existance.
    I think that depression is most intense when there’s a sense of hopelessness, an absolute conviction that the source of one’s worst pain cannot be eliminated or overcome.That’s how I feel about my appearance. The knowledge that I am and always will be ugly fills me with anxiety,
    hopelessness and overwhelming despair.It torments me every waking moment of every single day.
    I think about dying a lot because I know it’s the only way to end this pain, but suicide is a difficult choice to make when there are others who depend on you to take care of them. I feel like I have to just continue living with this horrendous pain.
    In the past, I talked with therapists about my depression,but I’ve never told anyone how badly I feel about my appearance. I’m afraid I’d simply be dismissed as shallow and self-absorbed, and I know that there’s nothing anyone can do to help me with this problem anyway.
    I hope that anyone who reads this will please understand that I don’t want to feel so deeply depressed about how I look. I wish appearances didn’t matter so much in our society, and ugliness wasn’t considered so unacceptable.
    If I knew that anyone else feels the way I do,it might not seem like even among others struggling to cope with anxiety and depression, I am alone.

  • liz

    I am falling apart. Everyone around me belives that i am talented and great, i win competitions through uni and school, but i have been anorexic (for a year), bulimic (for 11-12 years – it is much easier to hide) and a shop lifter, thief, druggy, sex addict, and now i drink till the cows come home as well as be ill, and i am on so much prozac i am not allowed anymore. I am 23. I am not a bad person. i think. my dada did things to me that i have hidden for so long, that when i tell them now they seem like a lie (to myself if not anyone else!) but all i want to do is stand on a hill and scream until my thoat bleeds. I have scars up and down my arms and legs, which wont dissapear after 6 years, or less. What does one do. I cant stand the pressure, but i also cant stand the idea of not getting a home and stuff. They are so expensive. I have lost it. I want a family. I grew up a country girl, with so many expectaions on me because of school. I am still pushing. What is wrong with me! I love my other half, we have been together for 7 years now, since i was just 16. My mum married at 16, so did my brother (to a drug addict 46 year old) I deal with my mum’s angst from years of being kicked. When i was small my dad threw a pair of garden shears at me, my mum blocked it with her leg. She has the dent to this day. It would have killed me. She was there, until she broke, and came down south. But he followed and the courts said that he could see me and my brother, because we were different people hence his entire record was wiped, (despite the fact that we were on the “at risk” register for ages, it was a note under my ma’s register and not ours, failure of t3h system). I have nightmares of grabbing the steering wheel from that drunk bastard as he tried to run my mum over when she ran away at night. I have nightmares of too much and I dont want any of it. Hence i took help from teh doctors. The anorexia was a direct call after the rape and the suggested repurcussions (he was fighting in the courts to see me alone overnight without my brother, and the only one that could stop it was me if I said anything officially) – I was 10. How easy is it to manipulate someone of 10? how easy is it for a criminal to manipulate the court? Basically I was put in a position of total confusion. My bro never forgave me for the second break up. He tried to strangle me put knives to me, and my mum, before running away. I feel as if I am clinging to a hope of normal life. all my other half’s friends call me mum cos i care for them so much. All i want is a home and some kids and some christmas to look forward to. I know that i can do it. All i need now is the cash to get the home and the job. Stupid thing is i can do both of those4, but at the mo i am doing a masters MSc and working, and doing some xtra brownie points jobs on the side (to get me in with the right people). All i want is the job because once i have it (lecturer job) i will be OK. I can get a house, i can carry on, but it is so far away (well 5 months) and my other half doesnt seem to be as strong willed as i am. I am scared that he will run away before it is seen through. I cant sleep, i eat too much or dont eat, i drink, but ultimately i care about everything around me before i consider myself. I have pets, and i love and care for them dearly. I know i am not all that bad, yet i am crying to a keyboard.

  • BlueShell

    I sympathize with each and everyone of you who have shared your experiences here. I would not wish this illness on my worst enemy. It feels like my soul has been ripped apart into tiny pieces and now I am working to put my fragmented mind back together again. Luckily (if this can be consider luck) this is my second “episode” so there is a underlining of hope burried somewhere deep within me. I believe that if I have gone through this before I can do it again although in the moment of darkness it feels like nothing will ever be the same again. Everything feels slow, my mind feels blank, my body feels empty, I don’t feel like myself, I am an empty shell of what I once was, when I am not thinking about how dizzy I feel or how I can’t concentrate I often wondering what I am doing here and how I am going to make it through the next few hours. In my state the world seems so clearly messed up. Everyone seems to be in their own little bubble ignoring what is really going on around them. I too want my bubble back. I want to wake up and worry about trivial things like: will make it to work on time? or do I have enough time to shower? or what’s for breakfast? Rather than worrying about how I will handle just existing through the day, how awful I feel, or how I keep trying to convince myself this will end soon. I wish you all a quick recovery from this scary scary disease. As much as it feels like it won’t get better have faith in your inner strength to get yourself through this horrible experience.

  • teacher

    I’m so depressed. My boss is trying to get me fired and I can’t concentrate. Yesterday I called a hotline and ranted and raved. I am turning insane. Even if I had a good job I would be barely functioning. But with economic pressure, constant threat of dismissal and kids about to go to college, I feel so hopeless. I just don’t see how you can remain healthy let alone with a despot for a boss and with downward mobility for us aging baby boomers. I’m sitting here half dressed unable to go and even get a cup of coffee. At work I’m afraid to run into my boss. I’m afraid all the time. I long for death

  • Teresa

    this is the worst feeling. i can’t sleep very well some nights. Yet at times all I want to do is sleep. Lately I have lost the desire to eat or drink. I feel completely and utterly insane. I try with everything I have to make sense of my life, but in the end I ALWAYS end up feeling suicidal. Nearly everyday I go through at least one point of extreme despair and confusion. And I don’t know what to do. I feel as if I must be insane. All I want is for the pain to go away. I just want that excruciating pain to go away and I don’t know how to make myself feel more stable. I look back on my life and I think it was all pointless. Nothing I used to care about matters anymore. Once I force myself through the pain I lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling for long periods of time. And the pain starts all over again. I’m young and I want to be able to look forward to my life. But I’m only progressing making myself feel worse. I feel as if everything is my fault. I only hurt the ones I love. And they are starting to lose interest in trying to help me. I have no idea who I am or ever was. This depression is complete confusion.

  • Lorraine Cannatta

    I am still recovering from PTSD. It often amazes me how I seem to get through traumatic events of which I have had many. Somehow I guess for me it stays in my cells and my body and the dominates my life. I have had times when I was not depressed, but I can’t remember when. It seems to be that the deeper I go, the more I accumulate, if there is some will here or some choice here. I spent a month in the hospital for depression. The nurse asked me, what would my life look like without depression. That was a huge question. She also said that depression is anger turned inward. I do come out and when I do I am angry. I am either angry and saying mean things to people or I am crying and dumping my pain out on my family. When I feel balanced, can’t remember when I do neither. Right now, I don’t know where to turn, but I will not ever take my own life, as that would change my childrens life forever and scar them in a way that they would probably never be able to recover from. I know the pain, I know how deep and dominating it can be. I know the looking out the window and watching life go by. I also know for myself, that putting on foot on the floor and then moving the other one a little further forward can make the difference between a good day and a bad day. It may not be a day where all that I would like to accomplish will happen, but I can do one small thing to start the flow of movement. Energy, if I can remember that energy creates more energy, and staying still creates more staying still, just for a moment, I have this choice, get up and move and I do it, then somehow I have won,just for today, I have won. In so many 12 step programs they talk about Just for Today. I know that in my personal skill book, knowing that this too shall pass, is not a skill that I have developed. Knowing that yesterday is over and I can’t change any of it, is also not a skill that I have developed. But sometimes,when I make a simple choice, to move and stay in this moment and not look too far ahead or not look back in the past, then I am building on that skill. I may not be able to do it tomorrow, or the next day, but if I can stay with it today, maybe I will develope some better habits and self care, I do matter. So do you. We all matter. Oh how I pray to remember that I am building a life everyday that I exist and that people I love are watching me. What am I showing them what am I teaching them? For this moment I feel inspired and useful. I would like to offer you permission to feel that too. When you say all of a sudden you could not get out of bed, was it really all of a sudden, or do you remember that thoughts that led up to it. I sometimes go into a fog and then life feels like all of a sudden, but there was a moment there when I made a choice to fold up and tuck myself away like a clean bedsheet put on the shelf.

  • Lorraine Cannatta

    I found this site tonight. Here it is after 4am. I have a college graduation party for my daughter in the morning. I will be tired and emotionally unavailable. I can’t sleep. I have not been able to eat and feel that I don’t matter and can’t do anything right. I am embarrassed because I am sad all the time. My husband doesn’t understand. I feel like an emotional burden to everyone. I am smart, but it doesn’t really matter with this illness. I know so many people that are on medication and do not feel better. I was on once and felt better for a while, then just felt numb. I want to apologize all the time to everyone or yell at them. I go to extremes I am either angry or sad. Nothing in between. Most of the time I just want it to be over and keep thinking it will pass, then I look back and see the unused years and times that are gone now. It really helps to know there is this sight to come to. I can’t believe there are so many of us out there. There must be a cure for this somewhere.

  • Natasha

    I’m constantly frustrated with my inability to do the things I enjoy. I can’t motivate myself to do anything that gives me intense pleasure. I love reading, walking and dancing. I love socializing, and getting things accomplished. But I can’t. It seems I won’t. I get anxious at the thought of doing those things. I don’t know. I’m just running around NOT doing what I love. I can’t understand it…
    Maybe I dont think I deserve to feel pleasure.

  • J

    Depression feels like you’ve died and you’re watching yourself from space…an empty shell. It’s like everything’s blurry and in slow motion… you say to yourself “This is not me…this is not my life…” And when you lay yourself to sleep,you’re desperately wishing that this is all a bad dream and that you’ll wake up and everything’s the way it should be…

  • Jen

    I feel as if I don’t belong anywhere in this world. I feel different, defective, as if I should be able to live life like everyone else but can’t. I feel like I’m walled off from other people – they can’t reach me and I can’t reach them and most of the time I’m glad for the wall. I am so exhausted, eating breakfast make me want to go back to sleep. I can sleep for 36 straight hours and still be exhausted. Everything seems so, so hard to do. I feel like life is all drudgery and sorrow and it takes more effort than it’s worth.

  • Bruce

    For me one characteristic of depression is that when I’m depressed, I feel like I was always depressed. Viewing my whole life through depression is viewing it through a distorted lens.

  • Rosie

    I feel numb all the time and often feel that i am just a nothing person. Depression i think makes me hypersensitive and so i am very nice to everyone, sometimes i get lost in my misery in the company of others. I keep trying to snap out of it etc and am aware of what i’m doing but i can’t shake of my feelings of sadness and my sombreness. At university the people i know well see me as light and funny most of the time with some funny moods. Everyone else i get really anxious around. I never seem to relax. I think people if they looked properly into my eyes past what i’m doing at all times there is an air of sadness.

  • Phyllis

    It does and always has felt like being in a deep, deep trench and being unable to climb out. I feel abandoned there, unloved and irrelevant — and at the same time desperate to escape. It is the most painful thing to go through. It used to be when it got really bad, I used to bang my head on the wall (literally) just to feel something else, something that was not THAT.

    When you are depressed, all evidence of your self-worth seems like a lie, and all evidence of your worthlessness seems like profound truth.

  • Jessica

    For me it feels like nothingness. I read posts on here where people talk about crying all the time. I really wish that that is how I experienced depression because I don’t feel anything! I just feel numb. It is 12:30 pm and I am still in my pajamas having done really nothing today. Is it laziness or is it an illness?? I used to be described as energetic, bubbly, outgoing, but now I think that these were just masks to hide a depression that I have had almost my whole life. I think what makes it worse is that I don’t have very good social skills. I am not really able to carry conversations. All I know how to do is be nice and submissive, but not actually be a real person.

  • Lacey

    Shame colors everything. Everything I’ve done wrong comes back to me and I can’t escape it; I feel I don’t deserve escape but long for it above all else. I need help; sometimes I even want it; but I cannot justify it to myself. I don’t deserve it, and to ask for it would be even more shameful and it would be admitting that what I am is wrong. I’ve tried to keep it in but have failed, and I’ve upset people: some actually care for me and I can’t accept this; I don’t want to have hurt them; that’s not my place. How dare I hurt those good enough to care for me? I’ve been crying for two days now and I want to think I’ll eventually run out of tears; but it’s not so. My little dog sees me crying and looks at me and I can’t justify upsetting her so. I don’t think I can justify anything I do anymore unless it involves making myself feel worse, because if I make myself feel worse, I feel I’m doing something productive, exacting a punishment that needs to be done. I am so sorry I’ve hurt anyone. I’m sorry I’ve betrayed myself; I’m sorry I’m so weak.

  • Roxie Greene

    I was suffering from depression before I really knew what it was. I am 36 years old and have experienced 6 serious depressive cycles thus far. It feels like you are watching the world go by. You feel no control, no sense of happiness. I have a wonderful son and husband, but feel I can’t fully enjoy them due to my depression. It feels like something squeezing you constantly, and you have no air. I feel I am under pressure. Life is like “going through the motions”, nothing seems real. It’s like life is something that is being done to you, rather than living it.

  • keagan

    No matter how hard I try to make them go away, the tears keep coming and for no apparent reason. I just weep uncontrollably when I feel down, for no reason in particular. I don’t even know why I’m crying. Nothing makes sense anymore. Things that I used to feel familiar or comfortable with like home or family or just people in general suddenly don’t matter or make me angry. I never used to be a violent person but sometimes I just feel like punching someone for no reason. I feel unfulfilled in everything I do. It’s a constant search for something that might interest me for even a little while. Nothing satisfies me or can keep my attention for very long. I don’t enjoy doing things I used to enjoy like watching TV, playing sports, drawing, or even playing guitar. I can’t sit still. Either my knee is bouncing rapidly, I am changing positions a lot, or I tap on things. Sometimes people standing right next to me have to say or even yell things 3 or 4 times to get me to snap out of what I’m thinking about, if I’m even thinking about anything at all. I try and think of things that I could do to stop feeling like this but nothing sounds like it would work. I count things in my head a lot, like the number of steps I take. I talk a lot to myself, especially when stuff makes me angry or bugs me. I feel like if I act happy I’m being fake. I can’t smile at all and make it feel real. I never want to get out of bed to start the day, even if I am wide-awake. It’s hard to make the simplest decisions. I can’t even decide what to wear so I end up wearing the same track pants 5 days in a row. I have lost most of my interest in food. Not even my favourite meals or snacks interest me anymore. Nothing motivates me. I feel extremely lethargic. Lying on the floor of a dark room and staring at the ceiling, just wondering in general, but with no specific thoughts coming to mind can occupy and hour or two of time. I think about bad things that have happened to me a lot, and think that maybe they are the reason I am so upset, but then call myself an idiot looking for excuses. Other people can cope, so why can’t I?

  • John

    It takes the greatest effort to get out of bed in the morning, even though I am awake many hours in advance of the time to get up, consumed by a torturous anxiety. I dread the arrival of daylight.
    I am tired all day, yet at night, sleep will not come unless I am completely exhausted and even then only for short periods and full of bad dreams. I stare at the ceiling, wondering what has happened to me and what disasters the day may bring. I am consumed by guilt for what I am doing to my family.
    Nothing is getting done at work. I have projects to complete, but I can’t think. I try to focus on my work and get lost. I keep wondering when the boss will discover how little has been done. People at work are promoted over me as I can’t muster the enthusiasm to compete. I am withdrawn, screen phone calls and avoid social interaction because conversation is a huge effort. Every day, all day long, I beat-up on myself. I forget basic things, like turning off a gas burner or locking doors.
    My wife does not understand. She keeps telling me to “snap out of it” and says that I’m lazy and self-centered. I’m irritable all the time, about things which have never bothered me.
    Nothing is good anymore, everything is consumed by an appalling sense of dread and anxiety. I can’t read, can’t follow the plot of a movie, can’t be outgoing and the music I used to enjoy so much does nothing for me. I am bored, but feel like doing nothing. I am jealous of other people because nobody else seems to have to exist with such a burden. There are times, when I’m alone, that I think that life is hopeless and meaningless, and I can’t go on much longer. I am drinking more and more alcohol to cover the pain and being secretive about it. I eat unhealthy foods on purpose and do some risky things. I can’t plan anything further away than the next day and even then only the absolute simple necessities. I hate sunny days and prefer darkness. I gravitate to bad news.

  • sheri

    Depression gives me a burning stomach and an inability to eat or sleep very well. The world looks very different as if it has lost a bit of color. Nothing much matters except feeling better.

  • Nicole

    severe depression feels like everything is going wrong. everything you do (even walking, talking, eating)feels wrong. you feel like everyone hates you and you are just alone in the world. if your suicidal you feel like suicide will free you. you want to be dead with all your heart but its so hard to commit suicide.

  • Emily

    depression is the constant feeling of guilt and blame for doing something wrong, the feeling that my life and everything I have done with it is a total fuck up and nothing I can do will ever make it right. All I want to do is sleep, and even when I can’t, I spend days curled up in a ball on my bed. I cry constantly, and used to think it would be better if I cried because then I could ‘get it all out of my system’, but the crying doesn’t make a difference, except I can’t stop, even when it embarrasses me. I don’t leave the house if I can help it, and keep the curtains drawn. I feel guilty for surviving, I feel guilty for not being able to cope, and for the harm I am doing my children for the way I am, and think all the time of ending my life in a way that would make it seem like it was an accident.

  • Paul

    My feelings are often more accute after leaving work, although recently, aggitation there has increased. As time goes on, it is becoming more and more consuming. It numbs me into inaction–even if action is called for immediately.

    I agree with the comments about life going in “slow-motion,” or “slogging through mud,” yet at the same time, the next thing I know, it’s a new month.

    Sleep has been a joke for nearly a decade now, and I have gone from an overweight 200 pounds to an underweight 140. As often as not, I talk myself out of being hungry as opposed to actually eating.

    I can sit in the evening, and have one problem on my mind, which clues me to another, and then another, and so it goes.

    I see my friends and other acquaintances doing well, and it seems as if God has just abandoned me…I even picture Him as Allan Funt narrating an old Candid Camera episode–“Now watch the look on his face when this happens to him…”–to others gathered around to watch my latest situations.

    I am, by nature, a funny person (believe it or not). I make people laugh all the time, and I feel like I’m not a bad person…just one who has bad situations, one after the next.

    It’s getting rough after 9+ years folks!

  • Sandra

    depresssion fells like being in a space where time does not exist. It is a pain beyond anything that can be felt physically. Depression seems sureal. I tell my mind that I am going to be okay in a few days. But days come and go. I feel that I am being held captive in my own body. I feel so badly that I don’t even care if anyone reads this. Each day is like viewing the world through the wrong end of binoculars. Sleep is the only freedom I have.

  • Mary

    Depression is knowing how you used to be, and wanting that back. But no matter how hard you try, nothing is the same as it used to be. The tv shows you used to love make you cry now because you remember how excited you would be to watch them. Now you don’t care if the show is cancelled. The music you loved makes you cry because you don’t feel the need to sing along like you once did. Waking up to your favorite morning radio show means nothing because you just want to go back to sleep and escape. Instead of being happy when you friends call, you are afraid to talk to them out of fear that they will know something is wrong with you. But mostly you feel like you’ve disappointed someone you love along the way.

  • Lana Stockberger

    Iam a 48 year old female. I am maried and have 2 sons. They are 18 and 22. We own 5 acres in a rural setting. My husband and I built a house on this property 18 years ago. I either was a stay at home mom or I only worked part time. My husband and I , very much cherished our 2 boys, we did a lot of things together and enjoyed a lot of family vacations. I was (am) a very devoted Mother. My days were planned around my family. Last January 2005 we had a house fire in the middle of the night, I awoke to the smoke detector and we were able to get out safely. However, our home was a total loss. We lost everything. We have since rebuilt and are living in our new home. It has been a year, but I can not get back the happiness that I felt before the fire. I feel a great since of loss. I feel like the years I spent raising my kids are gone. I have the memories but I do not have any of the personal items from their childhood. I find myself wishing I could go back in time. I can not seem to enjoy the present. I am taking an anti depressant but it doesn’t seem to help. I was wondering if anyone out there has experienced a similar loss, and how did you get through it?

  • Ian

    I feel like I have lost all motivation to do anything. It’s a chore to keep my friends, talk to my family, get schoolwork done. It just seems like the longer this goes on the more alone I become. I don’t know why i don’t talk to somebody but i just don’t feel comfortable with my doctor, family, or friends. I just feel seperated.

  • depressed

    depression feels sooooooooo crap that theres not even a word to describe it all you can keep thinking is “what if” & “theres no way out” you feel like nobody wants to help you and nobody really cares everything just gets worse everyone that you try to ask 4 help from just argues with you & they don’t understand anyway

  • Ashley

    Depression is like having a glass wall between you and the rest of the world – you can look out at everyone else, but nothing gets through to you. You don’t feel anything or connect with other people – nothing feels right after its filtered through the wall.
    Depression is banging your fists against the glass b/c you desperately want to get out and FEEL SOMETHING, but you just can’t break through.

  • bruce

    i wish i could spend a week or more with you people on a island just to share i am just over 50 and up until last year thought i had the world i wanted. i had been kidding myself, through recent professional help(shrink) for 10 years i had been clinically depressed and in extreme denial. mental health issues were for nuts not tough people like me. i have been off work for almost a year and am beginning to realize the truth that the anguish,pain and solitude are very real and extremely difficult. having stood at the lip of the river that would claim me (Maxx my dog intervened) i can deeply relate to you good people. what i find most comforting in my time of need is that one special contact who is sensitve enough not to judge but listen and be there once in a while. i am not sure what the future has in store for me but i take great comfort in talking to all of you. good thoughts to you all thanx for listening …bruce

  • Bryan Clifford

    #544…? depression is, I think, an emotional virus installed through tribal (and thus racial) “family values?” by socially and otherwise illiterate ancient and con-temporary parents, guardians and “teachers” (about 100% of teachers are females in the early grades here in Canada); then milked by priests, psychologists and various other sales-people: who all must seem like gods to infants and toddlers?

    All tribes of people rely on “mother figures” for discussions about human origins, with almost everyone’s first “teacher” a relatively huge woman who “gave birth?” after “making love?”, where babies are always initially exposed to sights, sounds, tastes, smells and touch of mothers. With her voice/words programming children into gender/sexual roles hard-wired into subconscious expectations associated with survival, usually with “men?” (adult aged boys) defined in terms of provision.

    Then “kids?” (livestock) and/or pets, toys or dolls; to psychotics (by their own definitions)are usually trapped in “homes” where, traditionally, “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world’ etc..

    So, in Canada anyway, it may be that women, in this sense, are the gate-keepers of both positive and negative cultural/emotional processes, with civil and good societies relying especially on the proper education of women to deal rationally with the real-world on Earth in a logical manner, thus to further international happiness among 6+ billion people in 2006: all, however, it often seems, admiring how my class, grade 7s, would live, they say, if 12 year olds were rich and famous; wealthy and emotionally disturbed?

    This, of course, would be on an ideal planet where prostitution, politics and wrestling, for example, never have been professions nor sex a trade, and where only our brightest and best scholars, academics, intellectuals and philosophers get elected by literate populations into public office?: With Universities, alma-“mater”… and higher… education defining all that’s possibly civil and good historically, now and for the future among those of us with high…iQs?:

    If we all had high… iQs then no-one would be depressed because every-one on Earth would enjoy an equally high… moral, social, political, economic, cultural, emotional and humor intelligence, or HM.SPEC.EH.i?

    However, this would mean everyone sharing a laugh at how 12 year olds would live, here in Canada anyway, they say, if my class, grade 7 honors social studies (I’m retired though) was rich and able to play house and play family like we’re all in the movies and on TV?

    I get depressed after about 25 beers, then realizing I never was the man I used to be?

    I’ve now accepted my depressions as being a direct result of everyone else being insane, imperfect, ignorant etc. and I welcome any excuse whatsoever to try to normalize my “chemical imbalance” with whatever drugs/booze I can afford, largely because I have teens at home who call me dad?

    However, I wouldn’t recommend this therapy for everyone, unless, like me, the children in your care are all geniuses: They must be, non of them work for a living, but they all have more money than me?

    Cheers,

    Bryan Clifford

    NB what the …. is XHTML?

  • Tina

    Depression in everyday life is like this:

    A bill comes that is overdue but you set it aside and then lose it; you play the massages on your answering machine and write them down, but lose the paper and don’t call anyone back;

    You look through the paper for a job and skip past all the ones that you know you are not good enough for, or that you know you will be late to, or the ones where you will have to seem happy all the time.

    You plan a dinner and make it to the store and buy the ingredients, just to have too many days go by before you remember to cook it, and the meat goes bad;

    You agree to meet your friend of friday, but when that day arrives you make up an excuse why you can’t go, if you remember at all.

    Your husband brings you coffee in the morning because he has discovered it’s the only way to get you up ~ without you being nasty ~ because you feel too guilty to if he is standing there with coffee for you. He doesn’t understand why it’s so hard for you to wake up and is often mad at ou for it.

    You have unfinished books in various places, unfinished projects and half-started hobbies that you feel guilty about never getting back to.

    You wonder what is wrong with you, and why you are so different from everyone else, as if they all have a secret they are not sharing with you.

    You stare at the ceiling and the walls in the darkness ruminating over all these unfinished things, chastizing and hating yourself, swearing to change tomorrow.

    Then you wake up with a thick fog in your head that weighs your thoughts and movements down like liquid lead coursing through your mind and body, and spend the rest of the day procrastinating, forgetting, starting, getting distracted, starting something else, dragging, shuffling, struggling to feel motivated, knowing you should do better, but failing, failing, failing… all the while pasting a stupid fake smile on your face so nobody knows how screwed up you really are.

  • Fay

    Depression feels AWFUL!

    -It feels like a dark cloud hanging over your head.
    -It’s the devil.
    -You feel like crap all the time.
    -Things start irritating you for no reason.
    -It’s irony.
    -You cry too much.
    -Your body reacts to it and you get health problems.
    -You feel like a scapegoat and everything’s a conspiracy.
    -It feels as though your body is shutting down and you have crazy thoughts of impending doom.
    -You have a longing or feel a void in your life. There is God, but He can’t seem to help you with it.

    I hate it. I wish this depression would disappear. If you have any suggestions, please send me an email. Don’t tell me to go to the nearest church for an exorcism or suggest I eat Krispy Kreme Donuts to drown my sorrows away.

    No chain letters please.

  • Erica

    Depression feels like slogging through life knee-deep in mud. No matter how hard you try to move, you feel like you’re being sucked down into the mire.

  • alex

    All my life i’ve been tortured either by my brothers or my own thoughts. And lately it seems that my depression has incresed ten fold. I never have anything go my way. But up until recently i’ve always had this small sense of hope inside me but now i’m really scared because that hope has finally died. I would always try yo look on the bright side but i can’t do that anymore. I don’t fit in anywhere. I’m always alone and i dont want to be. Now my thoughts are filled with suicide. And i don’t know how to stop it. The thing is if i keep on feeling this way i know i will snap and end it all. The only reson that i haven’t done it already is that i’ve seen what suicide does to a family nd i don’t want to put my family through that. i just don’t know what to do anymore

  • Angela

    All of these years i didn’t know what i was feeling was depression, now that i have been medically diagnosed i know thats why i feel so sad all the time feel like crying over what to others seems like nothing at all. i feel as the world is spinning past me and i am just standing here watching, wondering would they even notice if i just weren’t here anymore, probably not.

  • V

    Depression has taken all of my emotions and increased them 1000 times. Then it took all of these increased emotions and sent them into an endless pattern of cycles. I go from hyper, to irritable, to angry, to sad and back again. This happens everyday. Nothing seems to provoke each emotion, they just come as they please. I’m trapped in my mind, reacting only to my emotions and nothing in the present. I feel as though life is pointless since i’m never really living anyhow.

  • Zara

    I can’t concentrate on anything. I’m a grad student trying to finish a dissertation and can’t get through two paragraphs of scholarly writings. I can’t focus enough to clean up one part of the house without picking up something else to do. In the mornings I wake up and feel worthless. I imagine hurting myself to make the pain real, instead of just inside my head.

  • Michael

    I find that I can divert myself with all sorts of non-challenging things, and even enjoy myself to some extent, sometimes. But nothing is ever as much fun as it once was and as soon as I am alone with myself, nothing matters. I don’t look forward to anything really. Good news is news that I might avoid failure and humiliation. I can’t focus on anything for long. All I think about is how much I hate life and myself. I feel guilty and ashamed all the time. My depression has affected my behavior; I complain and mope around my friends and have failed to fulfill my responsibilities as well as I should. I’m ashamed of myself for being this way, I’m not a good friend, student, or worker. That just makes me feel worse about myself. I feel trapped, there is no way out, things are only going to get worse and worse. I comfort myself with thoughts of suicide, but I have a debt to pay off, that would really hurt some people in my life and probably most importantly I don’t have the courage to go through with it anyway. I wish I could just sell all my organs. That would allow me to help others who want to live, allow me to die painlessly, get money to pay off my debt and to say “I’m sorry and I love you” to my friends and family. I don’t believe that I will change. I don’t believe that I can be anything but weak.

  • Caroline

    feeling depressed for me, is watching the world fly by, seeing everyone be happy and wondering whats so wrong with you. why can’t you be like the rest of them? it’s feeling like i’m letting my glory years just slip away and letting moments that could be perfect dissapear. and then to have your best friend say “why do you have to be so depressed all the time” it hurts even worse, i dont want to be sad, i cant help it. for me it’s no longer caring if tommorow never comes because today i cryed 3 times anyway.

  • Kristine

    Depression feels like a living death. I feel insignificant, useless, worthless, unlovable, and hopeless. I feel like I’m scratching and clawing my way through this miserable existence. I’m constantly fighting the madness. The debilitating numbness that takes over my heart, mind and soul. This is nothing new to me. It’s been with me since I was a small child. Some times are better than others. Usually I’m better when I have a goal, or something to look forward to. But, it’s often just below the surface and the smallest thing can make me spiral. Every horrible thought and emotion come flooding in.

  • Vik

    When I was younger (20s) I would wake up in the middle of the night and I’d be so lonely that my heart hurt — really. You’ve heard the expression “heavy heart,” well, it was so bad that I couldn’t move — I mean, it really felt like there was a huge weight crushing me.

    But you know what, stuff really does start to fade as you get older. Not that you feel all that great, but at least you don’t feel so bad. You just don’t care — about anything — ever. Not the best way to spend your life…

  • Erin

    I too have everything going for me. I am a stay at home mom with two absolutely adoreable kids. I have a husband that provides for me.I exercise, I am active in the community. But still I am depressed… about what, I don’t know and thats what I hate. What do I have to be depresed about. I’ve had a good life. So a couple of normal things went wrong, my parents were divorced when I was 3. I had the typical childhood life of growing up wondering if I fit in with everyone else. Sill feel that way. So whats the deal why do I feel like this. I too tink about death and what I would do and also stop the thought the moment I think about the life my kids would have to face with a dead mother.

  • anika

    depression is kinda like when youre tired all day long and then when you lie on your back to go to sleep at night, you cant sleep, and not because youre not tired, but you just cant sleep. its when youre bored, but you dont want to do anything. you have so much to do, but no motivation to do it. its like sitting on a bench in the city and watch bustling people walk by you and crying. you see the world pass by you and you cry about it, but at the same time you dont really care. thats what i feel like anyway. i cant think straight, and i can only do things that are mindless. its really hard, and it is debilitating. i dont really think of killing myself, but living is a chore almost. expecially because everyone keeps saying “lighten up” or “come on just be happy” i passed my friend zach and i was crying, and he asked me what was wrong. i said “i dont know” and he just said “o. man i thought someone had died or something, but since youre just in one of your depressed moods again, bye!” as if it didnt even matter. its comforting to know that at least someone else knows what it feels like.

  • Andy

    I remember being seven years old and crying myself to sleep because I couldn’t accept that I only had a finite time to live… The older I got the deeper I ruminated about the ‘time slot’ I’d been born into. How it seemed so absurd to strive for anything when I’d never see if it made a difference anyway.

    I’d stare up at clouds on a bright day and feel a sort of yearning to be like moving air – something beyond the human cycles of birth and death.

    I have an average man’s life – children I love dearly and I do my best to encourage them to look outwards rather than inwards as I have. I hide the futility I feel inside for their sake – It’s too late for me to change.

  • Akita

    What does it feel like, anyway? It feels like confusion. Fear. Your whole life mysteriously changing and you not even knowing it. And then you’ve realized that your friends no longer want to be around you. Everyone seems immature and uncaring.
    As for a summary, all I can say is it’s like a wall of throns slowly closing in on you from one side, and the only opening left is one narrow window into the unknown.

  • Karen

    This is the place I have been looking for, people who are just like me, people who understand, that depression is not something that I can just snap out of. (Wish I could) Depression to me is, lonely, scary, empty, I feel brittle, fragile, and some days, so so so so sad! I know in my head that I will not give up – I’m too stuborn, but that doesn’t mean to say that it would be nice just not to battle this thing on a daily basis. Depression to me is also, anger, frustration, desperation to feel happy, crying over anything, feeling like crap! short of breath. There are two things I find extremly helpful when I’m in my bad place. Number 1 excercise, it temporiarly relieves anxiety and nervousness, number 2, writing everything down. Never bottling things up ever again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Linda

    Feels like you have a fingernail emery board scratching along your whole nervous system — sometimes harder, sometimes less so — I call it “The Princess and the Pea Syndrome.”

  • SadSouthAfrican

    Hi there fellow people,

    This is the first time I am admitting that I am depressed. The road to where I am right now was long and turbulent. I have everything going for me, a wonderfull wife, three beautiful kids, a good job (health professional), enough money, a good family, all of it…..but I’m depressed. The only thing stopping me from a cyclomorphine OD or car gassing is my faith in my Lord and the thought of the look on my kids’ faces when they will be told.

    I really have everything going for me, but I suffered a rejection and loss from people that I loved very dearly and in whom I invested 8 years of the very best chapters of my life. I just cannot come to terms with this no matter how hard I try. I have lost all faith in humanity. Like Abe Lincoln says, I must be the most miserable, deprolable bundle of collagen on this earth.

    I want to keep away from medication because when you on the prescribing end of the pen, you tend to feel that you’ll never need this. So denying it comes first. I have only recently beagun to admit that I have a problem and maybe psychotherapy may help. I have seen electro convulsive therapy turn lives around like oyu won’t beleive. I know that the road to recovery (if ever) will be long and hard, or at least I’ll have releif when my time comes to leave this cruel world.

    SadSouthAfrican

  • Heather

    Inside is an ocean that is pulling me down
    I struggle against the flow, but my strength is gone
    The light is fading…disappearing into the distance
    Until all that is left is the cold, black of the water
    No sign of land…no debris to catch
    Nothing within reach to hold me up
    So I sink, slowly, while inside a voice screams…
    “How did I get here?”

  • amber thompson

    depression is like u are slowly dieing and soon u will fall asllep and never wake up u feel like their no life and u will never wak up and come back to reality time flies by and u sit and watch he day go by as u cry u see the sun coming out but u know if u go outide u will never be happy its almot like living in pure hell and u are being punished and u dont know why!

  • mike

    I feel like I don’t love my girlfriend anymore. I don’t understand why I don’t because she didn’t do anything, but for some reason I just feel as if I am mad at her. I know that I love her, but I cant find the love anymore. My mind says I don’t like her, but I know in my heart that I can’t live without her. Is this a common symptom of depression? Has anyone else experienced this? Please reply.

  • Gary

    This list is awesome. Finally someone has listed what I am feeling inside. I am not sleeping and have started prozac under a dr’s care and I am praying that this does something.

  • Deep Blue Slider

    When I read these, I feel I was looking at aspects of myself. I too have a recurring clinical depression and am now on medication for it. However, I wonder just what kind of depression I have. I know it’s not the manic kind, so it may be the unipolar or the dysthymic one. Just this morning, because I’m scared at the thought of going back out into the workplace and facing the people in it, I starting thinking if fear plays a sizable role in depression. This website and another confirmed that fear does indeed go hand in hand with depression and that they both snowball into one another. Conquering the fear is going to be the major hurdle for me if I’m going to get back out into the world at all. I must say right here that whenever a depressive bout is on the horizon, my dreams warn me of it. The last one was a bobsledder going down a hillside covered in deep blue snow. Another symbol was a giant blue diamond set in a ring. Another is rain, still another is a tornado. Thank you for letting me vent.

  • Bob

    Starting a day, the getting out of bed, slipping out from under the covers of a comforter that warms and makes you feel so safe is very very hard. The life that the day offers seems uninteresting and just a series of monotonous tasks.
    I hope this negativity changes soon.

  • Joel

    Depression. The one word that effects many, many people. What it feels like? Everyone understands what depression feels like, but in different degrees. Some people only suffer periodic depression, some suffer from constant depression, and some still only suffer it after a tragic moment in life. For me it is constant. It is a contricting feeling, it is horrible, stuck in a trap that you can’t break out of. Stuck in this invisible buble seemingly all by yourself… The bubble of pessimism? maybe. For me, when I tried to get help, when I tried being happy, I felt so fake, everything around me became fake, friends, family, and most important me. I felt F-A-K-E. Not real, not alive. just…emptiness a body without a soul. I have trouble talking to people. Partly because of anxiety; which is caused by depression. And paranoi. Which is another onset of depression. And Its hard for me to concentrate on one thing. I thought I was ADD at first. Nope apparently not. Everything (metaphorically) seems gray. Not white at all, not colorful. The feeling that nothing will go right, that everything will go wrong is terribly present at all times, even in the midst of something going right that feeling is there. I hate being depressed. Crying over everything and everything; trying to be happy; and despite having a great life, great friends, good enough physical appearance; I can not find any happiness. It it incredibly hard for me to wake-up. I just don’t want to get up to face the day. I want to sleep until I die. I see all those happy faces and…they seem a world away. No, an entire galaxy away; like I’m veiwing them through a crystal ball. They are all so different from me. They can be happy. I feel supressed. Tired (of living). Uterly hopeless. Can I give up? No. I don’t want to die, I do not give up; despite being a manic depressed person my personality is one that will not let me ever give up. It is such a struggle though; living for the depressed. All you other people suffering from depression. Doesn’t it take lots of will to just give up. One of my few friends asked me why my smiles looked like a robot’s smile. Why I could never be happy. I told him that I can’t control that. I haven’t laughed in years. Jokes seem pointless. I have stopped feeling…caring. It feels like all emotions are drained. I have even stopped crying now a days. Most doctors would say that is an improvement. I am not so sure. I have lost the ability to feel emotional; isn’t that an indication of insanity? Yet I am perfectly sane? am I not! Symptoms can be tricky. They are hard to state

  • jane

    I don’t have many feelings. I have given up in alot of ways and just want to sleep. I have children and a husband and I guess I do have feelings because I feel guilty because I am depressed.

  • That one kid you see crying in the conner

    Flash, (up at the top) you are right! I know I’m only living because I know it would hurt someone when I’m gone. – Drepresion for me is… crying yourself to sleep because something is wrong, it’s not caring whether you live or die, and it is one simple word PAIN.

  • anonymous 1

    I believe depression comes from upbringing and of course heredity. I came from an abusive family. And many who have left a reply may not even realize they were abused one way or another. I was asked to not have feelings, not share them. I had no value, and not being able to show emotion I found I do not know who I am. If I did share how I felt I was made to feel ashamed, or ignored. If I had needs they weren’t important. Along w/ this was physical abuse and mental abuse.
    When I am in my depressed states it hurts so deep to the heart. So many emotions mixed up. I look and see others who have nothing, who are handicapped, who are struggling, starving. I wonder why I feel so bad. I feel ashamed for this. I try to see them and know my life isn’t so bad.
    Everything is black. There is no reason to be here and even feel I was put here by mistake. I have a great need to escape (but from what?) Just alot of anger, hatred, pain for not being someone. Not being needed. Worthless. Just want to sit alone in the dark and cry, scream. Asking God why and please take the pain away. It never goes.

  • sally cedar

    I have what I call episodes of depression for two or three days running. Usually eaving me on the fourth day – drained and low. Ok by next day.
    Happens sometimes close together, sometimes three or four months without.
    The feeling no one understands is:- a sense of something coming, I dread it and suddenly whoops I sink or fall down to such a dark miserable place (it gives me a sick feeling to think about it; within a minute I come out of it – but know I’m in for a day if not several days of sudden sinkings down always terrified i might not come up out of it. No one seems to know what i’m talking about and nothing I can find on the internetdescribes it. Apart from that i’m a busy happy person with fulfilled life. Sally

  • Theresa

    Depression is a living, a changing creature, that feeds upon your weakness, that impacts each aspect of my life. I can’t, no matter how I try, to avoid it. Or its grasp on me. I don’t fully understand why and I can’t defeat it. I try to outwit it and pretend its not there and live my life, but all I really am doing is existing from day to day. I dread my past because of things that have happened. I look back over my life and I see nothing but emptiness, failure and loneliness. I look at the future and I see the same. There is no hope and though I try to remain , I know that I am kidding myself. Each day is an ordeal, a battle to remain ‘normal’…a battle to remain on top of the water’s surface one more hour, one more day. I get up. I go to bed. In between, evidently, something happens…I may or may not remember–or care. It really doesn’t matter anymore. When I look at my husband, or my life,I find no peace. It is failing of his, bringing me down, because there is something wrong with me, and it is my fault. I look at my life and I don’t care. I occasionally hope and dream, but I know that I can never be happy or reach my dreams. What is the point? Loneliness and despair will be my life companions. I need to stop my foolish dreaming. I look at my life and wonder “why me?”. What have I done to deserve to be punished like this? I have this heavy feeling in my chest whenever I look out at the world. It’s the pressure of the tears just waiting to let loose. It’s the feeling that all someone has to do is point out that I’ve done something incorrectly and I’ll sit down right there and bawl. My life sends me to bed whenever it hits because the only way I’ve discovered that lets me forget the bad feelings is sleep. Sleep that’s never comes. All I want to do is run away from me and be somebody else somewhere else. I guess it’s that feeling of panic that I get whenever I think about my current relationship. I guess anxiety is when I take his every word and action to heart. leave. I start crying and I try to run so he doesnt see me cry. I try to give him the cold shoulder when I see him. Then once I’ve calmed down I feel miserable about how I’d treated him, yet I can’t seem to be able to help it. I feel lifeless, as though I am doing this and that without any particular meaning attached to it. Occasionally I laughed but my spirits quickly got dampened. I had this “Who am I?” feeling. Most importantly, I don’t remember who I use to be. It was very difficult to think, its as though the blinds have been drawn on my gray cells. There are times when I could see through the haze and fog and felt like I used to be, only to be quickly removed from that scene by evil thoughts that resulted in anxiety. The fact that we are all going to die and everything I do is meaningless anyways, bothered me. Especially with what is going on now. He is the one that something should go wrong, not me. So, I will be gone in a few years, even though I wasnt there a few years before, so who the hell am I and what am I doing here? This is the vicious circle I have myself caught in. There is this disconnected feeling, I have to instruct myself to do something. Then I will go ahead and do it. I keep myself under constant scrutiny. Then I wondered how I used to be. There was something else between thought and action. The glue that binds thoughts. Always being the blame. Never being good enough or doing good enough. Never mind that nobody has complained about my last project, I still didn’t do it right. Being a bad person. Let’s ignore what people tell me. I just am bad. When I am at work, or in some situation where I’m expected to do something (or expect myself to do it), I feel unable to do it. Or unwilling. When you are depressed it is very difficult to tell the difference between “unwilling” and “unable”. I can’t face the work I have to do, or if I try it, I feel I am doing a bad job and stop, or just do it to get it done, because I have too. When I am at home there is nothing I want to do. I try to think of things to do and nothing at all appeals to me. Waking up in the morning and dreading the day. It is picking fights with any one that is in the way. Maybe it isnt depression. Maybe I am just crazy. Sometimes I wonder.

  • dragonpirate

    There are things I want to do. Great things, mundane things and I can’t bring myself to do them. Sometimes I want to die, sometimes I don’t. I know the people around me will be hurt if I do and that is what keeps me going. It is like everything becomes so heavy and difficult. I can’t concentrate on anything. Maintaining a train of thought is a major effort.

    I let everything fall apart and only respond when I absolutely have to. I don’t pay bills until I get my final notice, I don’t do any preventative maintenance or care.

    I can’t ask for help either, men aren’t supposed to ask for help. Who could help me anyway? I don’t want to burden the people I care about with my problems and I don’t trust strangers.

    I feel like I’m at the bottom of a pit, and I climb halfway up just to fall down again. Only the pit doesn’t have a bottom, and every time I look up the surface is further and further away.

    I don’t see the point of getting drugs to change my brain. If I’m just a bunch of chemicals rolling downhill what is the purpose of experiencing my fake, chemically induced happiness? Better to suffer and die as “me” than be whatever is is the pills make.

    Things seem to fade from black when I just can’t move to gray when I can pretend to exist. Everything reminds me of failure and responsibility.

    I just want someone to hold me and let me cry and not judge and tell me it is all going to be OK.

    I’m not supposed to feel like this, I don’t know what I would do if anyone found out. What is wrong with me?

  • Ben

    i really don’t feel like living any more i think i need help. the only thing that keeps me here is my brother. i am crying right now. i read a book. i don’t remember what it was but it makes me think. in it a brother dies in an accident and the sister comes home and sees his room and his lunch that he forgot to take to school and sees how nothing will be the same and it makes me think what if i killed my self what would happen, would anyone care.

  • Ben

    i am 17, a junior in high school. i have been feeling pretty low. I was searching around and found this web site and realized that i felt alot of these things. I have been looking for colleges to apply to and i would like to play college soccer at any level. I don’t know what to major in. I don’t know what i am good at. i get a’s and b’s in classes. i am getting a c in one class. i asked my mom what my best class is and she said choir. i wanted to know what i am good at and she said i am good with kids. i feel i am not good at anything. my younger brother is really smart and has lost weight and has become really good at some tennis, football, and wrestling. my parents are always saying how he has improved so much and how i need to keep incouraging him. i am proud of my brother and love him very much. i think he is the only reason i am still on this earth. my dad is always yelling at me that i need to study and get better grades and get staight a’s like my brother. i got a’s and b’s and he still yells at me to do better. i can never do anything better. i feel stupid and don’t care anymore cause no matter how well i my dad says i should do better. if this is choppy and hard to read i appoligize am really just venting. i have a girl friend but we are both unsure of each other. we can talk to other people easier than we can each other. we are acttually talking about that but i want to talk to some one else about it. my girl friend thinks i like some one else but i don’t. most of the girls like me which is bad. cause my girl friend thinks i like them and also none of the guys like me either. i don’t have a good friend that i can trust and talk to. i pretty much have no friends or least that is how i feel. they all had a cast party for a show they did. i went to see it and then went home i drove around for a long time before going home and felt like closing my eyes and running off the road. i feel worthless i don’t know what i want to do in college and i am not sure if i want to play college soccer or soccer at all anymore. i feel like commiting suicide but i feel like i need to be an older brother and be there for my little bro. i am lutheran and wonder why if every one is going to a better place in heaven why we live at all.

  • Shilpa

    beautiful post. I had been through this 2 years back. back to normal now tho. Feels good. Hope this post helps people who need some good things in life.cheers!:)

  • missy

    I have been suffering from depression for 2 plus years. Believe it or not, it occurred several days after our honeymoon. I was suffering from major anxiety attacks and thought I did not love my husband anymore. Today, after several different medication changes that could not be farther from the truth. After I got on the right medicines, I felt the emotions and love for my husband come back and the doubts gradually fade away. I still live in fear that the depression will come back just as bad. I use prayer (I think that this was the major force that brought me back), healthy eating, exercise and plenty of laughter to help keep my mind healthy. I understand what everybody is going through. I wish I would have found this website when I was going through it so I would have not felt so alone and weird. It can get better, I promise.

  • Emma Woodruff

    Wow…that whole list describes everything I have been feeling… I mean, not every day I feel that way, but days when I am stuck in an environment I get tired of being in, i get that way… i wake up very agitated with my roomates… I feel the “slow functioning” and an inability to speak… im anxious a lot and always worry that something terrible is going to happen and dwell over it… but i think my current liveing situation has a lot to do with it… the environment is unhealthy which makes me feel unhealthy… I want to be healthy and I simply cant because the people around me dont want to be…

  • Chris

    I feel like life is nothing but a series of split-second present-moments with no meaning. There is nothing but the present. Progress is meaningless as it’s still the same present moment, only different. I only perceive these differences because of memory. Sometimes I feel like the “real me” is just behind the curtains of perception, compelling me to do the things that will get me feeling “better”.

  • rob harris

    i’ve just read my last posting, i apoligise about the spellings.luckily the people i work with dont make judgements, they just take the piss with everybody, basic, caring, salt of the earth, keeps me going.

  • rob harris

    hi, first thing is that i can comprehend everything that has been said previous,it all rings true in one sense or anothore, i’ld just like to say im not so poeteic or eloquent as most the people that have posted,as i said i can relate to most of what was said on this site, the dark days seem to be fewer these days, i seemed to have changed my emotionn from sadness to anger, there were the the days i was curled up in a corner not wanting to see freinds when they came to visit, my wife of not many years(long suffering) tried to understand, not one of the easiest things to comprehend as you know. but the lack of emotion still remains, i’m sure i would love to make love to my wife but i dont know ? i dont seem to have compassion any more it escapes me, does anybody know where it goes? what is the jealousy thing about?, i’m never jealous,well never used to be. the lack of sleep bothers me, the problem with it is i start to see things, dark shapes, people that arent there, am i just halucinateing ?or does anybody else get this? i some times think that somebodies finnaly come to get me. does any body else get the feeling that there is somthing more, a higher cause that we shold be serving. i’m not talking about joining a sect or anything.

  • Chrissy

    Depression is new to me. I mean I have had my sad times over the years but bounce back with no problem. This time is different. This time I can’t control the tears. This time feels so black. I cry all the time. I wake up crying on some days and can’t stop the tears all day. I go to work and people make comments like ‘where is our bubbly Chrissy?’ I get asked what is wrong but why is it that no one wants to wait around for the tears to stop so I can tell them why? I am invisable behind my tears. I have pushed away all my friends except one, but she will go away soon too. I can pretend sometimes so well that all is good with me, but other times my black cloud follows me for everyone to see. Why can’t they see me and not just my black cloud? Why must I feel like this and also be left alone to endure? I don’t want to die and I would never hurt myself so where do these thoughts of suicide come from? They are in my head playing out some sick part from a movie of my life. I see myself dead with my friends all finding me and I have a smile on my face. I am dead why am I smiling? I see them reading the letters I wrote to each of them and I want them to feel some of my pain of being left alone. Why do I want my friends to feel any of this? I don’t want to feel like this. I want me back again. I want not to hurt all over my body, I want to be able to do things without it taking all my energy to get it done. I want to have fun again, I want to see my future again instead of this dark hole I am in. I want the silence to stop around me and I want the thoughts in me to go away.

  • m.k.m.h.

    i have just today been discharged from a psychiatric clinic where i spent ten days being treated for my depression. i have been hospitalised for depression before but i came a long way in the past week, and i think i’ve really turned the corner this time. i can even enjoy sleeping and eating again!

    take care of yourself, be strong, and don’t be afraid to ask for help – sometimes it’s just too much to deal with on your own.

    just because you feel like you will always be depressed – even if you can’t remember anything else – that doesn’t mean that it’s true. there are beautiful and wonderful things waiting in all of our futures, if we can get through this crap illness. and i completely believe that we can.

  • Lorne

    Stress over something to long, you become depressed over that something. and then depression causes that something to repeat itself in your head over and over 24/7 with a snake eating at your brain, painful. and then your brain becomes the snake. evil. causing your mind to turn against you mentally and physically. you feel dead, you want to be dead. the future is now the past.. because the mind wont let you forgive and forget that “something”.
    That is how i feel about my depression.
    I brought the depression on to me unintentionally.
    I always felt that life was like a storybook. a storybook of my life. writing a page day by day. planning out the book (the future). and making sure that the story of my life, was beautiful. but then i went down a dark road. i made a huge mistake. a problem.. that i stressed over big time. why? i dont know. i just did. it was easily fixable.. i just took it to hard. i felt stupid. it concerned alot of money. for 4 months i stressed over this problem.. which led to more mistakes..a massive one. panic attacks hit me, and the depression finally took over.
    i got rid of the problem.. and over that 6 months i lost alot..the goodtimes, time itself, 2 cars, $20,000 in the hole, girlfriends, my dream, close friends, the respect from everyone i know and the worst, i lost my mind.
    now, in my head, everything ive done in life is a regret. a cycle of..”i should of done this, should of done that.” but its all to late. im in a dark hole, no motivation, no ambition, no energy, negative thoughts fill me with suicide thoughts.. i just hate myself.
    the only things that keeps me going is that i didnt lose my family, an arm or a leg, didnt lose my job or my familys house.
    but.. ive lost myself..and it is the most painful “thing” i have ever felt in my life.. and its so hard to get through it..

  • Tammy

    I have battled depression since I was a teenager and although it attacks less frequently, it still sits around the corner, ready to pounce on me whenever I let my guard down.

    When I am depressed…I feel like I can not do anything right for anyone. I am a failure in every aspect of my life. I want to run to my bed, snuggle in where it is safe and warm and remain there. I have no structure and get very little accomplished mostly because I can not seem to “sort” things in my mind right. A heavy hopelessness feeling weighs on me. I cry over anything and everything. And fear…Fear is the biggest factor of depression for me. It engulfs me. It literally attacks me. Fear is one of satan’s little devils invading my world. Trying to bring me down so that I won’t shine and be all that God wants me to be in HIS world. For me, I have to keep busy. I have to have a purpose each day-even if it is just going to the grocery store, the bank, the post office. Somewhere, every day. Unless, my son or husband are home with me then I can stay inside and not feel like crawling into my dark, quiet, lonely space. I pray. I give myself to God and ask Him to protect me and give me a purpose for that moment in time. I know He loves me and thinks I’m the best. I have to constantly focus on what is truly important in my life. God. My son. My husband. I know they love me and need me in their lives.

  • Robyn

    don’t want. don’t want to eat not eat sleep be awake move stay here. just want to feel normal. what is that? not even sure any more. not sure i ever was. too mucheffort to do any thing at all.

  • mark

    Nothingness, Emptyness, Isolation, Helplessness, & Frustration. Everything is grey to me now, theres no spark left, no distractions to divert my mind from my inner suffering. Nostalgia is a constant companion creating constant melancholoy. I long for the good ‘ol times, and realize even during those times I didn’t enjoy the moment.

  • Gráinne

    It kind of snuck up on me. I had been feeling stressed a lot…few bad events over the past year-friend died, failed exams 3 times, have run up debts and started new job. Any thing alone I could have coped with, but I think October was when I just couldn’t do it anymore. I started finding it hard to sleep and suddenly wasn’t that interested in food. Would eat half my lunch but couldn’t force down the rest. Began to burst into tears at the most trivial of things. Had a couple of OK days a week but rest were pretty low. Decided to see a counselling psychologist. It didn’t help. He talked about depressive thinking styles but never really helped me change anything and didn’t tell me what I needed to know-I was depressed. Meanwhile, I gradually felt worse and worse. The simplest things were an ordeal. Buying Christmas presents was an exhausting chore. I was worn out from pretending everything was fine. Sitting in the toilet at work with my head against the wall just wishing I didn’t have to feel like this, or feel anything anymore. Just about struggled through work but with no enthusiasm whatsoever and with major effort to concentrate. My arms and legs were heavy. By Christmas I couldn’t follow the story in the novel I had been reading. Wasn’t interested in TV. Didn’t want to meet friends. Couldn’t talk to my family. Saw myself as a burden on them and thought nobody else cared anyway. Every day seemed grey and oppressive. I felt like I was a few seconds behind every conversation and couldn’t see how things would ever change. So I went to my doctor. He was so wonderful. No judgement. I felt guilty for bothering him. I felt I didn’t deserve to call my feelings depression. He made me feel that I was worthy of his attention and had just as much right to help/treatment as somebody with bronchopneumonia. With his understanding, 2 weeks of Prozac and some e-mails from an online psychologist things are a little brighter. I still believe the same things but for some of the day at least, I can forget.. Thanks for great comments on site. So helpful to know I’m not the only one to feel like this.

  • Christine

    I refer to my “depressive episodes” as the “Curtain”.

    Every day, the curtain closes more, blocking out the sunshine…..until I am enveloped in total darkness.

  • phil

    I can not even care what these people have to say about their terrible, mortifying experiences with the ungodly pain of depression. Numbness has surrounded me. No good. No bad. I give up.

  • Sarah

    depression, that is a hard word for me to grasp, i dont know what to call this monster that lives inside me, controling my thoughts, my ambitions, everything. i am 16 and i have made some really dumb decisions in the past, and when i try to fix them, i make things worse. i have no privacy, which is what i crave, i have no support, which is what i need. i wake up every day wishing i wasnt waking up, i hope for the bliss of nothingness that is death, i pray for sweet relief, life has no point, its like a hamster on a wheel, no matter how much that little hamster runs, it never gets anywhere. to me life is like the wheel, and i am the hamster, who is a sucker for the wheel, but then gives up when she cant get anywhere is still hungry for more.

  • Not Merry

    Moderate depression is like losing your will to live. You aren’t wanting to die, but living is such a chore. The number of things we must do to survive in this world – things that other people take for granted – feel overwhelming to me. Paying a bill, making a doctors appt., very normal things take a great effort. Working is easy. It seems to be the only thing that keeps me from sinking. I can worry about everyone elses problems all day, but when I get home I feel exhausted. I sleep a lot. Sleeping is my escape from thinking at home. I become anti social. Phone calls go unanswered. There is some pity for myself concerning social matters. On the one hand I have no desire to go out and pretend to be happy and pretend to care, on the other, I want someone to see that I need to be saved (from myself)?? When I look in the mirror, I usually see ugliness. On good days, it might be a fairly nice looking woman staring back. On bad days, all my faults are magnified -physical, and emotional. Common sense tells me I am lovable, but I can’t imagine loving anyone back. If they like me, they must be flawed.
    There is guilt for my non love of life when there are people with debilitating illnesses, physical abnormalities, etc. who love and treasure life. My head feels light and heavy at the same time. I can’t think quickly. There is too much fog up there. My neck and shoulders are usually stiff because I am so easily stressed. Odd aches and pains in my body are fairly normal. A general feeling of lethargy, apathy and hopelessness pretty much sum up depression to me.

  • Joanne

    Depression is debilitating and frightening. Frightening in the sense that you don’t know how you will feel tomorrow. I got lost in my depression many times and actually didn’t know what was happening to me. I was tired, lethargic, unmotivated, sad and even sometimes desperate. I could barely get out of bed on many days and often times when getting ready for my work day I would ache and it even hurt to put my clothes on, but I forged forward and for many years moved into my day. I’ve quit alot of jobs, some were extremely very stressful with alot of responsibility but maybe if I wasn’t suffering from depression I couldn’t have changed jobs. I’m 47 years of age, married, but not working outside my home and actually still haven’t found my niche. Three years ago I talked with my gyne and she felt that I was suffering from PMDD and prescribed 50 mg. of Zoloft and let me tell you it has made a world of difference in my life. I’m happy and content and functioning the majority of the time vibrantly. There’s a history of bipolar in my family and I just know at some point I’ll need to seek further professional advice and I will.

  • m.k.m.h.

    every hour of every day i face the temptation of death. it doesn’t even concern depression, or any variety of mental illness, or any other label i might. it is death that i am facing. that is what depression feels like to me. it is not exhaustion. or lack of appetite, or anyting else that happens. it is a wholehearted, and sincere. and complete. spiritual and physical and terminal. longing, for the absolution and peace and total and complete nothingness, of death.

    i have so many answers, as to why. i should kill myself. and any argument i can come up with as to why i should not, finds it easier and easier to find a more powerful and incontrovertible counterargument.

    it is so hard. it is harder than finding my next meal, than finding space in my empty gut for my next meal. it is harder than taking classes at university. it is harder than anything i think i could ever imagine. and my imagination is vast. sometimes i just cannot come up with another reason to live, and i have to pretend that there is one. and that is even harder, as i despise actors and acting. almost more. than the world, and what i see people doing to one another within its confines. the arrogance, of humanity, is unfathomable to me. it is so hard, to continue living. i find that my hatred is complete. and ridiculous. and i wish to end it.

    i can’t even describe.

  • James

    It’s a great fatigue that washes over my life every day and shreds the dignity that I want to have for myself. I have been depressed since I can remember but I’m not so jaded and ignorant that I will say ‘I never feel good’. Of course I feel good, but it feels so often like a bandage, like a splint on a bone that can’t ever heal. In my most self-deprecating moments, where all I think about are multitudinous failures and all I feel is burning self-hatred and intense worthlessness, I fantasize about, dream of, wish for, and occassionally attempt suicide. I always have. I’ve become so used to dragging my ugliness through my life and poking at it that even in moments of great elation, at times when life is good and I feel amazing, suicide would be a welcome release and I would gladly accept death. I am helpless and hopeless and all I can hear are the jeers of family and peers echoing from a past full of nothing but shortcomings. Insecurity? That doesn’t encompass, can’t even fathom the horror of true self-hatred. I have become a punishment-glutton, who spends all day smiling and serving and joking and blathering, detached from my own melancholy consciousness, while I stand beside myself jabbing into my own face ‘you are so pitiful’. And I am. I spin my wheels faster every moment just trying to move and I go nowhere. I am smothered in anguish and I just want to give it all up. I don’t want to feel this way, and I’m so tired of wanting that I don’t really want to feel at all anymore. I wish I were dead.

  • George

    It’s like living in a strange world… where everyone is grey and exactly the same. I accunmulate meaningless objects in order to fill some internal void… taking these pills to block it all out. I intuit what is going on inside and around me but am too afraid to consciously come to terms with what lies beneath the reflection in the mirror each morning. Stuck here like a corpse in a place where things like emotion, spiritualality, love and compassion; life and beauty minus the price tag are ignored, smothered, or seen as worthless; replaced with superficial value, greed and uniformity… Now I have been reduced to a mere object also; as empty inside, as things have become around me. It’s no wonder I feel so shit 🙂

  • chris

    Feels like I’m walking underwater, completely submerged. Everything’s in slow-mo. Shoulders hunched, eyes on the ground. Everyone on the street or in the bar knows I’m a big downer.

    Strange feelings of deja-vu. I’ve felt this state of depression many, many, many times before. It’s like a continuum or state of mind that is eternal, like it was always there and some of us are forced to return to it over and over. It feels exactly as it did when I was a young boy, helpless as ever.

    The desire to stay in bed until you die or they ‘take you away’. Wishing you could grab the world’s attention for a second and communicate this unbearable helplessness, just to get a simple motherly hug in return and feel some relief.

    Mountains of problems. At times all my issues and problems – from the leaky faucet to past relationships to finances to the future of my being – are present all at once, and I feel like I’m being crushed by the weight of this world and the next one too. I could never fix it all, or even make up my mind on where to start. The rage this creates in me is near-psychotic.

    Feeling punished. There are times I really believe that there is some deep-seated bad karma at work here or some long past ancestral conflict resurfacing in my soul. My grandmother and sister were tormented too, maybe it’s not just a disease of the mind but a disease of the whole spirit? Will we remain in this spiritual torment after death? Are we being attacked from without? Did they take their own lives in vein? Where are they now? Terrifyingly beyond my control or comprehension, but I’m living it and thinking it all the time.

    Stark realizations that I’m beyond hope. Genetically, spiritually, historically.. I am doomed to be sick and depressed. Too scared to try, no incentive to continue, too used to this feeling after 35 years. I just want to HOWL for help but the help has never really worked. Maybe I’ve fallen in love with this whole mess. Maybe I don’t even remember the difference between love and hate.

    I wish I could stay present in that good, living spirit I’ve known in the past. Most days it feels like that’s gone forever. The only thing left: waiting, wondering, worrying about THE END.

    PS: I have been diagnosed and medicated a few different ways in recent years. My condition is very resistant. After experiencing two suicides in my family I realize I could never put them through that again. My exit plan is more like running away to a different place – the ‘geographical cure’. I feel trapped but I’ll trudge onward, even if I’m forced around this same old circular path. I’ll pray for you and I hope you’ll pray for me.

  • Linda

    Depression feels like the worst thing in the world, the thing I fear the most. It’s what wakes me up at night and my heart is pounding.

    I want to look at photos of dead people so I will be shocked out of the dead feelings, but that doesn’t help.

    All I want to do is sleep, all the time. I’m too tired to do anything

    I used to love to read, but now I can’t concentrate – depression feels stupid, it feels futile, it feels overwhelming, smothering. I feel like my mind and body have been taken over by some alien force.

    I’m so tired of this, I wish it would stop.

  • chris wonslow

    I fell like nothing is worth it anymore.My voice is unheard, my feelings un shared. I’m very tired, I never feel understood, and I’ve never felt so alone.

  • Ruth

    I’ve been depressed ever since I can remember. I have grown overdependent on family.24 years of my life have gone by and it seems like I’ve not lived it, my memories are a blur of heartache and confusion. I’ve been in school all my life, just finishing grad school. Everyone at this Ivy League school seem so driven, ambitious secure and confident. I’m the only one who is supported by my parents and spend most of my time in despair and loneliness.The friends I had have moved away, they suspect something is wrong but I have hidden my sadness well. The job search is very stressful, its hard trying to sell myself when I believe that I’m worthless. And this rant seems so pathetic and full of self pity, why can’t I just pull myself together?

  • Annie

    i always seem to be tired and find it hard to sleep and get up in the morning and stay awake in certain lessons. I find that i get really agitated and annoyed with people really easily and snap quite suddenly and i feel like there’s a big thing inside me trying to get out and if it leaks it’s usually a dig at someone even though i didnt mean it. sometimes i really feel empty and that nothing is worth anything and noone cares or understands. im not even sure if i have friends that have my back anymore and if they do they live far away. i cant focus on anything at school and find it difficult to bring myself to do anything and i seem to be eating more than normal. sometimes i get so angry with a particular friend and i dont know why and sometimes i think about hurting myself but i manage to control that because of the trouble that i’ll get into. i dont know if this is depression or not or whether its just a phase im going through…i just dont know anymore

  • Adam

    Thank you for your website. Thank you for the sharing.

    I went through such an episode in 2004. It ended – or so I thought in Nov 2004 – until someone said that I should see the psychaitrist again. He susupected I was in Bi-Polar state. I visited my doctor again in April to Nov this year.
    Now I am off medication. The Bi-polar state is a strange episode because I still don’t understand it.

    I was only suspected of having it but it was not conclusive as far as I am concerned.
    In the end, only God knows and God understands.

    Thanks again.
    Cheers.
    Adam

  • leigh

    Empty, emotionless, blank, nothingness I feel like no one cares about me or even likes me. It is like everyone hates me but I don’t know why which leads to feelings of guilt and sadness. Sometimes I’m alright which gives me a fake glimmer of hope but this at most lasts a few days. Like clock work the feelings of worthlessness return. It is hard for me to sleep at night because I know when I wake up in the morning it will all start over again and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I feel useless would it really matter if I never existed? Sometimes I just don’t know

  • Kayleigh

    Sometimes I cant get up in the morning. it feels like im paralysed…..or i cant get dressed….i think well what if its cold….or what if it rains and cant get happy with an out fit which makes me so fustrated i jus want to give up, and often do. Everyone irritates me……i have no motivation and when explaining this to my therapists/doctors they tell me to use a self help book. Then thy wonder why im suicidal.

  • Tuyen

    I feel like my heart is being ripped into a million pieces. I’m constantly thinking about suicide and hurting myself. Every little thing makes me cry and everything is blown out of proportion. All my bad feelings are magnified. I feel like no one understands and no one cares and even if they do, I don’t believe it and can’t feel it. Nothing helps me and no one can help me and I’ve tried so many different treatments. I feel that life is so futile. I just want to die every single day. I just want to sleep but I have to force myself to wake up everyday and function, study, go to classes and act normal even though I’m dying inside. No one sees the pain I’m tormented with. I feel so hopeless and I’m consumed with negative thoughts and all the bad experiences replay in my head over and over again. I feel trapped and want to die so badly, to be free.

  • Lee

    I am 39 years old and have also been suffering with depression since my teens. Iam able to be pretty outgoing, but when alone, I fall apart. I think of the word “isolated” describes depression. odly enough, Iam a licensed therapist> i only came to terms with my depression or more accurately called dysthimia when I hit bottom. i just wanted to end it all. I had never had a relationship that was intimate, I felt envious of others, and angry with myself. Hopeless and scared. I got on Prozac in 2000, that seemd to help and now Iam taking Lexapro. It seems to help, but if I have a sudden stress, it all comes back. thoughts, beliefs, feelings. On the outside, I appear normal, on the inside I feel like I am lost. i feel God and life itself has forgotten about me. My life will never change and maybe it should end. Since becoming more ware fo the cuases and treatments availible, I manage the illness. Depression is called the common cold of mental health. i can see why..

  • Liz

    My stomache’s always empty. I’ll eat but then I just throw up. I dont want to eat. I seem to have this constant hollow feeling that just won’t go away. Whenever I talk to my friends, I can’t smile, my back hurts and I always get annoyed. I’m not mad at them or anything, just I feel constant stress. It sucks and I need to stop worrying about everyone else and work on myself for a change.

  • Raheem

    It’s hard to eat, hard to feel hungry. I cant sleep at night yet cant wake up in the day. I cry at every little thing, im over sensitive. I have thoughts of killing myself everyday. I want to hurt, i want to bleed, i want to go to sleep and never have to wake up. I have no energy my muscles ache and i nearly faint from walking down the street. Smiles hurt.. Everything is an act. But i dotn want to be happy, the darkness that consumes me tells me i never want to be happy. depression is what ive known for a long time now and it defines me. I am now open with my depression and now i have pushed people away or lost friends.. im drowning and i cant seem to care…

  • chongo

    Depression and anxiety for me, leaves me feeling always tired, very agitated, and a general lack of interest in life.. I feel my body is falling apart, and there is something very wrong with me. I get fears sometime, paranoia of my health. I feel I’m trapped in a black room, and there is something sinister and deadly in there with me. And to get away from it, I feel like I’ve got to claw my way up the corner to get out. But I don’t even know why, or what I fear sometimes. It’s really terrible.

  • Skyler

    I feel as if nobody cares about me or what i think do or say. I lose many friends because of the way I feel and act. Little things that people say to me irritate me and i lash out for a min then forget what i was even upset about. I feel like i cant even go anywhere with myself…always stuck!! I cant even cry anymore. I sometimes wonder if leaving this place would be better for everybody and myself. I just tell myself that tomarrow will be ok.

  • Joseph

    Depression can creep up on you without realising it. Forgetfulness, insomnia, lethargy, feeling like a bad head cold, aches in the head, neck, back… all the time. No respite, no relief.
    Feelings of despair, guilt, weakness, futility and worthlessness have lead me to rehearse my chosen form of suicide in preparation for the real event. I really wanted to die until recently and was minutes from being forceably detained in a mental hospital. Even now if I found out I had a terminal illness, I would be pleased.
    This isn’t me speaking, it’s a physical & mental disease called clinical depression and it will pass. It will pass. It will pass and I will revert to the loving, kind person I am inside.
    If you, dear reader feel no-one cares about you, you are wrong. I care, even though I don’t know you, because I’m like you, in a dark confusing hell. But it will pass, it will pass. If I could cradle you I would. If I could wave a magic wand, I would. All I can offer is the truth that depression is causing your feelings, not you. Get and accept the help, the care. The truth is you are precious and worthy, it’s the depression that lies to you and twists you.
    I have started dong two things in addition to the medication and psychiatrist to help me, maybe they might be useful for someone out there. –1– WALK: Take a good medium paced walk *each day or evening* for at least 30 minutes. (Start slow, maybe 5-10 minutes if you are fearful of the outside.) Use the walk to observe your local surroundings. See subtle changes everyday. Get out of the house no matter how hard (I know how cosy & safe the house can be) and walk for your health. Walking does have powers akin to anti-depressants with none of the side effects. Feel the air validate your existence. See the old trees, majestic in their longevity. Walking will also promote better sleep, which is half the battle in getting your out of balance thinking back on track.
    –2– Do something new for you. Perhaps something you wanted to do FOR YOU when you were well but nevergot round to, e.g. musical instrument, hobby, creative arts, gardening. Anything at all no matter how small. Do something just for you. Motivation might seem the biggest stumbling block, but even 5 minutes a day can help focus the mind on the new activity that feeds & nurtures your mind.
    I’m trying the piano. Already I feel benefits and it’s got my mind thinking more rationally.

    I wish us all the best in struggling thorugh. We’ll beat it… with love and kindness, Joseph

  • Tammra

    I was diagnosed by a counselor as “severely depressed”. I refused meds thinking I could pull myself out of it on my own. I have no emotional support from my family or friends here in my home town. They all are stuck in the “youre a strong person, youll snap out of it stage”. My online friends have helped me deal with alot. Most have gone through the same. We are all there for each other.
    I have started school again after 16 yrs. I did awesome my first semester and boy did that help my self-esteem. School has been my outlet of sorts. I still have my bad days. I know I would still be in the “severely depressed” category, but I am trying to, and accomplishing, improve ME. I’ve realized that I’ve lived the psat 12 years for others, and not myself. I am now working on ME.

  • Andy

    Void. I “see” my body but feel dislocated from it. All I see is surface, and what lies behind that surface is nothing. I “hear” myself in conversation but what I say is empty of content. I try to make choices, but I cannot follow them through. My point is that there is no point. I continually feel numb

  • Mary

    I have been dealing with severe clinical depression all my life. My heart hurts all the time like a great sadness and I can’t seem to catch my breath. I don’t want to bother with people or have them bother me. There are times when I am driving I get this urge to run into a telephone pole, or “fall off” the back of the motorcycle. I am back on meds but they don’t seem to be working. The good thing is I am an expert at knowing the signs of my depression and am ble to call for help before anything happens. Depression is not fun, but I am not ashamed of being depressed because it is not something I can help. I feel I am fighting myself all the time…

  • Cindy

    Depression is like killing you insidde. The constant feelings of sadness, anger, frustration, crying spells, easily irritated, roller-coaster emotions, mental unstability, anything you can possibly think of that makes you feel like you want to get away from it all.

    My depression started mildly in my mid and late 20’s. It got worse after I gave birth to my first child. It has been over a year now, and I am still suffering depression. It’s effecting my relationship with my husband. Many times, I have thought of walking out of the house leaving my son and husband behind. Sometimes, I have thoughts of commiting suicide.

    I have lost interest in almost everything that I used to like to do. I was on medication to treat the depressive moods, but stop now because it didn’t work very well.

    Now, all I can do is try very very hard everyday to stay positive, keep calm, and rest whenever I feel like it. I can barely smile. I don’t like hugs and kisses anymore.

    It’s just killing me inside.

  • kelsey

    i have depression and its been hard i am 14 and have been dealing with it for awhile…my advice is whenever you feel bad ur really need to talk to some1 cuz it can get serious and mine did i tried to commit suicid and i dont want that to happen to anyone else it really isnt worth it!

  • usir

    i have depression since as a teenager.i’m 29 now.a family member gave me lots of deep and abnormal pain.he took away what belonged to me-my youth,freedom,privacy.i had lived through those many yrs in anxiety and fear.in recent mths,my depression got worse.i lost appetite that i skipped breakfast which i became skinnier.i also started to lose interest and concentration in my hobby.i could be sitting somewhere at home and i couldn’t help but think about the past unhappy happenings to me that i would break down and cry or slam my things on the floor.
    i’m from singapore and i had tried talking to some other ppl only to have them lecture me and threw words like “GROW UP!” , “STOP WHINING AND SELF-PITY!” , “you have a choice!” ,”there are ppl worse than you,you think you are the only one who have problems!” etc
    these words made me feel worse.their words kept being repeated on my mind and make me want to cry and want to die faster.
    i’m not trying to act like a childish person and i know i’m not the only unhappy person in this world.but with the kind of problems and pain i have,i want to talk to someone.my pain and depression cannot be solved and erase just by some harsh lecturing words by other ppl who didn’t and will never live through the kind of pain and loss i did.

  • jane

    i hate it. i thoughht that the depression was gone but its not. for a moment i didnt think i even had depression. ill be like this for the rest of my life. that thought makes me feel so helpless.

  • Jane Gardner

    Depression feels like already being in the grave but not quite dead. Looking up at everyone else have fun, leading normal lives and never knowing quite how to get there. Its have to overhear your son tell his friend that he calls you his zombie mom because you have no feeling left. Its wondering what it feels like to love and then feeling guilty cause you have kids and aren’t sure sometimes if you can love them. It’s waking up and wishing you didn’t. I will be 40 in a couple of days and I’m not sure i want to be around to celebrate it. I hate me so much. I just want someone to put the dirt in the grave site that I fell into so long ago.

  • Gord

    It has been two years since I was diagnosed with major depression. I have taken cognitive therapy,stress and anxiety therapy,assertiveness therapy,open group and relaxation therapies. I see a psychiatrist and counsellors on a regular basis. I am taking two antidepressants. Remeron and Wellbutrin.I had a short stay in a psychriatric hospital. How do I feel now? Constantly tired. Confused. Apathetic. Worthless. Continuing suicidal thoughts. I am not trying to stop anyone from seeking help. If I didn’t get help when I needed it I would be dead now. The therapies and the medications have helped.I’m still alive.I want to feel happiness. I try every day. Maybe some day I will learn what that word means. How do I stand it? I make no excuses for my actions or the way I am.This is a disease and it isn’t my fault that I have it.I live in the short term,not the long term. One day at a time. I don’t pretend to be happy when I am not. It just causes more stress. I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I just can’t see it yet. It may seem hopeless but never stop searching for that light.

  • Libby

    I’m really starting to scare myself. Tonight I sat in the bathroom of my dorm holding a knife I cut my arm several times refusing to let myself go back to my room until i cut just once more. What scares me is i feel weak for not pushing the blade deeper into my wrist. I feel weak for being scared of death. I feel like there is no reasone for me to be so sad, but i know that i have felt this way on and off for as long as i can remember.
    I used to be able to break it down by how old i was. I worte down once that up until i was about 9 i wanted the oportunity to relive my life, always telling myself that i’d do it right if given the second chance and that my friends and family would like me better. But sometime when i was in either the fourth or fith grade i grew up and realized that it was never gonna happen,and i guess thats when i started thinking about death. I used to sit in my closet and choke myself with the rope to my robe. It was just like i feel now with cuting myself, i always felt likte i should have pulled tighter or just held it longer.
    I have gone back and fourth with these feelings for as long as i can remember, but I feel like i’m too smart to feel this way. Honestly I know i have a great life, good friends and really everything i could ever need. I don’t know how to explain why i feel the way i do. I’ve lost the ability to understand my own feelings i try to write them down, but it just seems to get more confusing. I don’t feel like i have the right to be depressed. My sister was the one in my family that my mother always worried was depressed. No one would ever suspect me. I have even been the one to talk to my friends when they were feeling down.
    But now i’m in college and at first things seemed like they’d get better, after all i’d been waiting to get away for as long as i can remember. However, instead i have found that they only seem to be getting worse. I don’t sleep and if i do i can’t bring myself to get up. I know i should work harder inschool but it just seems hopeless. I feel like people are always taking behind my back, i don’t think my roommate likes me very much, and i just can’t ever seem to do anything right. I feel bad when i am mad at someone becasue i think it makes me a bad person, even when i can give justifications for why i am mad. I feel like the fact that i can explain this means i’m not suicidal, but at the same time I don’t know what to think. I know suicide is not my best option, and i don’t really want to die, but i constantly find myself thinking about it. And like earlier feeling weak for not being able to.

  • Joe

    I take the rounds out of the chamber and press the muzzle to my head, just to feel the coldness of the blued steel on my temple. When I pull the trigger, a feeling of panic and relief surge through my body in a strange ambivalence. Sure, the dead might not be able to experience relief, but, at that moment, I can.

    Unfortunately, that does nothing to help me deal. Seriously, after she left me, i had it all worked out. It was the most adult split up of all time. I maintained, kept my composure, and people remark on how amicable the split was. To be sure, I believed it as well.

    All it took was one lousy argument with my roommate and all the tears that never came, came. All the depression that I forced down, hit me.

    Ive run out of ways to deal with this. Im desperately trying to find another one, and Im not sure If I’m going about it the right way. No one is interested in talking about this stuff, to be sure.
    Maybe Ill take up Boxing.

  • Karin

    It started about four years ago…my father died of brain cancer and my life was thrown into an upheaval. I suffered from post-traumatic disorder because of the horrible things I witnessed in the hospital with my father’s illness. I was in college at the time, and somehow I managed to bury my sadness and graduate. Soon after, I got engaged and moved to upstate New York, away from everything that was familiar and comforting. All of a sudden, I couldn’t get out of bed, I didn’t want to see anyone or go anywhere. No matter how painful, all I wanted to do was wallow in my misery, even though it should have been the happiest time in my life. I grew very cold to my fiance, I said mean things, was irritated very easily, then felt awful and guilty for treating him so badly. Then I noticed that his family stopped asking me to do things because they didn’t want to deal with my constant sadness, which left me feeling even more alientated and hopeless. I felt so NUMB to the world, and I felt like life was never going to get better. Nothing pleased me, not enough money, not a big enough house, not a good enough car, on and on. My poor husband suffered so badly, blaming himself for my sadness, that I think he developed depression too! What a mess this awful disease can make of your life AND the ones around you!!! I have tried several medications, but none of them seemed to help. I just hope one day that I will be able to find some relief. Good luck to those of you out there in the same boat as me.

  • Mike

    Where do I begin? Depression feels like so many things. I guess the best way to discribe it is that it feels like I am already dead. I am empty inside, hopeless, helpless, scared, and constantly waiting for something terrible to happen. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to lose my mind, drop dead, or fly off the face of the earth at any moment. The anxiety and panic set in, and I begin to question reality. Things just don’t seem right. It feels like I am disconnected from the rest of the world. Like I am living in a terrible dream. I am always tired. Getting out of bed in the morning is such a chore. I’m terrified of having to spend another day feeling like this. I am doing everything I “should be.” But the Prozac hasn’t worked. Therapy is taking forever. And I lost all pleasure in what I used to enjoy doing. Sometimes I can’t eat or sleep for days. Yet I still have to go to work and put on a happy face. I am so sick of it all. There are days when all I can do is cry – for no particular reason. I have constant headaches and stomach aches. And my head often feels like it is stuff with cotton or that I have a bead headcold. I feel so hopeless, and no matter how much I try to help myself, nothing works. I’ve been feeling like this for about 5 months now, and “they” say the average depression lasts about 9 months. So the only hope I can give myself is that I might be half-way through this misery. I just can’t imagine going another day feeling like this, let alone another 5 months. I constantly think about death and the meaning of life. Everything is pointless… and I wouldn’t wish this illness on my worst enemy.

  • m.k.m.h.

    i think about death all the time. i fantasise in detail about the putrefecation of my body, and i imagine all the different chemicals that make up my body and “soul” being absorbed by the earth as it decomposes, so that if i was dead i could be a blade of grass or a drop of ocean or both, without even having to be aware of it, because i don’t want to be aware of anything anymore. that is a really beautiful idea to me, it makes the thought of death very comforting and attractive. sometimes i personify death, too. so i have this picture in my mind of death being this really intelligent, funny, beautiful, strong, sympathetic and accepting man who will descend from the sky and make me really laugh again before he cuddles and kisses me into oblivion. i go into the bathroom and stretch out my arms to see all my veins in the mirror and i think about opening them with a knife, and i think of new ways to describe the act of releasing the blood. when my mind is idle i automatically have thoughts about exsanguination and flowing or even spurting blood. i am completely exhilirated by heights and always feel compelled to jump off balconies, bridges, cliffs, anything of that nature – and i make graphic movies in my head of what happens when i hit the ground. sometimes if i’m still awake at 2AM i will walk for an hour to a really tall bridge near me and look off into the black eternity of night. i wonder how long i will have to wait and how many times i will have to try and get better and for how much longer i will have to see my psychiatrist before it will be okay for me to kill myself, and then i wonder what exactly has prevented me from doing so for the past decade. my vocabulary for words to do with decay is enormous and i surprise myself with my creativity in turning other words around to signify decay. i think about all the dead animals and all the dead vegetable matter that i have to put into my stomach to provide fuel for my body in order to stop me from wasting away to death. every night as i get into bed to wait to be able to fall asleep, i pray in the hope that some power i don’t believe in will hear my plea to die before morning, and then when i wake up i think how sorry i am that i awoke. and then i think that maybe during the day i will meet my accidental death. the worst thing is thinking that since i am still alive, i must simply not deserve death.

  • Howard

    I used to have a plesant life. My parents and my sisters were my lifeline. Even when I messed up, life wasn’t all that bad. It was my senior year that depression began to loom over me. I had a “friend” who would insult me in my face in front of a group of people. I cried over this, and I was alienated even more. I used to do well in my classes. My senior year, al my grades were just inflations of nonsense. My father called me gay,and yelled in my face. Now, here in college, it seems like my life has taken a turn for the worst. No one likes me here, not even the teachers. My grades keep getting lower and lower. I miss cal. class almost every day. And my roommate talks behind my back even though he keeps some kind of friendly facade every time i’m in the room. I am insulted every single day. This wouldn’t be so bad if my parents didn’t think I was stupid. When I told my father I was studying biology, he replied “You’re not as stupid as I thought you were!”. Ugggh. I can’t wake up anymore, because I just feel more and more pain. Today, while I was doing a presentation in reading, my classmates whispered how “slow” I was or how I can’t talk. I cried in the stands with my parents at the homecoming game from the sheer weight of my pain. I don’t know what to do, run away, or kill myself. I thought that if I killed myself the world wouldn’t have to deal with such an evil person as I am. I’m sorry if i’m wasting your time, I just had to get that off of my chest.

  • Michelle

    For me, it started off with feeling bad every day, well, actually it started off with me feeling bad some days then it ended up being every day. But usually, when i felt bad it was later on in the day, but i knew that once i went to bed, i’d wake up in the morning and i’d feel better. I knew there was a problem when i started to wake up in the morning and i didnt feel any better, i just felt the same. And the same all day, then in the morning again, and i’m still like this now, about 6 months later. Im a vet science student and i’m about to be kicked out of uni because my depression has seriously affected my studies. I used to get good marks but this semester i’ve just fallen apart. I don’t get to repeat any units next year – i only get one chance. My depression has not only made me feel like this for part of my life (at the moment im seeking help and i think im getting better), but it has taken away my dream that i worked so hard for.

  • matt

    I never thought i actually suffered from depression, i thought that sometimes i just didnt feel right. I always tried to deny the fact that since so many people in my family have suffered from depression, that i may be suseptible (i aplogize for my poor spelling and grammar). But, reading everyones comments has really opened my eyes, i know now that i have been fooling myself. I am depressed. What you all describe i feel, your thought processes about it all are the same, its really quite amazing. I dont know what ill do with this information, maybe ill go get help now before it escalates to the severe point many of u are at. Thank you all, this site is a great idea. stay strong.

  • Pea

    My name is peta and im 13 years old…i have been depressed for just over a year now…my life ever since i was little was a living hell im at a baptist college and yeah i thought it would be great coz people would be more relaxed and well mannered then the private girls school i used to go to but it was the same or maybe a little worse…i see the world keep going but i’m just left on the boarder watching everyone enjoy their lives while i’m on the other side of the glass crying for what reason i don’t no…i’ve come from an abused childhood…and depression is genetic in my family so i have no escape really…i wake up lathargic not able to get up feeling as if today will just be another day of misfortune and mysery like every other day of my life…i get told continuesly my life isnt that bad…that im beautiful and intellegent and i shouldnt be so selfish and perthetis but they don’t understand life isnt that easy for me and depression is not something u can come out of in a matter of days…i’ve never really had a good friend ship…i used to put all my faith and trust into people and gave them everything but they keeped on disapointing me so now after the few years of my life that feel like forever i just distrust everyone…i can’t trust my family or friends…not even myself… i have tried suicide numerous times but its as if somethings keeping me here…i wish i could leave this world put everyone out of their myseries…i’m always the problem i always seem to hurt people or thats how i percive it…i don’t enjoy andthing in my life anymore…so i do nothing…whats the point in doing something when you get nothing out of it…i have cronic Fatigue and clinical depression and on top of that i get called a skank and a fugly slut everyday…people don’t understand how hard life is for me and some thing so little like name calling can send me over the edge to suicide…which is what its doing and they are happy because they are hurting me…i feel like my life is over that we all die some day why should that day be latter rather then sooner so we all may as well die some time soon and put everyone out of their myseries well thats how i feel…i don’t no what to do…i’m scared…i don’t want to die but i feel theres no point in living when theres nothing left…well thanks for reading this…love always peta

  • Chris

    Feelings of being worthless, nobody wants you, nobody cares, and worst of all, nobody can Identify with you. They don’t understand what your going through. It feels like no woman will ever want you, even though I am a kind, compassionate, hard working and responsible person. I just kept getting looked ignored.

    I wonder through my cold and empty house, sometimes with gun in hand, wondering what is keeping me here in this world that I have lost touch with? Why don’t I just end my life because nothing appeals to me anymore. Sick of all the games, lonliness, no friends, lack of belonging to anything or anyone. Friday night, Saturday night, alone, drinking by myself, nowhere to go, nothing to do, too young for this. Don’t know how to change.

    Loss of interest in things that once brought you joy no longer do. Not even the thought of getting laid. That doesn’t happen to me, only the other guys. You almost hate people who do have it so well, because they are no better than you, they are just more lucky. I could go on but I think you get the picture.

  • Tony

    My son has shared this blog with me so I have a better understanding of what he is going through. These comments are very clear and compelling. My question of you all is: What do you do to cope? Are you feeling better and if so, how did you get there? Thanks for your insights.

  • Tom

    i used to be a happy person despite being moody. I have a fantastic girlfriend and great people around me. Why do I feel like I am experiencing life differently to everyone around me. Sometimes I sit in a busy place and
    watch the world go by and wonder why I cant take part in it. I used to be able. Its like there is a filter of some sort between me and the rest of the world. I read something recenly. It went “i dont want to die, I just cant find any positive reason to live.” Thats
    how I feel.

  • ian davis

    Depression can be your best friend in times of loneliness. when being confronted with the tasks that are mapped out for us through fate we can often become confused and introspective. we are who we are and will be. unlike the seasons, we do not have to change. we are all from a company of people who feel that to do so will stop the hurt. this stings or alienates those around us. please be assured that we are as special as the leaves on the trees or the important engine component that leads our transmission on to where we would like to go. a road with a purpose we ultimately believe in. otherwise we would not be accepting the challenge now.

  • chris

    I really don´t know what to tell you. I´m just so sad. My mother was both physically and verbally abusive and my father was mentally abusive. I´ve tried to committ suicide so many times I´ve lost count, or I´ve just blocked out the memories. I´m sure my liver is shot from so many pills mixed with alcohol and my forearms are scarred from wrist to elbow. I´ve tried therapy, I´ve gone through more councelors in my life than I can remember. I´ve tried antidepressants and antianxiety medication, such as nuflouxetine (I probably didn´t spell that right) to hormone therapy to (I´m only 22). Nothing seems to help. I´m afraid I´ve gone beyond depression to paranoia. I now see people in the dark who aren´t really there and they want me to kill myself. I´m catholic, and suicide is a sin, and I´m afraid to go to hell because it might be worse than this. I don´t know what to do. I thought travelling abroad would help me get away from my troubles, but instead I´m just as lost and lonely if not more so, and very far away from professional help. I can´t begin to describe what I go through day to day. People just look so disgusted with me but I don´t know if it´s me or them. I don´t know what to do. Life just seems to be wasted on me. Maybe it´s because I was never suppossed to be born.

  • chris

    what are you suppossed to do when nobody loves you. not the real you anyway. because if they new the real you, and your thoughts they would stay away. not that it matters, because they don´t care about you anyway, beacause you aren´t what you should be. because you aren´t what they wanted you to be. even if you fake it, they know there is something wrong with you, because you know, because they know, because everyone knows….you shouldn´t have been born……….you should be dead…….because nobody wants you……because nobody loves you…….

  • genna

    Depression for me is simply being at a certain age in life after trying hard to get there and finally realizing “there” is not going to happen. You will never be “there” at the place in life where you can look at yourself and know that you are where you need to be…financially, socially, and are happy being alive today. That I have wanted all my life, to be liked and loved by others, and just be “there” with everyone else.

  • Monika

    I want to thank you for posting all these symptoms. I could identify with almost everyone of them, if not ALL of them.
    It means so much to learn that I am not alone and that my feelings are not only mine to feel.

    Thank you.

  • christine

    Hi,
    I have had severe trauma and loss throughout life. I am terrified of it now. My psychologist seems fed up with me. She said I shouldn’t talk about what I am “feeling” as I get too engulfed. But I am so what am I to do? I cry everywhere, even in public places. Her sudden telling, via email, two weeks ago that she is relocating jolted me severely. She said we can continue therapy via phone. I am thankful. I have lost too many people. This is the first time I have ever been able to be open with a therapist. I have seen some where things weren’t good or safe or ethical. I can’t lose this one. It means too much to me. I need to be able to be open and feel safe and yet my shrink sounds stressed and irritated. I feel I can do nothing right. I am so severely depressed and have no support. The threat of loss is emotionally terrorizing for me. Trauma is finally taking a severe toll on me. When I need my shrink the most now to work on this, I feel turned away. I can’t cope. I keep hearing “this is your choice”. If I could make better choices, my god, I would be. Please know that. I am frantic and terrified. The depression is so agonizing I can barely move. I don’t feel anyone gets it and understands.

  • Stephanie

    I was just rereading this after a hiatus of over a year of posting and I really appreciate this board. I am once again cycling and its good to know that I am not alone. thank you!

  • Dan

    I’m not myself. I’m what my faulty brain makes me. My friends don’t know the real me, and neither do I. I wonder, if I get better, how will it feel to finally be whole? I want to heal so I can meet my true self for the first time.

  • Barbara

    Sometimes i don’t know what to say or think. Sometimes i think i didn’t say what i should have said. I withdraw. Sometimes i become afraid to talk for fear it might be discover that i am not intelligent,that i’m ignorant. Sometimes i put on a front as best i can,though in my mind thoughts are racing around that causes me to feel intimidated and that i am going to be degraded. I become fearful of a phone call. I have difficulty even communicating online. I feel for the most part people don’t get it,not even my therapist. There is something inside of me that wants to see the sun really shine. So, i’m still here. In what capacity? I don’t know. I get tired of trying to explain to people DEPRESSION! You don’t know from one day to the next,what to expect. I’m living in limbo.

  • ELIZABETH SANFORD

    This is my description of depression. My poem:
    THE GAME OF LIFE
    ELIZABETH SANFORD

    I have been defeated by the Game of Life
    My face is drawn and tired.
    My eyes have lost the luster of life.
    Hope and enthusiasm have forever escaped me.
    My shoulders are drawn by the weight of my ‘heavy load’.
    Self-esteem now eludes me and ego is something from long ago
    That only my memory can reach.

    It seems in playing the Game of Life
    I could bring myself to fold the cards and walk away.
    It’s my fellow players that I find hard to leave behind.
    They don’t understand the trials and tribulations that
    Weigh me down so – the demons that take me up and down.
    It must be that these trials and tribulations are all of my own making.

    My mind is like the anchor on the Titanic –
    The anchor may rest peacefully on the deck awaiting safe harbor
    Never serving its purpose to help the ship anchor safely
    Then, unwittingly only weighting the sinking ship down even more as she goes down
    causing its demise to be even a bit faster.

    I wonder why I am being punished to such great proportion
    And if it’s for my sins that I am punished
    Why am I submitted to the rim of the fires of Hell?
    Seeming at any moment I may be tossed in to burn forever.

    The cards have fallen and the deck is shuffled again and again.
    And again and again I try to recover,
    but from this state I think there’s no return.

  • richard

    I have found my depression put an ever increasing layer of fog between me and reality. I would not accept the now obvious facts of my sliding into this illness. I think of it as a King Canute moment, I was sitting by the sea willing the tide of depression not to come any closer and it just rolled over me and swept me away whilst I thought I was still doing a good job of sitting there keeping it back.
    It made even the simple decisions like getting out of bed or not practically impossible, wracked by indecision and the going over the top of the rollercoaster feeling in my chest and in the pit of my stomach, convinced that whatever I do will be the wrong thing and will make things worse, curled up in bed for days and weeks on end feeling like my chest was being crushed by a huge weight and having a constantshrill ringing and whistling in my ears. – i’ve still got the whistling but it’s nowhere near as bad or painful as it was, I’ll think know i’m truly better when the constant noise stops and I can have just a moment of pure silence again
    The physical symptoms have been horrendous, my body has been screaming out to me to get help in so many different ways but I was too stubborn and deluded to listen to it until I hit an absolute brick wall of pain, fear and mental paralysis. I could not function on any level at all and ended up in hospital showing all the symptoms of a massive asthma attack and heart failure after collapsing one day after pushing myself to go into work(I’m a 36 year old, fit healthy cyclist).
    I would not listen to the warning signs and kept mentally pushing myself to act normal through sheer bloody mindedness and incomprehension at what was happening to and around me. I was blaming fate, god, bad luck and anything else I could think of for the catalogue of bereavement, crime and misfortune that was assailing me and for how it was making me feel.. With hindsight I was mentally hurtling downhill into a severe depression without allowing myself to be aware of it, from talking to the people around me at the time, I was the only one that couldn’t see what was happening to me and try as the might no one could reach me and pull me round. I’ve always been strong willed and stubborn, I had to realise my predicament and ask for help by myself and getting to the point of accepting that there was something wrong and that I needed help nearly destroyed me.
    I am on seroxat, I am keeping to as low a dose as I can (40mg/day) to function without being totally numbed and receiving structured psychological support to help me get my perspective on life back, restore my shattered self confidence and reinforce my still fragile state of mind. I am getting stronger and better and can think and look forwards without the crushing paralysing fear.
    I have been climbing from absolute rock bottom for just over a year now and whilst I still have bad days and sometimes get more irrational and upset than necessary at lifes little trials and setbacks, I am climbing steadily upwards, getting back to the person that I used to be, re-building the bridges that I burnt on my way down and am in a place now that I could not even have begun to imagine getting to when I finally cracked last year. I’ve still got a way to go but the path is getting clearer and easier all the time and I’m getting better at sticking to it.
    Good luck to anyone on the same journey up and to those on the way down, You’ve made a start on recovery by knowing that you need to be looking at sites like this, you have to be utterly and totally honest with yourself first and then the help that you get will work much better. it will get easier but you will be very very lucky if you can do it on your own, dont be too proud or stubborn to ask for or accept as much help as you can get.

  • anonymous

    More evidence that it is not our fault:
    http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept37389/files/176840.html

    Â Severe depression associated with greater number of nerve cells in thalamus region of brain
    Â
    DALLAS – July 1, 2004 – Individuals who suffer from severe depression have more nerve cells in the part of the brain that controls emotion, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have found.
    Â
    Severely depressed individuals have more nerve cells in the part of the brain that controls emotion, researchers at UT Southwestern have found. Dr. Dwight German, professor of psychiatry, holds a cross-section of a postmortem brain used in the research study.
    ————————————————————————

    Studies of postmortem brains of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) showed a 31 percent greater than average number of nerve cells in the portion of the thalamus involved with emotional regulation. Researchers also discovered that this portion of the thalamus is physically larger than normal in people with MDD. Located in the center of the brain, the thalamus is involved with many different brain functions, including relaying information from other parts of the brain to the cerebral cortex.

    The findings, published in today’s issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, are the first to directly link a psychiatric disorder with an increase in total regional nerve cells, said Dr. Dwight German, professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern.

    “This supports the hypothesis that structural abnormalities in the brain are responsible for depression,” he said. “Often people don’t understand why mentally ill people behave in odd ways. They may think they have a weak will or were brought up in some unusual way.

    “But if their brains are different, they’re going to behave differently. Depression is an emotional disorder. So it makes sense that the part of the brain that is involved in emotional regulation is physically different.”

    Four groups were represented in the study: subjects with major depression, with bipolar disorder and with schizophrenia, as well as a comparison group with no history of mental illness. Major depression is characterized by a depressed mood and lack of interest or pleasure in normal activities for a prolonged period of time, while bipolar disease is distinguished by alternating periods of extreme mania or elevated mood swings, and severe depression. Schizophrenia often results in psychotic episodes of hallucinations and delusions and a lack of perception of reality.

    Brain specimens were provided by the Stanley Foundation Brain Bank, which collects donated postmortem brains for research on mental illness, and the subjects were matched according to age, gender, brain weight and other variables.

    Researchers from UT Southwestern, working with a team from Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, used special computer-imaging systems to meticulously count the number of nerve cells in the thalamus.

    Results showed an increase of 37 percent and 26 percent, respectively, in the number of nerve cells in the mediodorsal and anteroventral/anteromedial areas of the thalamus in subjects with MDD when compared with similar cells in those with no psychiatric problems. The number of nerve cells in subjects with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia was normal.

    Researchers also found that the size of the affected areas of the thalamus in subjects with MDD was 16 percent larger than those in the other groups.

    “The thalamus is often referred to as the secretary of the cerebral cortex – the part of the brain that controls all kinds of important functions such as seeing, talking, moving, thinking and memory,” Dr. German said. “Most everything that goes into the cortex has to go through the thalamus first.

    “The thalamus also contains cells that are not involved with emotion. Our studies found these portions of the thalamus to be perfectly normal. But the ones that are involved in emotion are the ones that were abnormal.”

    Researchers also looked at the effect of antidepressant medications on the number of nerve cells and found no significant difference among any of the subject groups – whether they had taken antidepressants or not – reinforcing the belief that abnormalities in brain development are responsible for depression.

    Other researchers involved in the study were Dr. Umar Yazdani, a postdoctoral researcher in psychiatry from UT Southwestern, and Drs. Keith A. Young, Leigh A. Holcomb and Paul B. Hicks from Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, Texas A&M University System Health Science Center and Scott & White Hospital in Temple.

    The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health; the Veterans Administration; the Scott, Sherwood and Brindley Foundation, and the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation.

    ###

    Media Contact: Donna Steph Hansard
    214-648-3404
    donna.hansard@utsouthwestern.edu
    **********************************
    Makes sense to me. I then get it beat, and then life circumstances tease it into coming back 🙁

  • Megan

    I have read the comments left by others here and cried so hard because my own feelings are put into words. I’ve just turned 16 and have been depressed for at least 5 years. No one knows how bad I feel all the time because I am a truly brilliant actor. I make jokes and laugh and never tell those who think they know me well that thw person they ‘know’ doesn’t exist. I wish I really was the bright, happy person they think I am instead of the miserable lump that can’t even see the point in getting up in the morning.

    I have never told anyone how bad I feel because I’m scared as hell that they will do one of two things that would only make me worse. The first and more likely reaction would be for them to just dismiss it and think I was just looking for attension (I should mention that if I was looking for attension then I would have told them 5 years ago when I started feeling this way). And to say the always useful “Get over it” line, they might as well ask me to cut my arm off. I’ve been trying for years to stop these feelings, but nothing works. Just when I think I might be getting better I am sucked back into the ominous, dark pit of hell I ontinue to live in every day. The second reaction would be to completely think I was insane and put me in some assylum somewhere. That would just succeed in making me more alienated than I already am from the world that I live in.

    I feel that this is all I deserve, that I don’t even deserve to get help. Such is the hopeless, helpless hell that pulls me into. I think about death constantly, fantasising about how and where and when to do it, planning out a suicide note … and then waking up and finding that the people around me would just think that it was just a teenage, stupid act of attension seeking rather than the desperate need to end this constant, gut-renching pain that never stops.

    Now I ask those of you who read this to help me. I am in a crisis point at the moment. I intend to kill myself very soon and I would just like some one who is in the same situation as me to say something, anything to help me. I’m just shaking and it seems no matter what I do nothing ever changes. I’ve just lost all the will to do anything but die. As someone commented before, depression is like being close to death, but not close enough….

  • fghfxghfx

    SO YOU UPDATE THE PAGE ONCE EVERY 3 WEEKS? THAT’S GREAT!!!!

    I run this site on a volunteer basis in my spare time, of which I have none. I have Multiple Sclerosis and a two year old child. If you are not happy with how often this site is updated, I suggest that you start your own. – Editor

  • cat

    it is reading these comments and still feeling so very alone.solitary is the norm.even those you reach out for in brave moments – the one’s who care and walk with you -in the same direction you are going-are just out of reach.you feel guilty sorrow because they try and you just can not reach

  • me

    Reading all your comments has brought tears to my eyes. Once I suffered badly, really badly. Now it’s not so bad anymore, however, sometimes things are overwhelmingly tough. Please hang in there.
    -me

  • Buddy

    I’ve been a diagnosed major clinical depressive for 10+ years (I’m 46). When asked what it’s like to be depressed I just tell them: Depression is like living through Jell-O. Everything is harder. Your “Drag” in the airstream of life is greatly increased.

    Keep the Faith! While the past 10+ years have been difficult, I am employed, still married to my 1st wife, have the house, and am living a fairly “normal” life, although cancer in 2003 DID trigger the worst “trip to the pit” that I’d had since ’93-’94. But, you get through the pits!!!!

  • Teresa Roberts

    You all know there’s a reason your here. Sometimes we all need to step back take a deep breath and try to figure out what it is.I’ve had a very hard life people letting me down hurting me in the worst of ways when I was young and yet somehow my mother without even knowing it got me through it.I’ve just lost her too. But I know there’s got to be some reason to all this craziness. I know she’s still with me.I don’t believe the people we love really ever leave us.We just can’t talk for now.She was the only family I had left.I lost everyone else already.Mostly to suicides which are very hard to take as the surviving family.You feel as though they chose to leave you behind,and that you didn’t matter. There is always someone that loves a person who feels that lost and desperate.I only wish they knew it at the time.My prayers are with all that feel sad,defeated or lost.And I hope you understand what heartache you could bring those who love you.Depression can pass.for those who were left by the ones who thought it never would it never leaves our hearts though.

  • LISA

    MY DEPRESSION IS LIKE HAVING THE FEELING THAT NOTHING WILL EVER MAKE ME HAPPY AGAIN. THE IDEA OF HAVING TO GO OUT WITH FRIENDS IS NO LONGER FUN. EVERY LITTLE COMMENT SOMEONE MAKES TOWARDS ME IS LIKE A PERSONAL ATTACK THAT MAKES ME MISERABLE. IT SEEMS LIKE NO ONE COULD POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND YOU.

  • Jessica

    I’m not sure what is wrong with me. I thought it was just anxiety so I started taking meds for that, but lately I have been crying for no reason. I feel that I shouldn’t cry because I have to be strong for my children. I work full time and all I have wanted is to stay home and be a homemaker. I feel sad most of the time and I stare out into space alot. My husband askes what is wrong and I can’t exactly say. I’m not sure. I just know that I am 28, and the older I get the worse these feelings get. Sometimes these feelings last 2-3 weeks and go away, other times its longer. I’ve been told to see a Dr. but I don’t know what to say. Every morning I want to call in sick to work because getting ready in the morning depresses me, knowing I have to go to work. Sunday nights are the worst because I dread Monday mornings. Maybe it is just all in my head and there is truly nothing wrong with me other than what I am creating. Who knows. I know that i’m tired of feeling this way.

  • matt

    depression seems very surreal. It is like ‘oh my god, is this really my thought process now?’. my mind circles around and around, totally self absorbed. Moments of normal,rational thoughts bring me comfort, only to be blindsided by the reality that i actually have to worry about thinking normal. The confusion/despair sets in and my chest squeezes with anxiety.

  • Ame Erickson

    I hate every sunny day. I want the days to be dark, rainy, turbulent. I almost have a bit of a sense of ease that it is relecting my feelings. I can’t talk about how I feel. I mostly do anything to keep people from knowing. I was raised not to show my feelings and the last thing I can bare is for people to feel sorry for me or to wonder why I’m not over everything. I even have a psychiatrist that I “act” for. I don’t even want him to know how bad it is. I am a regular cutter. My husband doesn’t really worry about that since where I cut isn’t life threatning. But in the past I have been hospitalized for cutting my wrists and suicide attempts. At least 4 times. Now I am very careful about my actions so I won’t be locked up again. They don’t just put you in with sad or depressed people. They put you in with terrifying people. It wasn’t anything but a babysitter for a week that did nothing to help me. Just observe and keep me from doing anything. I am still so unhappy with my life, my job, the things I have done wrong in raising my son. I do feel like a failure.

  • jennifer

    you feel that everything you do is wrong, everything about your life is wrong. and you know that there really are a lot of people around you that really do care about you. there’s love all around but you just can’t feel it. like you’re desperately alone and constantly feel like you were a mistake, that you were never supposed to be born and that you have nothing to offer this world, except being crazy and unlovable.

  • Vim

    This is exactly how I feel, I am so lost, I am so scared.. It seems this pain, this hurt I feel will never go.. I think of when I used to be happy and it makes me even more sad.. I often wish I could close my eyes and never wake up.. When I talk, when I smile, it doesn’t feel like me, it’s just a role playing so that people will not know about my feelings, but how can I pretend for the rest of my life? tell me..

  • jeff wahly

    9 months ago i was a proud father in th middle of a divorce since then ive lost my pride dignity and self respect. thinking im wrong about everything feeling like ive let everybody down most of all my children. ive lost my job again and the last feeling i remember is one of they would be better off with me dead. ive reached out to family only to be told go on with your life and your not prepared for custody ive watched my children withdraw and get angry and fall into depression and i fell right with them 14 years of being told im always wrong has dehumanized me to the point where whats the point i dont feel anymore or care about life anymore nothing i do is good enough for anyone and when i do do something i get blasted im 36 years old and should be enjoying my life but i dont know how i know im not the only one who is going through this but just to be loved and understood would have been nice. each day it gets harder to get up and move god please forgive me for the wrongs i have done.this black pit has to go away sometime i just want to be happy and proud again

  • Loz

    I feel like I have stepped into an alternate world, where things I used to experience and feel no longer exist or are available to me. Things look and sound really far away. I am somehow separated from my own life. All of a sudden, things don’t appeal to me. Things I love doing make me wonder why I ever enjoyed doing them! I am petrified that I will never feel right again. I feel wrong and its sickening. I want to feel right again. That is all I want. I don’t care what I have to do to get there, I just want to be at that place I used to be at. Normality I think it was. You don’t realise how happy you once were until you lose it and are in a different place. I can pinpoint the very day I started feeling like this. I didn’t think it would last this long thats for sure.

  • Marcella

    I know i have depression and its never going to get treated i dont know how to tell my parents i feel as if the world is like this big black hole and its sucking me in every direction life seems empty blank and meaningless and i feel as if i have my self to blame for everyones unhappiness

  • THIERRY

    Sometimes, I feel as though it would be a blessing if I could go to sleep and never wake up. Sometimes I don’t understand why I’m here.
    I want to be the person I use to be. I just want to be happy again. It makes me angry to see sunny days, because to me, it’s not normal. I feel as though I’m a deep dark pit, with no way out, and there is some kind of horror just around the corner. I’ve lost all interest in everything I used to love. I feel as if I am only existing, nothing more. I am sixty-one years of age, and I feel that my life is over, and I have no reason to go on. The sad part is that I can’t remember what I did with my life. I’m just so tired of the every day nothingness. I feel as if I am all alone, I feel that people don’t care, or they are tired of listening to me. I think they feel I’m just complaining. I can understand how they feel, because they don’t know how dark a place depression can be. I just want it to be over.

  • dol

    feelin neautral but negatie, black but grey, exhausted but unale to sleep or freak ut as im trying to sleep, wanting to get out of wherever i may be but cant seem to relate myself to anyone or thing, feel unable tocry, unable to express myself really , really down and eelings that this may be completely alien and that noone has ever known this feeling make me feel insecure and worried, neatral and negative, as though something terrible is happening or going to although i dont know what,i realise i also begin to associate my feelings with people even family, and objects and when im out of it im on the watch for one of those seemingly alien and incurable waves which paralize my creativity, block my emotions, taking away my ability to help myself…..

  • bryan

    Hello sharon,

    Im male so I dont know anything about menopause… Ugly symptoms there :/ I suffer from clinical depression for 4+ years. It sounds like you need some stress relief like I do. Everything builds up and its like hell just to get through each day. You need some major yourself time I guess… It would be good to tell a doctor but your gonna have to make it through bit of storm on the way to a positive outcome. It gets to be a big deal to get through the beginning. If you think the attempt is hard enough well your gonna have to try hard to get through it and get something out of getting help 🙂 I attempted and I got it but sadley im going on meds soon. You should go for it at anytime you can just jump out of the help. I suggest trying to clear up other stresses first so you have more “power” or “will” to get the help you really need. I say good luck to you. If you ever need talk reply.

  • Sharon

    This comment is more like a question for someone to reply to if possible: I would not say I’m depressed, like a lot of the entries I have read. I am anxious, upset, and nervous a lot. I’m very tired, and waking up in the morning is very hard. I do not have trouble sleeping, I just want to sleep more. I do not like my job it stresses me out and I just want to stay home where I feel safe and loved. If I never had to leave home that would be perfect, but not possible. I had a tubal 16 years ago and for the past two years I have had menapousal like symtoms, mood swings, spotting in between periods, hot flashes, cry very easily over normal every day tasks that have to be done. It is like if I have to do something out of the ordinary; not planned etc. I get very upset. I’ll be 37 in two and a half months, I had my tubal-ligation when I was 21, and I feel like I’m at the begining stages of menapause. I feel I’m to young for this, but after researching your web site I’m begining to wonder. In my case I can not have a tubal reversal which I have herd that in some women releives the PTLS, so I do not know what to do. My oldest daughter no longer lives at home and my youngest daughter just graduated from high school and will be atteneding college in the fall. My husband believes I have a hormone inbalance and that I’m going through “Empty nest syndrome”. We are also going to a fertility clinic to try and have a baby, (I was previously married)but I have not taken any medications or anything yet that would make me feel so unable to cope with things. Like I said, I’m not depressed, but these symtoms are very un nerving. Is there anyone that can give me any advice? I know I need to tell my doctor about these concerns and symptoms I just have not made an apt. I’m just curious to know what you think. Please reply to my email as soon as you can.

    Thank you,
    Sharon

  • mack

    frusturated with my self, and yet i frusturate and hurt others around me. have neve felt loved nor felt i deserve love, so i push all those away that help, because i am fearful. i don’t want them to waste their time and be disappointed, i am a no body. i only bring pain because i am confused, feel that no one can truly like me. tired of fighting wish i could give in, but that would just add to the selfish list of everything i have ever done, and i have already laughed in the face of my God for far too long. feel crazy half the time and wonder what the fuck i am doing here. so many people want to be here and i don’t, but still am, and don’t know why. TORTURE. the worst part is the distance i drive between everyone in my life. i don’t want them to be consumed by my dark vibe. I just want help , I have prayed since i was a little girl for God to help me, but I don’t think anyone is listening. I bring no happiness to anyone around me and that’s the part that really kills me. i feel an outkast.

  • melissa walker

    i feel nothing i do is right, i let everyone down and i sometimes feel they would be better off without me, i just want to sleep all the time and want the day to get over with so the next day can start all over again

  • GA

    This is what one day living with depression feels like: you wake up at 3 A.M. feeling absolutely rotten, desperate, and agitated. You turn on TV but can’t watch, pick up a book but can’t read, try soothing music but feel irritated by it. You return to bed-but toss, turn, and fret in the endless hours before dawn. As the sun rises, you begin pacing around the apartment but feel no relief or comfort and finally go back to bed. You feel worthless wasting time in bed but you are too washed out to get up.

    Your mind is filled with self-criticism, ruminations, catastrophization, and worries.
    As the day progresses, you feel a bit better. By late afternoon you are relieved enough to eat a light meal and get dressed. The evening is not fun, but it is not an agitated torture. By 3 A.M. the next morning, however, you are back in the lowest circle of hell.
    Try living that for a year or more. It is truly “the walk through the valley of the shadow of death”.

  • Cursed

    They say that if you a sinner and you die in your sins, you go to hell. Well being depressed to me is like being at hell while you are still alive. I don’t wanna live but I’m too scared to die. So I’m not alive and yet I’m not dead either.
    I’m kind like the living dead. Welcome to the dark side of the force. And it’s not Star Wars it’s Dark Wars. Damn!!
    Why me? Why ANYBODY? If life is a gift then who needs a curse? As for the other people who are going through the same, I read some of your comments. Although I cannot offer you any help (I have no idea how to help myself), at least I can relate to what you are going through.

  • Julia

    For me, depression is like being locked in a small glass box. Everyone I love is on the outside, and I am on the inside.
    And it feels like no-one gives a flying fuck about how I feel, all they’re doing is tapping on the glass when they talk to me. I’m always so tired, and I want to rest, I want to run away to somewhereI can call home. I’ve felt this way since I was maybe nine years old, and I’m 13 now. I have suicidal thoughts, and the person who I used to talk to has given up on me now, she doesn’t care anymore. It’s like being isolated, and when in the glass box, you can’t feel, because feelings are on the outside.

    ‘Sick of being sick’, I don’t know if this is what you want to hear, and I don’t know you, but I care. I want to help you, I really do, because I empathise with you. If anyone want to talk to me, I will listen, and try to understand. I want to help, here’s my email : crying_crimson_cyanide@yahoo.co.uk

  • Sick of Being Sick

    Meaninglessness, hopelessness, helplessness, irrelevancy, negative attitude, pessimism, boredome, frustration, anxiety, fear, lonliness, anger turned inward and outward, sadness, profound fatigue, guilt, resentment, knowing that others don’t care about me or care to hear about my misery . . . . these and so many more emotions and thoughts of the mind are what plague me on a daily basis. Is there a way out of this living hell on earth? If so, I have not found it yet. I wait out my days (didn’t ask to be born) in the hope that death and the afterlife will be better than what I’ve been subjected to and what I have subjected myself to. Anything would be an improvement over my present situation. Too afraid to take my own life; still believe that suicide is a sin again God who created me, yet not sure how to pull myself out of this morass. Does anyone have any suggestions or am I just writing this message into an ethereal void of “cyberspace”? Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

  • Megan Cherrier

    Oh, my! Depression is like being locked inside a prison cell for life and you can’t escape to get outside the shameful wall! I can just hear myself screaming inside almost all the time. I feel so lost and so lonely that is scares me. It’s the most horrible feeling, depression that is!

  • Ryan

    Depression is something i used to want to get rid of, but it feels like it’s been so long, and feels so hopeless that i really don’t care anymore

  • D

    I feel bored, apathetic, I look to the future and see more of the same drudgery and hard work and then i panic because i worry that I’ll do everything wrong and I’ll loose the things I care about because I’m too lazy and miserable and it’s all my own fault anyway for being so stupid.

  • M

    8 mos. to date….last bout was 8 years ago. Should have seen it coming this time. Convinced this crazy intense world of overstimulation prevents us from introspect, if we even know how to think anymore, so we’re stuck before we realize it. So very hard to break out, but can’t come up with anything positive to aim for. Used to be a happy person (I think), but maybe not? Try to think of truly happy moments, and I’ve come up with 4, the first at about age 6 (btw – that was about 30 years ago). I’ve been crying while reading these comments – there are so many sad, sad people in this world. I feel

  • anonymous

    get a life, you’re just making things harder for everyone and it isn’t cool because some people would take that seriously. what if we all hung ourselves tonight and it’s your fault? I bet you wouldn’t be so tough then.

  • anonymous

    depression kind of feels like no one cares about you and you are alone in your own world. you sit at home and count down the days until you can be by yourself and actually happy. I used to have depression and there wasn’t one day when I didn’t physically hurt myself or cried myself to sleep. it took me forever to get up in the morning because I figured no one was looking forward to seeing me at school. one day I was considering suicide and I all of a sudden realized, I needed help. I felt like no one would care, but my parents honestly did. they got me a therapist, physciatrist, physcologist, and they put me on several different medicines until we found one that worked. so far I’ve been on paxil, zoloft, lexapro and prozac. I was on paxil for the longest, but then I realized that I just didn’t have to rely on meds anymore. I was finally happy. I think having sites like these are worth it because it’s hard for people to determine whether or not they are depressed and ready for help.

  • Get A Life

    You’re all a bunch of sorry loosers and all off you complainers out to go out tonight and hang yourselves. The world will be a better place without your whinning.

  • Andrea

    No body really gives a shit…not your husband, not your family, not your friends. They are sick of hearing how badly you feel and besides, they are wrapped up in their own lives anyway. No one takes the the time to really, really look at me and to be present to what I’m saying or feeling…no one. My animals care for me more than any human right now. My husband is sick of not having sex, he’s lonely, he wants to do things, he wants this and he wants that. Maybe if he gave me 15 minutes of undivided, interested attention and care and concern I might perk up…or maybe it’s too friggin late anyway. Who cares. Everyone just cares for themselves. How ironic that the only person who gives you their undivided attention is a therapist you have to pay for. If you don’t have the money…suffer and “let them eat fuckin’ cake.” Who cares. No one at all.

  • mg

    hey rage. depression sucks doesnt it. i have been depressed for as long as i can remember. i have never felt connected to anyone and feel lonely ll and bored all the time. every day feels like another day wasted that i’ll never get back. most people seem to ignore and forget me. i wouldn’t mind emailing u if would like. if not, just ignore this-i’m used to it.

  • Rage

    Is anybody out there? I’d really like to talk to someone; I don’t know how I feel, I don’t know how TO feel, I don’t know WHAT to feel, I don’t know if I feel ANYthing. I don’t know. My brain won’t tell me how I feel and my arms feel detached from my body as I’m typing this. Would someone mind to post a response to this? Maybe we could do some e-mail correspondence.

  • mommy of 2

    I am a 24 yr old mother of 2 girls they are 2 and 1 10 months apart. I am taking zoloft for depression for over a yr. I stay at home while my husband works. I dont wanna be a round my kids I find my self yelling at them I am pacing the house like a agitated lion. I wanna throw things. I am scared of hurting my kids. I dont know if I love me husband anymore..I feel so down all the time even if I am doing something that should make me happy. I just wanna take a bunch of sleeping pills and drift down into the darkness and sleep. I met my husband over the internet and I moved up here to be with him in the past 2 yrs I have only seen my family for 2 weeks. they are in canada and I am in iceland. I try hard to be happy but I cant seem to get a grasp on life. I have tried to get time away from my everyday life. I want to get away.I wanna be happy again I fell like my life has no significance. I just dont wanna be around I wanna be happy again.Does anyone out there feel like I do? Everyone I talk to always say get out and do something meet people. I have tried but it does nothing. I just wanna lay in bed and stare at the wall…well thats how I feel. I hope someone understands…One thing I want is to go to canada to see my family for awhile..but I cant cause I dont have the money. feel free to email me at marsea@hotmail.com

  • Rick

    Depression to me feels unhealthy. I feel slow, thoughts are slow, vision is blurry, and no pleasure in normal activities.
    I’m lucky now, but I feel like the depression bug is going to get me. I went through a relationship and never knew how I really felt, I still don’t. I’m angry at her but don’t know if I should be or it’s my depression. I’m 28 years old and feel like I should have much more know then I do. I slept 6-7:30 hours a ight but yet I’m still tried. I want more from my life that want I’m getting!

  • cindy

    I feel so all alone…I am searching the web to get to an eating disorder program. I am tired of this eating shit….I’m older than some people on here, but depression is depression. It has no age, no number. Anyone can get it…I used to be on meds, but I hate them. They rob me of feeling sexual and i want that. I’m going to quit my job and finding a treatment center in Florida. I have been hospitalized for depression (now all of a sudden, they diagnose me as bi-polar. What the hell has changed?? I feel so dam alone. I have had 2 family deaths, and not one person except for my friend lisa, gave me a sympathy card…people are so up their own asses…I want to go back to school and get my Master’s in Social Work. I’ve been through this shit, so I understand…my father says, you’re 51, that’s rediculous…screw him…I can go, and WILL go back to school. I’ve gone through too much to throw it away, but I’m sleeping four hours a night if possible. I’m terrified of being kicked off Social Security. I honestly don’t know if I can handle full-time work…I have been in the god-damn psyche units for over 70 times and I will do anything to stay the hell out of them. All it is is a locked place to prevent the final act. I forgot to see my shrink too…I’m sure that is not helping. I hate my job. I want out and am going to give my notice on Friday. Those people are so up their own asses it’s not funny. I am going to move down to Florida and get some help. I’ve survived drug addiction and incest and physical abuse. I’m supposed to go to my trauma group tomorrow, but even after being in there a year, those women don’t really know me. My therapist doesn’t have an idea of how much i am hurting inside. I want to cry, but i can’t. I’m so lonely that when I allow myself to feel how much i am, i want to die, it hurts so bad…because of the damn abuse, i left home at 15, put myself through high school and college. I want to travel, I want a partner. I want to feel and be loved, but i’m still too damn scared to let someone in. I don’t want to be abused by anyone in anyway, so I stay alone. For so many years, I’ve been alone. One of the comments I read was that you feel like there is a plate of glass between you and the rest of the world. That is very true for me and I have always felt that way. I am sitting on tons of emotional pain and i’m terrified to feel it. I binge and purge. If I don’t do that, i go shopping. Like today…I spent over $350.00 that i should have put on bills. My damn addictions keep switching off. I am battleing the last 2 of 5 addictions…food and spending/debt…I wish to hell that I did not need people to survive, but I do and I hate that! This has helped to vent…I will go to group tomorrow, but I can’t promise how honest I will be. I have been sober and clean a long time, and I wanted to use today(yesterday)really bad. Thanks for your not so good (shitty)things to say to someone who is depressed. I could see a lot of what I was told as a kid in those comments. I remember feeling suicidal at age 12! And I’m 5l, anyways thanks for letting me vent. I have been so angry and sarcastic to the idiots at work (and I work at a treatment center) that I’ve got to get the hell out of there before I get fired. I will go to group tomorrow, Call my Dr. and go to AA/NA on thursday. Thanks for being there. I have the feeling that at least someone cared to set up this web site…I still feel like there is a plate of glass between me and the world. I also am recovered from multiple personality disorder/the most severe form of dissociative disorders, and i have worked too damn hard on myself for too long to throw it away. Thanks for being there…any support would be most appreciated. ONE SECOND AT A TIME. And I dont want to go to job interviews and fake a fake smile. I detest that. I hate phoney people and i don’t want to be one….

  • Geoff Allum

    You are alone in a world of pain nobody can see or measure. You don’t wash, you don’t clean your teeth, you don’t collect the mail, you don’t get dressed, the consequences of doing nothing pile up. Torments come from nowhere, a bird singing before dawn, darkness slowly changing to light, someone laughing. Going out is ultimately inevitable. It takes much longer than it should to get dressed, the negative ruminations, are unstoppable, your shirt is on but then you pause in the pain before starting on the buttons. Outside the daylight is confronting. One leaden foot is dragged after another. You complete your work making endless poor judgements about routine things. You voice is hoarse and you can’t fix it. Everyone else seems ‘normal’. You forget things. Your past torments you, your future terrifies you. You mind races with self-destructive, self-defeating thoughts. Everything is ‘off’, everything is wrong and there is no way to fix it. Something very bad is about to happen, you can’t define what it is, but it consumes you with anxiety anyway. Somehow you make it home unscathed, the evening comes on and the gathering gloom envelopes you. You only turn on the minimum of lights. The liquor bottles beckon like a satanic sorcerer – a few hours of near remission in the darkness tempt. You go to bed and pray not to wake up. The bliss of a few hours dream free sleep may ensue, then it is the next day and your tireless unsleeping demons are ready and waiting. They start beating you up without hesitation.

  • Lindsay

    I’m 22 now. I’ll be 23 in a month. I quit my job two weeks ago because I hated it so much, and now I need to find another one. My mom doesn’t understand. Like a person could just go out and get one. I’d say I want to, but I don’t really want to do anything right now. I want to make my mom happy, but I can’t. How stupid I sound! I don’t want to go anywhere, I don’t want to do anything. I feel like sleeping but I sleep too much as it is. I feel like eating but I’m already eating way more than I should. I’ve been in therapy over 6 months and nothing has gotten better. Nothing ever gets better. It can always get worse though. It always does get worse. Like the universe decided that it’s not enough that your life is a living hell everyday, so it fills you up with flat tires and visiting relatives and overbearing mothers that can’t just let you be. Of course she can’t just let me be. She’s my mother and she wants to be proud of me, and she wants me to be happy. I just wish she’d stop wanting that. It’s the one thing I can’t give her. It’s 11:25 in the morning and the only thing I’ve done today was to go and get my non-helping medications. Well, let’s just up the dosage, maybe that will fix it. My psychiatrist is a moron. But if I quit going then I’m back to doing nothing again, so I let her do what she wants.
    Depression feels like not existing. No, that’s what I want it to feel like. I want to lay down somewhere and never get back up. But I don’t want to die. Because maybe this is all I’ve got. There’s nothing after this life, and the thought of all that nothing makes me sick. Depression feels like I should be taking a shower right now but the thought is uncomfortable, like I’m good where I am, there’s no reason to move. Depression feels like I need to get a new job but then there is all of the going to places and talking to people and fake that smile, yeah that’s how we pretend to be a happy person. I don’t want to deal with people any more. They upset me because they’re stupid, and then I upset them because I think they’re stupid. And then I’m upset because I upset them and that’s not my job. I’m supposed to make people happy. That’s my fucking job. Why can’t I do that one thing?
    Mom tells me to get over it. Sometimes I almost think she understands and then she says that. Says I’m using depression as an excuse not to have to do anything. Well duh. Depression means not wanting to have to do anything. It’s not like I have any other excuses handy. How many other reasons can there be for not wanting to get up in the morning? For hating people so much you wish you had a shotgun handy? For hating yourself so much you wish you had a shotgun handy?
    Somewhere, up there, in all this mess, someone mentioned boredom. Is that a symptom of depression? I don’t want a job but I feel like, if I had one, at least that would be something to do, you know? I’m bored out of my mind but I don’t want to read, don’t want to watch TV, really don’t want to take a shower. I’m trying to stop eating because I feel like I weigh to much and that is the only way to lose weight. And hey, worse case scenario I starve myself to death so really it’s a win-win situation. But I’m rambling now, so I suppose I’ll go and let someone else vent for a while.

  • Rom

    Depressiom feels like cinder blocks were tied round my feet and I was tossed in the Milwaukee river. I’m pulled down into the murky darkness, choking on the filthy water, struggling and fighting uslessly for the light and air. down I sink as the pressure and the darkness crushes the life out of me. I am living corpse.

  • Trent

    This poem is what depression feels like.
    “Not Waving But Drowning
    by Stevie Smith”

    I feel all of what the above posts say… no … wait … I feel nothing ha ha ha.
    Seriously, I would have to add that I feel like I am living my life outside of myself. I look in the mirror and I dont see myself. Some weird guy is “living” my life and his life sucks. Five years out of high school and nothing has been accomplished. I cant think myself out of this, its not just a “spiritual thing” (mom and dad), I cant control the life that weird guy is living for me.

    And I just learned that I have been depressed since I was a very young child, yet no one helped me.
    “Not waving but drowning”

  • juliet

    depression for me was crying and shouting out in the darkness of yore room every night!every horrible long night

  • carol

    its like everything you love or care for is given to you only for the purpose to cause you pain, sadness, despaire, lonlyness, snatched away from you to leave you empty,lost, confussed, alone,one second of happiness in exchange for a lifetime of trials. still to be left alone.

  • OneDay Closer

    I’m a 46 year old male who has been suffering from depression for as long as I can remember. I was

    married for 20 years before getting divorced but luckily have no kids to worry about. I think my ex just

    got tired of me and my depressive symptoms, I never told her about my being depressed. At the time I

    don’t think I even knew what it was or that it had a name. It’s only in the last 3 years that I’ve

    discovered it myself. It seems like I’ve always had a low self-esteem and lacked self-confidence. I’ve

    had thoughts of suicide and death since I was in high school and still have them to this day. Sometimes

    these thoughts go away, maybe even for an entire week at a time, but they always come back and usually

    it’s every day that I have them. About 14 months ago I was going through a bad spell where I found

    myself actually planning my own death, had the method and the location planned out and it scared me so

    bad that I finally told someone, my sister. I told her everything. I told her how long I’d been having

    these feelings, about my self-esteem and self-confidence issues, everything I could think of or

    remember. At the time I thought she cared but since then, she’s never mentioned it to me again. I’ve

    tried to approach the subject with other family members and friends only to learn that most people don’t

    want to hear about this kind of stuff. Since they have normal minds and normal lives there is no way

    that they could even begin to understand. I have a woman friend who says she loves me. I tried to

    explain some of this to her and she actually laughed at me, said I was just being foolish and to “snap

    out of it”. How many of you have heard that “snap out of it” crap too? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we

    really could just “snap out of it”? I wish I could go to bed at night and go to sleep, not lie there

    tossing and turning, re-thinking the days events, questioning decisions, analyzing every aspect of every

    thought and deed. Right now it’s 4am on a Monday morning and I’ve spent the last several hours trying to

    get to sleep but obviously with no luck so I thought I’d try to write some of this stuff down in an

    attempt to get it out of my head, even if only temporarily.
    Depression to me isn’t just being depressed or feeling down, it includes many other things too. I seem

    to lack the ability to actually feel emotions, instead I just fake them. I feel no real love toward

    anyone or anything. I have 1 friend left (who knows nothing about this). I get irritated easily over the

    slightest things. I always feel “worn out”. My memory isn’t worth squat. My eyesight is getting bad too

    but that may be due to age. I don’t care about my personal appearance. The only hope I have in life is

    that every day brings me one day closer to death. Suicide would bring relief if only I had the guts to

    go through with it. I feel like I never want to allow myself to have a good time, like I’m always

    punishing myself for something. Christmas and other holidays absolutely suck and I just want to shut

    myself up in my room until they’re over. I stay away from family reunions and all other social

    gatherings, I hate crowds. I see no value in myself or my life. I have no social life, instead I stay in

    my room and watch tv, usually comedies, either movies or sitcoms. They help to disrupt the thoughts in

    my head and I enjoy the laughter they sometimes bring me. Since I don’t have a regular job I’m usually

    broke and can’t afford a social life anyways. I don’t like the taste of alcohol so I can’t drink my

    troubles away and drugs cost too much. I have no insurance so I can’t go to a doctor about this. Even

    when I was working full time I still didn’t have insurance and couldn’t afford those steep medical

    bills. I haven’t been to a doctor since 1987, almost 18 years ago. I live in the United states where

    medical costs are the highest in the world and quality of care is rated 17th in the world.
    I’m at a point now where I want to get help but where do I go? Where does a person with no insurance, no

    money and no assets get help for depression? If someone out there knows, please post here and give us a

    clue. I’ve paid almost $50,000 into social security in my lifetime and at this rate I doubt I’ll ever

    collect a cent of it since males in my family rarely ever reach retirement age (my father died at age

    49), why can’t that be used? Oh well, tomorrow I wont care anymore. And I’ll be one day closer…
    Before I go I do wish to thank the person who started this page. Although no help is given here it is

    nice to know that I’m not the only person who feels this way. I actually do feel some empathy with those

    of you who are in the same boat as I am. Not the kids who have temporary depression because of bad

    grades or a looming test or their girlfriend/boyfriend just broke up with them but with those of you who

    have been suffering silently for years with no one to talk to about it. I know how it feels, I’ve lived

    the life too if you can call it a life. To me it’s not a life, it’s merely an existence. A bleak one at

    that.

  • JulieC

    Is it depression? I feel drained by conversation, I feel numb, I feel dizzy and overwhelmed by anything ‘overly stimulating’. My eye movements feel slowed, my thoughts are slowed. Memory is terrible and I have the sense that people think i’m going nuts. Anger and hostility towards anyone I have emotions toward, for the smallest of things. A fuzzy sensation in my head. I feel ill, very ill.

  • kali

    things gradually tumbled downhill for me from the age of 15.. where as i was lively and abit of a joker a series of stupid situations i got myself into kinda ruined me in a big way.. people refer to me as tempramental also i have encountered such names as freak and vindictive bitch. i think sometimes i go all out to make people hate me bcoz i dont feel i deserve to liked and theres the added bonus that if they hate they’l never want to get close enough to hurt. i only dissapoint them anyway.. i have attempted suicide twice not bcoz i want to die and that was it, bcoz i wanted to stop thinking for two seconds to take the presure of my head and noone understands not even my doctor who looks at me like im stupid that when i say i cant stop thinking thats exactly what i mean. most days i spend of my face on drugs it numbs it out for me and self hating i inflict upon myself seems that little bit easyer to take, being made to feel like ill never be good enough no matter what i try is the dagger for me and the humilliation i set myself up for time and time again..

  • anon

    I had depression years ago. The cruelty of it was unimaginable, feeling like a dead man. It went away and since then I’ve tried to plug myself into life. There are things I like to do and want to be a part of, but things keep going wrong. Not because I’m a bad guy, I’m nice, but people don’t usually appreciate “nice.” They just take it for granted. I am also starting to hate the human race. I was just watching a commercial for a Playstation portable thing. It’s like a Gameboy but does a lot more. The ad showed the “point of view” of the PSP itself. Just a lot of shots of idiots of all colours and both sexes staring at this thing. Looks like the human race to me. All concerned with only themselves and their own damn stupidity. Maybe if we naturally had concern for each other instead of never giving a shit about each other, people like me wouldn’t have to go crawling back to the doctor for more pills so I can help my brain to deal with all the rotten bastards in the world.

  • Pat

    eventhrough I’m only 13, I’m feeling just as the list above. But by the comment LanYa had given, I believe in what he/she had said and I would like to see everybody believing in what he/she had said too. All the thing that we’re about right now is the attitude. Why don’t you guys live your life just how you wanted it to be, live you life brightly . . . I know there’re lots of thing that maybe depressing you, but it’s like the dark part of your life . . . A life does not always consist of happiness . . .
    I’m a buddism, I believe what happened in my life is because what I have done. If you’ve done bad things, that’s what you’ll recieve. But if you’ve done the good things, that’s what you’ll recieve!
    I hope I can help someone . . . I’m now not sure whether I’m in a depression mood or not . . . but what I only believe is that
    “Every one is special and that everyone’s life consists of affliction, but set that affliction away and catch the happiness on . . .”
    And what LanYa had said . . . everyone out there is caring about you . . . I ofcourse also believe in that. Consider how you’ve grown up, your parent had do such things for you. What you’ve eaten, what have they taughten you . . . . hoping I can bright up this world from those darkness side. . . ^^

  • phil

    I feel so fucking horrible! I’m in school right now and i feel like i wanna jump out of the window or hang myself in a bathroom stall. Why!!! Why me, Lord?! I didn’t do anything to deserve this! I’ts not fair! I don’t know what to do! I want to stay alive for that chance that things may get better, but how fucking long do i have to wait?! How fucking long!! I’m going to the hospital.

  • phil

    I’ve been depressed for four years now and i beleive there is no hope for me. I am beginning to hate the human race. I hate myself and everone else living- especially those who think im feeling sorry for myself. Screw them, screw everybody. Sorry to the person reading this who wanted an empathetic/inspiration story.

  • alex

    you know you could never go through with suicide. Like causing such pain for everyone you regrtefully are associated with. And everyone would be talking about you and saying how great you are once you’re gone. But if you could just kind of dissapear, just slowly fade away, and be totally gone without anyone noticing and with a promise that there is no kind of afterlife. That you would no longer exist. If that option existed you would take it in a second.

  • Dani

    It’s like a storm that comes to your life when you need it the least. It hurts you, it confuses you, it robs you of everything. It makes life a struggle first and then one big lie. Sometimes I compare it to a tornado that came and spun and spun, and when it lifts if it does at all all you see around you are the pieces that fell back on the ground all torn up and broken and mixed up. And not only do you realize that you can’t glue them and saw them back to the way they were, but you start feeling like they weren’t even real in the first place, just an illusion that was destroyed by something stronger. You can’t go back because all the pieces now will be mended pieces of junk, and you can’t continue forward because you saw what the tornado did. And you start wishing you were living somewhere where tornadoes don’t hit, that way they would only be something that you read in the books about. You loose yourself, you loose EVERYTHING, you are chased by clouds and lightnings. When I was little I wanted to have a special power to read people’s minds, now I only wish I had the power to turn back time, so I am not today where I am.

  • anon

    Re: Lan Ya (post 375)
    “I am here to tell all of you that there is someone out there who cares, and will support you all the way. ”

    And who the hell is that? A lot of us can’t even get respected by our own family.

    I love it when kids doing school reports check in for a few minutes, and then feel the need to offer useless advice. The purity of this place is “What does depression feel like?”

    It’s like a white man telling us what slavery feels like, or TOm Cruise starring in the movie “The Last Samurai.”

    Website owner, please remove my post. I’m sorry but I had to vent. Consider deleting Lan Ya’s as well. If she can’t provide us with the name and address of “someone out there who cares, and will support you all the way,” I think it’s nothing more than an ignorant comment at best, and an insult to our pain at worst. The kid has obviously never visited hell for any time.

  • Debbi Carlson

    ATTN GAG GIRL,

    I took Synarel for endometriosis and infertility fourteen years ago. I have been struggling with bipolar disease and panic attacks ever since. My family also has a history of mental illness. Prior to taking the Synarel for six months I had no problems personally. I believe the Synarel was the catalyst. Contact me please, I find very little on the internet linking mental illness and synarel, and even still can’t believe my six months on Synarel and onset of mental illness are not connected. Anyone else with these suspicions or perhaps someone knowing of where I might find more information. please contact me also. I would greatly appreciate any assistance. Thank You, Debbi

  • Lan Ya

    I am here to find info for doing a speech on clinical depression. I myself don’t suffer from it, but I decided to write about it because I had just that hint of depression a month or so ago. It is not the “down” mood but I actually had quite a few of the symptoms listed up there and I even turned to whiskey. Luckily for me I had the support of friends and my family especially my mum, and now I am my happy self again. I am here to tell all of you that there is someone out there who cares, and will support you all the way. It may be painful, and death may seem the easiest way out, but think about those around you who care. There are so many beautiful things in the world that you have yet to see. Don’t give up, the light at the end of the tunnel will come near. And remember, we can only support you, but the only one that can cure you is yourself. By the way, I know this place offers a lot of comfort for some of you who are seeking understanding. However, I hope you will not indulge in pity for each other and decide to “die together” to end this pain. You will be missed by a lot of us out here.

  • Bryan

    Im 17, I knew I was clinical 2 years ago when I told my parents, nothing happened from there. since then the last 2 years Im worse, nothings good anymore. I have to force myself to keep doing things I wanted to be good at and enjoyed. My friends wont hate me and wont let me take my life but Its not getting better. suicide = “the most selfish act a person can do” to them. I believe it is neutral and it seems all I do is hurt other people all the time anywaz. my marks been slipping and now Im gonna fail most of my classes. Im not gonna make it through and thats gonnna affect the rest of my life with or without depression. I dont have a choice I dont have the will power to do it anymore. Theres nothing

  • Ron

    I don’t know if I am depressed. I just know that I really don’t want to do anything or or care about things that I at once cared about. I don’t visit, or go out, I just want my bed and to be left alone. I hope that one day I will wake up wanting to do something and try to make plans to better my life but it never happens. Even at work I now have no motivation and do the least amount possible and wait for the day to end. I am not proud. I am not happy. I really feel that I am just a pice of driftwood at sea with no land in sight. Just floating and floating.

  • Perpetual Denial

    I think the abuse of alcohol and drugs are also ways one copes with suicidal impulses. I know that’s how I do.

  • Scott

    Depression is analogous to a physical paralysis. Try moving your arms and you can’t, and it doesn’t matter how hard you will them to move. They won’t. When you move your arms, you can’t will yourself to do it, you just do it. Ever hear of people being paralyzed by fear? Depression is a very similar paralysis but is a much more chronic problem.

  • Viola

    I have felt tis way for many years. I do not know when it started. I do not know how it started. I do not even remember ever feeling differently. I am waiting for a mental health clinic to ‘get back to me’. It seems if you got no money, no one wants to help. I am so tired.

  • james

    It feels like a gridlock on your cosmic purpose. You want to be alone and nothing is important to you. You want to “escape”. But there is no escape. Caring about nothing is as close to freedom as I’m gonna get.

  • Tim

    I wake up and wonder why I’m alive, and if there is no life after death, then why are we alive? I can’t seem to see or hear God. I woke up 4 hours early today, I could barely eat a sandwich all day so far, I feel like someone hit me in the head with a baseball bat. I take naps and I never took naps. I’m so afraid of not existing when I die. Even hell would be better than that. I love music, but I don’t really like listening to it much anymore. I’m hungry, but I don’t want to eat, or I feel nauseous if I eat too much, and I used to eat a lot. I just want to be happy and not worry about death. I can’t concentrate at work or in class.

    I feel a little better that I went to see a counselor, and that there is help. But my next appointment for counseling and to get meds is so far away…two weeks. Every day is like driving a bus whose route runs through hell. I’m just so frustrated, and it hurts. Sometimes I feel ok, but it’s lurking in the shadows and I still can’t feel as happy as I used to. Detached, that nothing matters in the end if you won’t remember it and everyone dies, so why bother? I want to be able to remember. But it’s because of chemicals in your brain. If you haven’t gotten help, it is relieving to know that you aren’t just going insane or that you have not have realized some horrible truth. Get help, it’s ok. My friend told me awhile ago that I was the most bad ass guy he knows, and that was before being depressed, and even I got help. You can get help. Don’t let yourself suffer anymore. There is hope, and even though it is hard to hang on, just hang on. Hang out with your friends even if you don’t want to, because it helps sometimes. Or if you have no friends, try to talk to someone, because you have nothing to lose, only to gain.

    I am 20 and I have a lot in life, and I want to feel like it matters again. And I want this fucking noise in my head to stop.

  • Spencer

    It feels like spiritual warfare taking place in my life. It skews my thinking by I cannot just have one thought. They all piggyback on eachother and it is just a jumbled mess of chaos. I can’t make any decisions, for there is regret in all. So most of the time I choose to do nothing. I can’t even say anything. It is such a black and white mentality and I feel like such a loser because I really don’t know what road to take. My spirituality has suffered as well, and I often ask God for a sign to help me. And then there’s the fact that there are so many signs, yet I still don’t seek help because it is too much to handle. So there then is guilt. Guilt over everything; not a good enough lover, father, the list goes on. There is so much I want out of life, and I often project those inadequasies on people I love; that it is there fault. And then the guilt starts over again, but I can’t seem to escape it. I long for solitude, and then when I have it, I long for something else. I continually try new things and buy new things in hopes of helping me to snap out of it. They are only temporary and I know this. I am only fooling myself, rather my brain is fooling me. I just recently split with my girlfriend because I want more out of life, and I think somehow she is blocking me, but yet I know for certain it is not her. She is extremely understanding through all this. She is very supportive, but I cannot make her any promises because I don’t even know what my true feelings are. I do love her, but I just can’t say it or show it. She tries to help as best as possible, but then there’s the guilt of that too because she is really trying and just too damn understanding. I can’t even bring myself to talk to her. So all the confusion starts over and the guilt and what can I do at this point. If I let her go, I know I don’t want to live without her, but if I am with her, the responsibility she brings is just too hard and what is the point when I can be out doing other shit. Again, my brain is fooling me. Logically I know that if she is gone, then all the money I save for myself can and will be used on just me, but what fun is any vacation if she is not there to enjoy it with me. Then I think I am meant to be alone. So where are my true feelings? She wants me to go to a doctor, but I am hesitant because it is too much effort, and I have doubts about it all. Maybe I’ll just take her advice and grab her hand and let her lead for a while. It doesn’t make me less of a man does it? The only thing I have to lose at this point is her and I’m afraid I screwed it up already. I have lost everybody so far except her. I don’t even relate to my kids, their teenage problems are so fake and phoney, yet I remember them myself. So again, more guilt. All my life seems as if it has been guilt over everything. Is there any difference in this way. I feel as if the devil has taken my soul and when he is eating me alive, bits and pieces fall out of his mouth and those are my better moments, only to be eaten slower next time and more efficiantly. It just gets worse.

  • Victim of Mathematics

    I feel most of the same things everyone else does. The dark cloud hovering over me wherever I go. Running as fast as
    I can, trying to lose it. It always finds me, and I end up too exhausted to care. My only thoughts are the self
    obsessing over my personal misery. I know everyone posting here feels the same yet it is still so personal. The guilt that is ever present yet rationally I know I did nothing to deserve it. The hopelessness. The isolation. The overwhelming sadness. Sometimes when it isn’t is bad, I can feel a tinge of anger. Anger at the burden…my burden. Most times that requires too much effort. There are so many circular patterns. Craving isolation yet the isolation only makes things worse. Alone with your thoughts when you are depressed is never a good thing. I often think I want to feel this way.
    I don’t feel myself unless I’m depressed. Waiting. Waiting for things to get so bad I will know how it ends. When my time comes, it won’t be an attempt. If you truly want to die, you would never survive an attempt. Its not that hard to kill yourself.

  • steve

    I’ve suspected for a long time I’m depressed. I’ve got a job I love, a nice home, I’m physically healthy, a great girlfriend, and a little money in the bank. why do I feel like shit then? I live in England which is a depressing place. So many rules & regulations that seem to be there to stop people enjoying life. I seem to be a confrontational person, but I dont want to be. Arguments & disagreements go round in my head for days after the event. I feel stressed out all the time. everything i do turns to shit at some point, so why bother? Even this feels useless, I mean, who’s going to read it? Who cares? Yet I don’t want to die, suicide seems stupid. In my job I deal with people who attempt suicide and I find them a bit pathetic. I just wish I could feel good about life again. I wish I could talk to someone about this, but I have absolutely no faith in doctors. why did this happen to me? Was it guilt, side effects of an accident, or what? What’s the point?

  • anon

    I know this sounds trite, but my analogy is cupcakes.

    Who doesn’t like one? Small, yet they have a little weight to them; colored like a toy and smelling like candy. A little thing of fun that can’t hurt anybody.

    But I feel that when I reach for one, someone has mixed cigarette ashes into the icing, and injected the cake with sour milk. I eat mine, and it tastes odd, and later, it makes me sick. I try for another, and it too, is bad.

    I look around and everybody else is just eating them, always getting a normal one. The joy of eating them is natural, and doesn’t need to be thought about or dwelled upon. There is no “why” or any other foolish questions. I start to feel sad, and I worry. I feel rightfully cheated. I hurt inside. The others don’t understand me, since they always get normal ones. They look at me and my problem with something so harmless and fun, and I seem unfathomable to them. I make no sense to them.

    And it makes no sense to me, either. I wish I had someone who wasn’t suffering who understood, but nobody else–none of the ones with the normal ones–can understand.

    And I don’t understand it , either.

    Why?

  • martin

    if there was meaning in this life i failed to see it.
    if joy brought happeness i failed at being happy
    if i could just find hope if i just could see the reason if i just could be who i am and be accepted by the world if i could just learn to love and trust then maybe i will stop failing

  • Nicole

    I forgot what happiness felt like. I was so depressed and helpless I didn’t even have enough energy to kill myself… I just wanted somebody to knock me out or run into me with their car, anything to relieve the feeling of apathy

  • smallandconfused

    I sympathize with everyones different experiences completley. For me, it is less a case of feeling like my whole world is caving in, more a case of I noticed gradual changes in myself that i didn’t like that have built up to a feeling of utter despair and hopelessness. If someone in my family did something really small that annoyed me, I would seethe about it for ages afterwards and bear grudges about the tiniest things. I couldn’t respond when people called my name in class and I started to drift away from my friends because I couldn’t tell them what was going on. I was too ashamed and felt it was something wrong with me. I started to scrutinize everything I’d done in the past and i picked apart all my ‘failures’. The plans for a rock festival in the summer that I had been so excited about fell apart and I lost my passion for music and art that were such a part of me. I feel I have lost my friends because they thought I didn’t like them anymore and I was constantly off school because I couldn’t even drag myself out of bed. I still feel it is my fault I feel like this, and even though I have all these problems I feel I have no right to be so sad and disheartened. I have constant weird dreams that keep me up half the night; from tidal waves, to being strangled, to running down dark alleyways… I spend my days either crying or sleeping, and I know this is not who I am. I am still so young (16) and yet I feel i have no future ahead of me. Can anyone help me?

  • Sergey

    Depression haunts you no matter where you go, you feel sad all the time and even when someone else feels sad too, you still dont want them to be sad, just yourself, because nobody understands you, your feelings. They think its a 1 day thing, but it never was.
    Depression wont let you sleep, wont let you think and wont let you go on with your daily activities. Alot of thoughts pass through your mind, you’re really confused. Is it worth living?

  • YLH

    Depression is like floating in an underground lake on a little boat, curled up and all. You just drift…and you’re too sad to bother where it floats.

  • Eugene

    Distorted images like ghosts
    haunting the wind
    revenge on the soul
    suffocating the spirit

    When darkness is as bright as day
    the shade engulfs even the object
    hope and zeal all become so fragile at this moment
    exotic calls of life, meaningless.

    And she climbed up onto the rails
    and jumped off with a final scream.

  • Lone Bird

    I want to fly, but my wings are bound by painful wires to my sides and no matter how much I look at the sky I cannot reach it. Also, a thick fog surrounds me and chokes me when I’m trying to do something, so that I just give up.

    When it is most bad I feel like a my mind, having been slowly eaten away by this black phantom, suddenly screams and down from the depths where I lie I reach out to something that isn’t there. I curl up into a ball and want to be a baby again, where nothing is your problem and someone can always look after you.

    But I do remember after my first period of depression, I did get better. The wires were clipped and I could finally spread my wings and I just felt….alive. I am now 17 and am experiencing a relapse. God is with us. Don’t despair.

  • Rich

    Depression is like being thrown into a dungeon, no light, no hope, only darkness and despair. Time means little,
    food only staves off hunger pains and sleep is merely a temporary relief from the mental hell you endure. You
    wonder, has your faith failed you, or perhaps, you have failed your faith? In this confusing world of thoughts,
    you anguish over your problems, failures and unresolved conflicts. The “Death Angel” would be a welcome sight.
    You wonder, would you run to him, or simply just be glad he has finally arrived.

  • Faking Happiness

    Depression feels like a blanket smothering everything in and around me.
    It covers my mind, holding me back from thinking a real reality instead
    and being as everyone else. It pushes me back into a darkness even when
    light surrounds me, holding me back from my family and friends. And in the
    end this blanket has strings, threads that bind around me, turning me into
    a puppet so that everyone can see the fake me, the smiling me, when inside
    I just want to scream and hide.
    Depressions a bitch out for blood.

  • Roger

    Ever heard a really good jokw, with everybody laughing their heads off, only you didn’t get the puchline? Depression is realising YOU’re the punchline.

  • 14yearoldgirlallalone

    depression is a never ending dream a never ending hangover your permenantly lost in your own life with noone to turn to and nobody that reall ever cares your always alone feeling empty pointless pathetic dead emotionless n it feels like it takes all your energy just to smile for a second and all your energy to hide it bcos all them scars that ppl didnt know existed do exist and when it finally gets out there is no way of hiding it you just fall further and further and further until you hit the bottom no light no air no music just gray and dark your always lost in your own life and your only escape is dreaming or death…

  • Again

    Depression to me is a like a black hole. It’s sucking me further and further in, and I’m powerless to stop it. I see it coming, I know it’s happening, but no amount of rationality can change the inevitable.

    It takes so much effort just to get up in the morning, much less take a shower or go into work, which I haven’t done in three days. I don’t want anyone to know, but I’m too tired to fight anymore. Just getting the dishes done seems like a major event.

    After 16 years, I thought I had beaten it, but now it’s back. I’m pushing everyone away. They’ve had to deal with me fighting this for so long; I don’t want to put them through it anymore. I’m afraid of losing my job, my partner, my apartment, my sanity.

  • Amie

    Depression is the dark sea which I am right now sailing on, aimless, hopeless and helpless. I guess my depression started when I had my first child 6 years ago and since then I no longer feel the joy of life. I feel guilty that I don’t give my child the love a mother should give. I don’t know what to do to get over this long continuing feeling of failure and sadness. I blame myself and others around me for the miseries in my life, which I know is wrong. I love my child and I want to be better, but there is something there forever blocking my way and my actions. I can not make a change.

  • ian

    It’s a vortex of dread that just assaults your feelings of well-being. You get floored and then use all your energy and resources to just get up again, and for a little while you are, until you are sacked again and have to start all over. It’s very lonely and you are embarrassed to talk about it with anyone. No amount of mind control can cure it. It’s like having a headache and just trying not to have a headache.

  • zak

    If I sleep , I am safe. If I wake , I am in danger
    I choose sleep. Sleep Sleep Sleep, does not come very easily.
    therefore i stay in a withdrawn sense of living, withdrawn from my child and spouse.
    withdrawn from work and family. Hidden from all that know me as I use to be.
    Happy, young, joyous, energetic, creative. Now i sit in a puddle of self sorrow hoping
    one day it will end. Sleep, sleep , sleep. When will i know the peace of sleep when I am awake. When will I know the joy of life again. What the hell has happened to me?
    where is this tortured journey taking me and what lessons is it teaching.

  • maggie

    Depression is like a large heavy blanket placed over your head. It’s suffocating, blocks your vision and restricts your movement. Yet, it’s also something to hide behind, retreat into. It takes the raw edge off reality with its numbing heaviness. To peep out at the world from behind it, even the beautiful things would break your heart.

  • cloudy

    Depression is like a heavy dark rain cloud that follows you no matter where you go. You go to the right, it follows, turn left, it follows, head straight away, and here it comes. Why won’t it just go away? Depression makes you think that you are the only one with this problem and and that everyone else knows you have it following you, yet they do not care enough to show you the direction to a brighter place.

  • anonymous

    “outcast on a cold star, unable to feel anything but an awful helpless numbness. I look down into the warm, earthy world. Into a nest of lovers’ beds, baby cribs, meal tables, all the solid commerce of life in this earth, and feel apart, enclosed in a wall of glass.”

    -Sylvia Plath

    Elsewhere in this website, it is said that “the normal down periods that everyone goes through once in a while, that can be brought on by a rainy day, a broken heart, the flu or even for no particular reason.”

    While I admit that in most cases, a little rejection can be sluffed off in a little while, I also believe that a devastating loss of a deep love can be more than enough to kick us over the edge into this illness, just as a pack of cigarettes a day can push you into cancer after a matter of years. For some people, decades of smoking do not lead to illness, but for others it does. Why–––no one can say.

    Also, I believe that just having somebody around to help you can also cure you. The problem is, therapists are not there to be your lover or partner; they are there to do a job that they are paid to do, a JOB that they have been trained to do, a job that they picked because they intend to be financially rewarded for doing so. Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT putting down psychiatry or meds. Sometimes they can do a lot of good. I was just disagreeing with the idea of minimizing the damage a broken heart can cause.

    You’ve all heard the phrase “died of a broken heart.” Well, it is often true. Vincent Van Gogh committed suicide at the young age of 37, and 6 months after that, his younger brother, Theo, died. Theo was not ill at the time Vincent died.

    I was depressed before, and got better with a therapist and meds, and then I got stronger than ever with a partner, but then I lost in love. Now I feel my illness returning. I know why it’s coming back. I know what would cure it, and I know my first choice is not a therapist and chemicals. But I can’t have my first choice.

    It can be an easily-overcome schooltime silliness, or a devastation akin to being impaled upon a spear.

    A broken heart is NOT ALWAYS a small matter.

  • Sharon

    If you find something that works for you, then great. But please don’t come up with a “cure-all,” and expect you to be correct and all others incorrect. It’s like a televangelist faith-healer…if those buggers could do what they pretend to do, then why aren’t they doing their healing in a hospital? I went to the website mentioned earler by two contributors (http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/Understanding_Depression/understanding.htm) and basically, what I found was another alleged “breaktthrough,” which blames the sufferers of this disease for their own suffering. How sad.

    I know this is not the “forum” area, and I don’t mind if my comments are taken down, but I would hope that the (perhaps) ads for that website are also taken down. Many of the quotes from that website are taken from a book called “Human Givens.” The books come from “The european therapy studies institute,” and once you read all the way through the “understanding depression” thing, you are asked to pull out you credit card and pay for a PDF of the “book” you just read, or to be fair, give your email for a free version. Also, at the end of the long “ending depression” thing, you are offered a link to their main website, (http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/), where, after you’ve been told that depression is not an illness, and is directly related to your CHOICES of thought patterns, resulting in a theory of having too much REM dream sleep, and that medication is bad, and causes relapse, and many other things and theories prefaced by “recent studies show” without mentioning WHAT those studies were or WHERE they came from or WHO did them, after all that wonderful information, after ALL that, you are offered, at the uncommonknowledge website, a pile of soft, “self confidence” related products to buy. Check out this ONE page, on the subject. Note its shabby graphic design, stock photography, and a CD offer. The CD costs 35 pounds, or 50 bucks:http://www.self-confidence.co.uk/

    But I went to the website, because I believed in what the others wrote. Maybe people like us need to have the part of our brains that trusts others removed. Maybe that’s what we need.

    Typical. Break people down, tell them it’s THEIR OWN FAULT, and then sell them stuff.

    Here is the truth: You have no control over your appetite, your sleep patterns, and the clarity of your thought, and memory/will to decide.

    When we are SERIOUSLY sick, we all mention the same things in regards to the PATTERNS of sleep, appetite, thought, and the ability to make decisions. These all point to a brain disease. Do you “decide” to lose your appetite? Do you “decide” to wake up early?

    Add booze to a body, and it wants to fight. Add cocaine, and it wants to party. Add pot and it wants to eat. Add LSD and it starts hallucinating things.

    SOME of us react poorly to stress. SOME of us are weak in a way we don’t fully understand. SOME of us have had a hard and cruel time, and had our hearts broken, and THAT may have been the stability we needed to keep ourselves above the sickness called depression.

    It’s like our bodies. Some people, if starved, will get sick in ways others do not. Some people, when kicked around by life, are so sensitive that they fall. They needed the power of love and were denied it, or had it taken away…their gifts for sensitivity instead became liabilities.

    Then, once sick, we all, who are seriously ill, suffer in the same way, in many respects.

    We are not “choosing” to “ruminate” on bad thoughts. Life has wounded us, and we can no more ignore it than any of us could ignore a knife stuck into our gut.

    We get hurt, we get denied what we need, and we get sick. Not everyone gets sick like this, but that doesn’t mean that we are not sick.

    None of us “choose” this suffering. If we were not separated from what we need, or, if we were not damaged by cruelty, we’d be okay. We’d be helping our common cause with our gifts for sensitivity and understanding. Instead, life pours water into the CPUs of our brains. We short circuit, and suffer damage. We struggle to heal, and we are not CHOOSING THIS SUFFERING.

    It’s a chore to have to debunk nonsense.

    Again, bless you if it works for you, but I will not accept the idea that we “choose” this. We, of all people, do not need to BLAME ourselves for the cruelty the world has FORCED upon us. There are varying degrees of “depression,” and the serious form is NEVER “chosen.”

    Perhaps I’ll quote the cartoon character, The Tick: “You’re not going crazy, you’re going sane in an insane world.”

    The Tick makes more sense than that entire (http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/Understanding_Depression/understanding.htm) website.

  • Anonymous

    Depression is like a glass cage, but you’re locked outside rather than inside.

    You’re in the darkness, watching the people in the light, all smiling and happy… all carrying on their lives without you. No matter what you do, you know that you can never touch them.

    You can mouth words to them, but they would never hear you. You can scream and sob and tear out your hair, but there’s no way they can get to you.

    They just touch the glass, confused, and move on with their lives. So you cry. You cry a lot… and feel a crushing within you. Locked outside of the little glass cage.

    Three months ago, I chose life instead of suicide. Please, I’m begging you to do the same. Our world needs survivors. If you were here right now, we’d talk, straight from the heart. I’d let you get everything off of your chest. But since we can’t do that, please get help. Do whatever it takes, just tell someone. There are anonymous help lines out there; they worked wonders for me, and got many people through some bad episodes.

    We know that it’s hard, but you ARE strong, for carrying on this long. Please choose life.

  • Dan

    Hello, I’ve been reading alot of this submisions, and feel your pain. I’ve delt with depression on and off as long as I can remember. I’m also an artist/musician working alone in my studio in a spair bedroom,no I’m not famous at all thats for sure, but anyway I mention this because I feel many artists suffer from depression because of the intense overly sensitive creatures we are. Anyway after my last episode I told myself I was going to study what is happening to me. REALLY. Soon after the ball was rollin and goin down, that study soon disappeared into the abyss. I felt like dying, no real problems in my life, no responsabilities other than the regular shit, in debt, yes, but able to stick it out. This is what I gathered, it may not apply to you, but I KNOW ITS TRUE, and so do you and you know it. !. Look at yourself. We have real problems and the problems that get blown out of contol in our heads. These problems get so big that we start to melt and the body reacts, (our minds). We also have different brain chemistry. We also help this process I believe by negative reinforcement. Somewhere in our heads we beat ourselves up, subconsciously, the body does what its told. Some of us cant control this because it happens so much, in little or big amounts that we are suddenly cursed. I’ve had panic attacks, not so much anymore, but at first, if you think depression is a downer, holy crap!! Under huge subconscious stress the body chemistry and brain freak out to defend it self== passing out , complete terror, feeling like your heart is goona explode, turning white like bugs bunny when the cartoon plane was goona crash and he could not stop it. People nock the medication, It worked well for me, I stopped 2 yrs ago, might consiter it, but goona try to tough it out.Now all of youi thinking about killing yourself, dont, I know I’ve thought about it NO.
    Try the meds, If you dont try them yo0u are obviously self perpetuating the situation. These drugs had no side effect on me, I thought they would dull my creativity, no. Any side effect is nothing compared to driving yourself crazy. AND that is what we are doing, we are not as fortunate as others, we have to work harder, and by doing that I believe we are usually the most interesting people, we think and think all the time, we burn out, chemistry off, we crash and get numb.For all of you who are allways down, please try the meds,NO MONEY!!!, they WILL work with you, and they wil help. If you listen to the others here who say it did not work its because they have other unresolved issues and enjoy bieng down, they become use to it, and the already suseptible person reinforces this terrible curse. STUCK. we are all beautiful, life is what you make it, I know you feel bad now but if you commit it, any way out, budism, excesise, meds, therapy, whatever you will get through this, seems so far away, we will be free. We will probably have to fight this the rest of our lives, lets get strong, and enough of this DEATH.

  • Foggy

    I feel all and some of the things listed in all these posted people. I feel like my head is having a hangover and I don’t know why. I was very frustrated by not knowing “what” was wrong with me! I actually feel a little bit of “relief” knowing it’s depression, but also still sad “knowing” it’s depression. Yuck. This web site alone has guided me in the right direction. I feel awful taking Zoloft, and I’ve stopped taking it, but my head STILL feels foggy even days after I’ve stopped. I want to try a natural herb or vitamins.

    Depression feels like I’m tired all the time. I sleep through half of the day, but when I get up, I don’t feel rested. I still feel tired, and I don’t know what to do first, or where to start. I’m not interested in “doing” anything. I have to “force” myself to do anything. I have no desires, except to eat ice cream (which is my weakness) and now I’ve gained 10 or more pounds in the last three months, and that makes me feel worse.

    I have detached myself away from my outside family members. They drive me crazy! I find it difficult, or impossible to speak with anyone. I feel it impossible to answer the phone, so I’ve stopped talking on the phone completely. I’ve had to tell everyone in my immediate family to tell people I can’t come to the phone because I am “resting”. At least this way, I don’t feel like I have to lie.

    Food has no taste. My house is getting messy again. My words don’t come when I’m trying to talk to someone. I sound like I’m in grade school when I speak. My vocabulary sounds like a second grader. Really.

    At least my loving husband is being very patient with me. Thank God.

    I just want to get better, but things I’ve tried just don’t work. I can’t even work anymore, because I cry uncontrollably over nothing, just like a big baby! I hate that, but I CAN’T help it.

    I am going to the health food store today, and find a natural remedy. Maybe there is hope?

  • Lisa

    What Depression Feels Like to Me

    I have everything I’ve ever wanted. My life is perfect. I have a beautiful home, a beautiful family, great friends…I have no real problems to speak of. Everyone I love is healthy and happy…except for me. I have this black cloud hanging over my head most of the time; occasionally the sun peeks through the clouds and shines a beautiful light on my life so that I can see how perfect it really is…but then sometimes the cloud opens up and pours misery that no one else seems to see or feel…they ask what’s wrong with me and I say ‘nothing,’ because I can’t really explain the source of the pain… I’m the only one who sees the clouds. And I don’t want to hear how everything will be okay…and I don’t want to be asked ‘what are you depressed ABOUT?’ Everything is NOT okay in my perfect little life, and if someone else would just look up and see the clouds maybe they’d know that I’m not depressed ABOUT anything…I’m depressed IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING.

  • woes

    its like your trapped in a glass box of saddness. All you can do is watch everyone else around you living as you are trapped. Trapped there wishing you had what they have. Wanting to be truley alive and not stuck in theses motions. You are numb but feel pain at the same time. You feel like giving up but still want. You are alive but not living.

  • Fred Flintstone

    If it is severe depression, it feels like the worst hangover you could ever imagine – one that doesn’t get better with a bloody mary at breakfast. A permanent heavy duty hangover.

  • n_bear

    Depression is, most prominently, coming to the gut-wrenching, hair-pulling, screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs conclusion that YOU are not keeping yourself alive…that it’s your friends,and strangers with smiles and promised prayer, at the shortened version of your life at a bus stop…it’s the emptiness, and dissapointment in yourself, and constant self-deprecating…and the being so close to the edge, you can hardly breathe….

  • Crystal B

    Depression to me is not being able to let go…of any small crisis, it eats away at all happiness and makes me feel as no one understands.Trying to explain has me drowning in a sea…am I seeking attention? Am I aggrevating those around me? Something is wrong, I know it…I just don’t know what exactly. Nothing is okay as is, and it had become harder and harder to laugh…so much easirt to cry and wallow in my lackof self worth. I am not good enough for anyone, and they will figure it out soon. Anything good that happens is by chance and will soon fade.

  • mary

    Depreesion to me is , when nobody cares and nobody listens. I’ts like everything is hopeless and you are crying all the time, and you are sad.I’ts likes it’s hopless to be happy, you try everything you can to ease the pain, but it doesnt go away.

  • anon

    I wrote a post a while back called “A word on wishing for death,” or something that got deleted. I was pretty messed up when I wrote it. Basically, if life were that crummy then who cares, right? Just walk in front of a bus. Thing is, life is good, and I feel like I can’t have any. I’m so crippled by these sick feelings that I can’t join up with life, and if I were joined up, I wouldn’t be so sick. It’s like “no job without experience, no experience without a job.”

    I too feel like others here, as if they’re missing something most other people already have. That’s why people who are well don’t understand a thing about this, and aren’t much help…at least most of the time.

    What did any of us do to deserve this? It’s not fair.

  • Cheri

    Depression to me is a feeling of something that never seems right, wanting to cry, wanting & needing the “touch” of love, wanting to truly feel loved, needing soo much more than you can obtain, wanting to scream, reaching out to people who don’t seem to care, an emptiness inside that eats away at you, wanting & longing to be filled…longing , needing and wanting to smile & laugh again……….Is that truly possible….I pray that God will help us all………God bless everyone…….Love & Peace

  • laura

    depression for me is like i live above my own body. i’m looking down on myself. i zone out of conversations. i feel a hole inside of me, an emptiness that ‘normal’ people have filled, that i was born without. i feel unworthy of the attension that i got when i finally,sought help. i feel like my skin is crawling, and i always have butterflys. i wake up every morning, waiting to find something to look forward to, i come up empty everytime.
    the future to me holds nothing. i don’t know how i feel towards the ones i love the most, i don’t trust my own feelings.
    i feel like i’m searching constantly for something i will never find

  • Donna

    You are me and I am you. I see so much of myself in here, it isn’t scary; it is comforting. I am NOT alone. SOMEONE understands. Place your hand to the monitor’s screen and press it lightly for a moment as you read this–mine was just on the other end pressing back through time and space. Someone DOES care. Each of you that posted here has touched me in an enormous way as I struggle with battles similar to your’s. I wish us all joy, even little joys, daily. I wish us love. I wish us peace. I wish us energy. I wish us understanding of others, of ourselves, and from others. I wish us self-love. For the teenagers out there, speak to someone; a relative, a teacher, friends. That seems to be the worst part of this disease…that someone will find out we’re actors in some horrible play that we write on the fly to fool everyone into thinking we are “normal”. There is help in the form of friendships, psychiatric care, and medicine. Get help; you were never meant to feel so alone. Love to you all, from me, and never-ending hugs.

  • Kelly

    My mind is enslaved
    By an unrelenting monster
    It waits in the dark shadows
    Hoping for a new disaster

    It won’t let me forget
    Re-living all the pain I’ve ever met
    It’s a constant reminder
    Of what I will never deserve to get

    It seeks to destroy me
    But only so slowly
    Eats away my soul
    Forever forcing me to be lonely

    No one understands
    How liberating it would be
    To live one day
    Free from this reality

    This evil monster consumes me
    Makes me push people away
    If they only knew how much I love them
    How much I need them to stay

    This battle seems hopeless
    The monster always wins
    Creeping up on me
    When the turmoil begins

    It seems no one will ever understand
    What I am forever forced to endure
    Isn’t there something out there
    That can offer me a cure?

    Rid me from this evil demon
    That won’t let me escape
    Save me from this dreaded place
    From this unwanted rape

    As I look into the mirror
    Into my unfamiliar face
    I wonder where I went
    What took me from this place?

  • Mick

    Depression….what can i say about it, is a feeling that slowly eats you as time passes by, everymonth i look back and it just keeps getting worse, all the dreams and hope i had before are just now gone, things that often made me happy or excited are now just things like anything else, nothing pleases me anymore, but what does a man have to do in order to get some real life caring friends? it sucks when you have no one to listen to what you have to say, everyone is just living their own life and if you get in their way you just get ran over…I believe that depression is some kind of test that makes you stronger and helps you face other problems in life with another point of view. I remember that i used to be happy or at least i tried to be, but then everything just went so wrong, and slowly i kept being sucked into a hole that wont let me out, everyday i try to fin things to live for, and for a moment a handful of dreams just suddenly fade away one by one and never able to get that good feeling back, it just fades away. You see things that you used to like and they dont make you happy anymore they dont give you any kind of hope anymore, they just exist and for some reason you think that your depression is a more important issue to take care of. People dont understand, they just come at you with the most stupid opinions you have ever heard, you hear what they are saying but you dont truly listen, its just like watching a movie with the mute switch on, and on top of that they get angry if you are not listening to them but what the hell? they dont understand anything, everyone wants to be heard, but only a few people understand what it really feels like to be in this position. I can only say that there is a God and he gives us hope everyday to keep on going eventhough sometimes is really hard. I hope that sooner or later we all get through this and finally become the happy person we always wanted to be.

  • peggy

    depression to me is a feeling of nothing no matter what i say or do is wrong just going to sleep at night without worying what i can’t do the next morning then waking up being able to get the children off to school is to much some days and when something goes right you wait for 10 things to go wrong can’t be happy about something good because you know the pain will be back soon and thinking about ending your life daily wishing could just end the pain of living and knowing you are good for nothing and when you do reach for help you are told to grow up and take care of your life and kids then the days when you don’t know how to even begin the day because even if you did sleep you are to tired to even try and people that are trained to see depression just tell you to get a job take care of your children when all you want to do is die and you try meds. and they make you eat to much make you want to drink even tho you don’t drink much and make you want to sleep when all you want is just one person say to you that its not your fault for feeling way you do and then you meet mr right but you keep telling yourself it won’t last because worthless people can’t be happy and when you try to tell him about depression he says i am not that way around him i’m not but at the same time i can’t live my life being happy a couple hours and killing myself i know is a sin but keep trying to see a way to end feeling so bad but then one moment of being happy and next not just no end either way it seems so how can someone go thru life always feeling sick and worthless being sick is like having the flu everyday not able to function just need to sleep and not dream or better yet to go to sleep and not wake up but yet then you think of your babies and know you love them but at other times you just need to be alone because no matter what you do is wrong i guess i see why no one wants to be around me why i have no friends because i wouldn’t even want to be around me i tryed to take my life when i was 16 i am 42 now so i have had alot of years to be depressed i keep telling myself i can’t let them win to prove to them i am a loser when i know i am not i just am sick and need people to see i am sick not just worthless or lazy when i do work cant last more than a couple months because that is something good and nothing good ever lasts then get more depressed because bills start to pile up again so then you say finally to hell with it so where does it end when i die i hope it don’t i deserve to be happy least part of my life so i will fight it some more till one time i can’t anymore and who knows which time that will be and yeah i am strong but still at the same time i am weak because i let everyone let me know how worthless i am is times i feel like two differant people and the worthless part of me wins every time so we keep going so far i do but always been told god doesn’t give you more than you can handle maybe thats why once in awhile i can have a good day thanks for this site this is the first time i been able to express my feelings

  • robin

    After reading so much of your comments I can relate to just about everything, unmotivated, waking up, worthless life, look forward to dying. Yes it hurts and now my brother died. Antidepressants, 200mg elavil I think killed him. Now I’m worse. My mother, myself and my baby brother were depressed. Mom died 8 years ago, I buried my brother yesterday. My sister, other brother and father don’t seem to be depressed. I have 5 children and are now worried that they will die. I don’t want to be depressed and I don’t want you to be either. I think depression is more contagious that inherited. It runs in families because they’re around each other. Cruelty and emotional abuse is the major cause for depression. I am sure of it. It’s living in a world of cruel and mean people. I learned from my baby brother (buried yesterday), a kind, sweet depressed person to stop complaining (he never complained). Depression is contagious. It really will help, because when you complain to cruel people what do they do anyway? Make you feel worse. Complaining to others that care are brought down and eventually become depressed if exposed long enough. That’s why my brother and I are depressed, listening to chronic complaints and feeling sorry for mom or ourselves for the sadness of an experience. Then over the years the snowball just gets bigger. Medicine is not the answer. It made me feel worse and it killed my brother. My brother and I love deeply and care deeply. That’s why we are bothered by the cruel people. What we need to do is learn to identify the mean and cruel people and hold our crosses up to them. Understand that they are wrong and then fake a smile, and try to make someone else’s day that’s deserving of it. Spread cheer. If it’s sorrow that’s depressing you then pray for God to help you through it, just don’t complain. Just keep spreading cheer and accept cheer from others. Don’t accept anything less.

  • Gwen

    Hi it’s gwen, I’m new to this site, but i’m just wondering what it means if your feeling tired and you prefer to sleep during the day , more then at night , or sometimes even when you sleep proberly you still feel a bit tired.

    thank’s
    gwen,

  • Erica

    depression to me is not knowing if something is wrong but something has to be its not right to want to die,cutting yourself so you wont rember,crying over the dumbest stuff in the world, freinds wondering whats wrong and then not really careing. but why should they theres no point in caring. parents saying whats wrongs, its typical, why are you sad i went through this. no you didnt but supposedly you did if you did you would let me die.

  • Isolated

    Depression is to me a bottomless cesspool of black oozy poison, numbing mind blowing pain, hopeless, worthless, useless, ugly, fat, alone, afraid. Worst is that no one understands or really wants to. It means your children hate you because you are no longer a parent. It means living a white pain of sadness that wells from your very soul. It’s nowing that there is nothing anyone can do for you. That there is no one that can take away the pain, the feelings the lack of feelings, the exhaustion the total exhaustion of pretending that everything is fine. Putting on the smile every day, showing a completely fake side of yourself. Feeling like a fake because you can’t get through showing how you really feel. The soul destroying abyss of blackness that engulfs your every thought. The reasons for which you cannot explain to anyone, cannot make them understand, cannot bear to live with yet so desparately want to be selfish and end it all, sleep dreamlessly forever and be free, free of everything. Free your family and friends, your psychologist, your aquaintances, free them all of the dark poison that you are and will always be.

  • lifeless

    Depression is being completely drained of all energy and yet doing so little that one is completely restless.

    Depression is a painful and absolutely numbing at the same time.

    Depression is sadness and despair that seems impossible to overcome.

    Depression is lonely.

    Depression is never ending.

    Depression is feeling that you do not matter.

    Depression is feeling worthless.

    Depression is feeling like you have no accomplishments.

    Depression was my life before anorexia, during anorexia, and now during recovery. Anorexia was my only relief from depression, it gave one area where i was capable–everything else was horrid, but at least i knew how to restrict food and lose weight. Anorexia was my source of self-esteem. I wanted to believe people when they told me life would get better if I ate healthy and started to initiate positive lifestyle changes in my life, but I was wrong to believe them. Now I am more depressed than ever because the one thing that helped me feel stronger and more powerful is gone and I cannot find my way back to it.

    Depression is seeing the world for the reality that it truly is.

    Depression is wishing you had never been born.

  • bruce

    It feels like existing in world that has no use for you. All the good you COULD acomplish will never be seen. You will never be loved or accepted, because you can mess up every golden opportunity that life gives you. Imagine accually DREADING feeling hope. Because if you allow yourself to have hope, the inevitable failure will just hurt more. Pain of the heart, of the mind……every second, every day. Knowing that every single thing you have ever done, every person you have ever loved, every friend you have ever made is worse because of you. Knowing that therapy and medication only hide the problem. The problem is me. I have had good things in life and pissed them all away. My fault entirely because of fear. Fear of myself, fear of hurting even more, fear of failure. And all those fears are very real. I know how my mind works, given the option of making a bad choice, I will every time. Not because I want bad things, but because it is inevitable. I’m told I’m attactive, smart, very funny, very loving. But those people have no idea how empty I feel, how worthless I know I am.People tell you that you have to be tough, I am. They say you have to keep trying, I do. They say you have to hit rock bottom before you can make it back to the land of the happy. Well try living your 39 year life on your back at the bottom of the well with an invisable weight holding you down, knowing that weight is all in your own mind but powerless to make it go away. Let them go through life knowing absolutely that no matter how hard you try, you will never be loved or accepted. Depression is more than an illness, more than a disorder. It is a non-existance. It is a world with no hope, no joy, and no way to change it. To people who don’t have depression, it seems so easy to change your moods and your outlook on life. But they have never lived in a world where everything causes pain. Where the best news is always bad. Where you hide in fear of the next disaster, the one that will always come, the next heartache, the one you will cause.

  • why_me

    J / Angie / Christine / Teresa / Clare / Michelle

    I’ve written a couple of times on this webpage about depression and how it feels to me. I felt very alone and misunderstood and needed someone to talk to that understood this illness, but there was never anyone there.

    If you or anybody else wants to chat, and know that there is someone ready to listen, then contact me. I know the lonelyness, how deep the hurt goes, and the only way you think of ending the pain, is ending your life ….. drop me a line – I don’t have all the answers, but I’m ready to listen.

    Marcus

    fortybutnotfaulty@lycos.co.uk

  • J

    The weak of mind do not deserve to live. If you do not believe in yourself, you do not deserve to live. If you are weak, you do not deserve to live. That is evolution. The weak die, the strong live. I am weak. I will never be strong. I have never been strong. I have never fought for anything. I do not believe in anything. I have no dreams. I have no desires, just passing fancies. I have no ambitions. I have no goals. I just take up space and waste resources that others more deserving should have. I am just an empty vessel. A ghost. I can pass by people completely unnoticed. I am ignored in conversation as if I am unheard. I am not sure I exist. I have no voice. I have no authority. I have no presence. Just this empty shell of a body. This diseased mind. Nothing is real. I can’t even control my illusions. I am a weakling.

    I wish I could just have not existed. That would be nice. Rewind, erase. I am so weak I fear taking action on my own. I am afraid to kill myself because it would be painful. Oh cripes! How fucking pathetic is that? I offer nothing, have nothing to offer, and have nothing desirable. I need to die. I don’t want to inconvenience anyone, leave a mess. Leave my parents and brother with the mess of having to clean up my pathetic existence after I kill myself. I am so sorry to have wasted so much of their time and money on my stupid, pathetic bullshit. Such a weak mind. Such a weak spirit. Such a dependent. So undependable. Such a stupid, weak, pathetic little boy. So unreliable. How much can it hurt? Just slit up each wrist. Or slice my own throat. That would be manly and brave.

    No one should have to look after me. No one should have to worry about me. At 33 I should be fully independent. I should be able to fully take care of myself. I should be confident. I should have goals and ambitions and a life plan. I should have “sown my oats.” I should have had many girlfriends and know what I am looking for. I should have sexual experience and be able to please a lover. I should have done sports. I should have many friends. I should be traveling. I should have my own house. I should have my own car. I should not be in debt. I should have investments. I should be married and having kids. I should be happy and content for the most part. I am only a little boy. I am incapable of growing up. I am retarded. I am ugly inside. I should be able to make a decision. I should know when I am being taken advantage of. I should have been in fights. I should have wins, not just losses. I should be organized. Now you see. I am weak. I am unskilled. I am not a man. I am barely male. I am nothing. Just a waste of space and resources.

  • Angie

    Depression to me is like being trapped on a rollercoaster that I hate and want to get off of, but can’t because I am chained to the seat. I hate it. Everyday is a struggle, and it is hard to understand what the reason is to keep going through this hell. I am trying so hard to stay afloat, I went back to college this fall to finish my last year, and I want to accomplish this so bad, but I am fearful that I won’t allow myself to finish. I feel like a failure at everything I do. I don’t know what it feels like to smile or how to feel happy. My heart feels like it has been ripped out and replaced with a dried out, empty nothing. I don’t enjoy anything I do anymore, so to me there doesn’t seem to be any point in doing anything anymore. Besides it takes too much energy and patience to deal with events and stupid people anymore. Everyone I know seems stupid and I don’t even want to be near my boyfriend of 5 years, who I am not sure I still love. I do not feel capable of love anymore. Sometimes I want to just drive my car into a tree to make this emptiness and pain go away. Call me chicken or stubborn, but I don’t want to end my life, I still have hope, I just don’t know how to make me better.

    Angie 🙁

  • Teresa

    Depression…Severe….Treatment Resistant…Bi-Polar….whatever the diagnosis makes no difference. We all suffer the same but in different ways. Most similar is the dark, glooming cloud that seems to encircle over our heads as we try to drudge through the day wearing our mask pretending that we’re OK, I have many. The fog or cloud of mist that fills our minds and leaves us confused and dazed. The feeling of relief when you can find an excuse to go to bed to drift off in your world of make believe that will temporarily releave you of your emptyness and lonliness. You lose interest in anything that once made you happy. You have no desire to get up out of the bed and “live” through the day. You isolate yourself from the world, friends, family and loved ones. Life has no meaning, no value. You pray to God for relief, then wonder if He is really there listening or just pushed you to the side and moved on to someone else. I do believe in eternal life and have often wondered how much better I would be if I were there. But, God sent me a ray of sunshine in 1995 that keeps me fighting, my 2nd son. He has been the one thing that has kept me going. I have hit rock bottom three times since 1994. This last time in May when my husband of 24 years told me he no longer loves me and is not happy being married to me any more and wants a divorce. Of course, I brought this on. I moved out of the bedroom and isolated myself from my family, told him I didn’t know if I loved him and wanted to be married anymore. My world collasped, and I took an overdose, not to die, but to eleveate the pain. They finally put me in the hospital where I received 12 ECT treatments over a course of two months. Now 1 every month and I am on 2 anti-depressnats, 1 mood stablilzer and a nerve pill twice a day. I am now beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel (the tunnel that I continously spiraled down with nothing to grab on to). My thoughts have become clearer and I am more rational in my decisions. I am taking baby steps each day. Accomplishing one goal at a time. For the 1st time in many years I went out in public with my family. For now my husband is still here out of obligation but will leave when I can get on my feet or receive disability, he wants a divorce and his freedom. I have accepted that he no longer loves me and I have realized now that life goes on, no matter how hard. I have joined Curves for Women and work out almost every day have lost 40 lbs and 27 in in 5 mns. I highly recommend this program to any woman or teenager, just 30 mins a day is all it takes, it helps with stress and you are at least out in public with other people. I lost my job. We are at the brink of losing everything we have worked for. I have found a Christian Therapist who is absolutely wonderful, after a handful of head bangers. I hope to one day say I am cured of this “illness”. I hope one day to be able to help someone who suffers from this disease, to help them see that there is hope, even in the darkest of darkness. Many are against ECT, but I am a testimant that it saved my life, literally. I was rock bottom, I do not remember June or July, they are lost months of my life never to be regained but I am now living again, one day at a time. Will I ever be cured? No, I don’t think so but I do believe that there is a ray of sunshine, I see colors of the rainbow, breaking through the dark, gloomy clouds of my mind. My prayer for each of you is that somehow, someway you too can see, even if it’s the smallest of peeks, the light at the end of the tunnel. Take hope in my slow recovery. Don’t give up, there is and will be someone out there to love you and will be hurt if you end your life. We want immediate relief, but what about the ones we leave behind? What do we leave them? Pain, confusion, anger and the chance that they could have had to love us and us to love them back. Mental illness is an “unseen” disability and it is unfair how we have to fight to receive ss disability. Many people are still unaware or refuse to see that it is real. For us nothing is more real. Take care friends, hold your chin up and say today I will get out of bed and even if it’s a baby step, take that one step towards recovery. We all have it inside of us. As someone wrote, those of us who suffer depression are stronger people in the long run than those who have it easy in life. We have to fight to live. Look deep and BELIEVE.

  • Clare

    I wrote this “I’m drowning in misery, empty inside, so many times I have cried” that describes how I feel. That’s a bit of a summary anyway. I feel bland, numb, dull. That kind of feeling. A feeling of sadness and nothingness. I have cried a lot, the past few days that I’ve had this feeling I’ve spent ages in my room crying. Sometimes I’ll just feel like breaking down and crying. It makes me feel despair. I’ll put my head in my hands and sigh. I’ll wander about not knowing where to go, what to do. I feel lost. I find it harder to concentrate, I tried writing my journal, I wrote some of it but it took me ages, and I kept stopping. It’s hard for me to do, it’s painful. Nothing can really cheer me up, even things that would usually make me happy. Some things that would usually interest me I haven’t felt like doing. I haven’t really felt like doing much. All I really want to do is be near the boy I like. I want to touch him, hold him, kiss him. I want to be happy and I feel as if the only way to be happy would be to be near him, and being apart from him causes great sadness. It’s also a problem cos my sister makes my depression worse when she says things like ‘back off’ (she has a crush on this guy too). The thought that I can’t be near him again makes me feel like I do (depressed). So you see unrequited love is the cause of my current depression. I thought I would add the cause as well. I need someone to talk to. I want someone to understand.

  • michelle

    Someone has sliced the top of my head off and I have no barrier against the world rushing in and assaulting my mind. My head buzzes a lot and holding a thought is just too much effort. I have four children but cooking dinner for them is sometimes just too great an effort and when they come to me for a hug or to tell me another inane story, I just want to scream and push them away. I have nothing to give. I just got my first book published, but I feel nothing about this. Big deal. I want to get better, I’m trying really, really hard. I feel alone, stupid and constantly sad.
    I feel like such a burden to my partner and my friends. I fantasise about how I will kill myself and sometimes think that death is inevitable, but I refuse to give in to this, I will survive and I will get better. I know how much agony there is still to go thru but I refuse to be beaten and I hope the rest of you keep fighting too, what else can we do?
    Be kind to yourselves, michelle

  • ChrisB

    Depression, I don’t think will ever end for me,I am 34 yearts old. I was raised to be nothing but a fat ugly failure, and it’s true. I have a beautiful wife of 14 years, 4 year old daughter, and a son on the way in Feb.People without severe depression really don’t understand completly, my wife suffers from mild depression, and that’s my fault, she has been a rock to me, and I love her dearly, she knows alot of bad things from my childhood, but not nearly ALL, she is sure she does, my mother took her life a few years ago, mental illness runs in my family, that caused the depression to worsen..I have tried treatment, and can honestly say There’s no way out for me, sucicide is not a option with 2 kids, I know how bad it hurts. I cant work, I am waiting on the disability board to make a descion on severe depression, gout and severe.arthritis Everyone I know thinks it’s a game just to get out of work, but it’s not, I hide in rooms ofter, and cry like a baby, it really sucks to be nothing, everyones path I cross looks down on me, they think I can just bite ther bullet, and keep going, just once I wish my wife would hold me tight like a child, and tell me everythings gonna be ok, instead of telling me I am trying to get pitty, and poor me, my father has always done that to me…not the hug part. but I KNOW for sure she loves me, but she really doesnt understand some things.I have to face that I was born trash, and thats the way i will die…anyway sorry I took up your tine, some of you have worse problems than I, Just needed to release….Peace

  • Shelly

    Depression is beginning to get the best of me.
    suicide thoughts are returning. My sister has been very cruel by telling me to get off my “pity pot”. Oh, if only it were that easy.

    I am glad to have a place to go where people understand depression. I am an RN and in this world, there are few places.

    Thanks for letting me vent.

  • Lindsay

    It’s kind of odd to read these things. I’m just starting the long haul to recovery, or so I tell people. Honestly, I think that therapy is just making me worse. Then a girl at work tells me that it’s always darkest before the dawn and I feel like I want to choke her because she doesn’t know.

    My therapist has decided that I’m suffering from major depression or cyclothymic disorder or any of a host of other things. I’ve read the people trying to describe it so here goes.

    Someone told me once that I must like being depressed because I never did anything about it. And I must say I truly love it. I love having to drag myself out of bed in the morning, and I love not having any close friends. I love overreacting to the smallest of things and I love all the times when I feel like I’m doing things just for the sake of doing them. I love feeling like this is the best my life is going to get and that this day will endlessly repeat itself until I die. Oh, and by the way, I love being so afraid of death that sometimes I can’t sleep at night for fear that I will die without knowing.

    It’s not that I like it, and it’s not that I’m trying to get attention. It’s the constant feeling that I have no control. I can’t stop myself. I want to do things and I want to be things, but everything seems so ludicrously out of reach. I feel like I’m caught in a web, and everytime I decide to fix one thing, a thousand others remind me of their presence.

    Like this. I decide that I’d feel better if I got out more. But I can’t go out alone because I’m afraid of what other people are thinking of me. So I decide to go out with other people, but then I remember that I don’t have any friends because I am incapable of even the most basic of human interactions. And I can’t make friends because a friend is someone who knows you, and I don’t even know me, and even if I did I’m not about to entrust myself to some small-minded idiot who can’t read a price tag correctly or figure out how not to drive in the left lane if they aren’t passing. Which, by the way, most people are.

    Right now, I’ve finally gone the extra mile and dropped out of school because I hated it. So much for not making any big decisions. When I’m at my job it feels like I’m trying to think through mud. I’ll ask people a question and then ask them again a few moments later. I think my personal best was the same question four freaking times. The most wonderful thing is when I’m not about to burst into tears at any moment. Then I have time for those long periods I spend thinking that there is nothing wrong with me, it’s everyone else. I wouldn’t feel this way if the people around me would stop acting so stupid, if they’d just go away and leave me alone for two seconds. Somedays I think that if I were the only person in the world, that would be just fine.

    But I should be going now, because I’m rambling and the sooner I go to bed the sooner I can haul my ass out of it in the morning, drag myself to my computer and spend most of the day on it because I don’t have to work. And really, is there anything else to do? I’m waiting.

  • stuart

    i am dying. and because of that i am clinically depressed. but i will be damned if i am going to die clinically depressed. we are all what we are. no better, no worse, just unique. we will be part of history. we are the present. and we have contributed to the future. and that is a good thing that can never be taken away from us. to all of you out there, shed a tear, take a deep breath, and smile, if only for once. you deserve to give yourself this before you check out. see you in heaven. my friends.

  • Blaire

    Depression is the worst thing possible. You can never be truly happy. Everything in the world is bad and any thought of it ever changing is hopeless. Too afraid to die and yet too afraid to live. You live in a dream-like world where you can’t enjoy simple pleasures. You feel useless, hopeless, worthless. It seems as if dying is the only way to be released from your pain and that the world would be better off without you in it. All you want is to be released from your pain but you are afraid that it is impossible. It is a hell with no release, no escape, no freedom.

  • lily

    depression is when you fell void.you have no perpose in life,you are just their.you fell like people just put up with you becouse they have to depression drives you crazy,for me i would imaagine blood.the thaught of my death made me smile when nothing else could.deprssion is finding every one so annoieng that you want them all to go away.depression is biend to dumb to die but to smart to live

  • Chaos

    Depression is a living hell…….Some days I feel worthless some days I feel good enough to roll out of bed………Suicide has been on my mind since day one….but I dont think I can do it nor do I truly want to deep down because I know it is wrong…though it appeals to me…….But what I hate worse than feeling worthless most of the time is the manic episodes I face day in and day out…..some last 10 min some last all day……the constant mood swings, I get irritated easily and I hurt those around me unintentionally…and it makes me feel worse after I’ve done it……The worst is I try to pretend it didnt happen and the guilt and grief I get from it make it even worse…..I find myself hitting rock bottom all the time and at the same time i’m sky rocketing doing something else……I really want to make everyone happy but the harder i try the more i seem to screw up and as time goes by the more i don’t care…….I’ve tried everything to beat it the medications that make you feel like you’re not you, the therapy that does nothing but make you feel worse, I even tried getting angry about it but yet that does absolutely nothing but anger those around me……So I’ve come to conclude that this is my chaos that i will live with hopefully.

  • Lymaris

    I am 15 years old and high school is a living hell. I go to a christian school, and you would think people there would be nice. But its totally on the contrary, some of the most cruel human beings i have met go to that school. My school life is pretty much over, my teachers badger us with tons of work, and i can`t find rest in anyplace. Not even my own house, where im treated like nothing, my family has made me think that i`m a mistake. I feel like i don`t belong, like im the oddball kid. Like people dont get me, i have attempted suicide 5 times already. But i can`t go through with it and leaves me worse. But i am almost sure that rest and peace come after death, and im so sick of life, and I just want to do people a favor and leave this world.

  • Jenna

    I get really excited about a plan and then it feels like before I even start it I lose all hope that it will work. I feel stupid most of the time even though everyone tells me I am one of the most intelligent people they know. I see all of the good things that I have done in my life and my family and friends always tell me how great I am doing and it drives me crazy, I feel even worse then because I am not happy over any of these good things and the more they tell me how great my life is the more I feel ungrateful and worthless. I feel like nothing I ever do will be good enough to make me stop wanting to hurt myself. I don’t understand why I feel that way and have mostly stopped doing it, but when I feel that way and someone I love is trying to tell me how great things are for me and that they are angry with me for being so empty and pathetic, I dig my fingernails into my arms so hard they bleed, and all I think about while they are talking is cutting my legs and stomach to release some of this pain. I feel like I can’t get it out any other way, and I’m always scared to start crying because I feel like I will never be able to stop. That is how depression feels for me and I want to have hope for all of us on this page, but am mostly unable.

  • barb

    depression is a fog in my head, keeping me from thinking clearly. it is a tired that sleep cannot relieve, a pain that is more insulting by the fact that it is completely pointless and endless.

    depression is being hungry for something that cant be named, and hurting for that want.

    depression is the head refusing to let the body move, the dark refusing to let the light in, the night refusing the day.

    depression is a trick. i thought i got better. i made a life for myself. it doesnt matter that i am sucessful. it doesnt matter that i am smart. it doesnt even matter that i take my medication. depression has it out for me.

  • Bob

    like i am not realy there. i am somewhere else i do not know where it is but it is not hear.
    like i am a burdon to the ones i love and they would do better with out me in there lives.
    somes times i wonder if i am dreaming and some day i will wake up to a wonderful life where i am happy all the time.
    i did drugs for a while and i thought they helped but when i quite it just made things worst. what i thought was happiness was actualy just nummness to what i realy felt. i often want to do them agien so i can escape the sadness but i love my child too much to risk lossing her. i have two realy good ideals on how to end my life but i can not hert my best friend that way ( she often tells me i am her only friend aside from her husbond).

  • why_me

    Non-depressed husbands, wife’s, boyfriends, girlfriends and relatives have a problem understanding depression. My sister for example tries to understand what I’m going through, but can’t relate to the things I say. “Being trapped in my head” and “being slow in thought”, are expressions a lot of people on this site have mentioned, so I will try and explain how this feels so that a non-depressed person can experience what depression feels like. Follow these simple instructions.

    Take a book, any book it really doesn’t matter, open it at any page and read the first few lines of the book. Then place the book on a coffee table or somewhere where you can see it.
    Later on tonight, go to bed as per normal, switch off all the lights in the house and set the alarm for about 60 minutes time.
    Drift off to sleep.
    When the alarm goes off, get up, DO NOT switch any of the lights on, put your hands behind you back and try and find your way to the book without touching the walls for guidance. When you reach the book, pick it up and try and read the words.

    What did you notice in doing this exercise?

    Did you feel dazed and sleepy and not really with it?
    Was your thought pattern slow?
    Did you walk down the stairs or through the house in the same brisk manner you would have done if the lights were on – probably not!
    Were your movement slow, each step careful and unsure because you don’t know where the next step was or if you will trip over something?
    Did you want to reach out for the wall or banister for guidance and reassurance or put your hands in front of you and feel your way around the house?
    Did something that would have taken only a couple of seconds now seem to last forever?
    Did you bump into a wall or door?
    How did it make you feel not having the lights on and trying to perform a simple task?

    So what changed ? The house didn’t change, the walls and doors are in the same place, the book didn’t change and the words didn’t fall off the page, you didn’t change – the only thing that changed was not being able to see and sending those messages to your brain, but look how that has made you feel – This is what depression feels like to me.

    Now think what it is like to go through this for months and months. We want to reach out for guidance and help, but it feels like our hands are tied behind our back. Each small step forward is a small goal to reaching our target of getting better, but it doesn’t happen overnight. We are the same loving people inside, caring and needed, but this illness drowns our soul and tries to trip us up and make us fall, but each time we crawl back up else we give up and stay down. We feel strange inside our own head, in the same way you feel strange walking around your house with no lights on.

    We struggle with this illness day in day out, sometimes putting on a false smile to fool the world that we can “see”, but inside we are alone and fearful in the dark. When our brain becomes ill, we feel trapped in our heads, it feels like the lights are off and we are trying to find our way around in the dark. Our movements are slow, our thought patterns are all mixed up, emotions are dead, memory is lost, thoughts are negative and it seems like it will last forever. We feel empty, confused and hate the hell we are living in. Things that should be easy when we are “normal” are now difficult to do. And when we do get to where we want, reading the words from the book is like trying to make sense out of something we can’t see. It’s confusing and we need help. Medication helps us, but most of all a hug and some understanding of what we are going through is what we need.

    We want someone to love us and understand us, but no-one knows what we are going through and think we should “snap out of it”, “rise above it”, “don’t be so weak and helpless” …….
    We are probably the strongest people in the world, because we carry on a day at a time when “normal” people would have given up.

    I hope by trying this simple exercise you will have a better understanding of this illness and how we feel inside. Please understand, none of us want this illness, none of us asked for it. All we ask is for non-depressed people to try and understand how it feels.

    I lost a really good relationship this year and someone I really loved because I didn’t know the symptoms of depression and I ended up losing myself in my head and now feel hollow and empty. My g/f didn’t understand depression, nor did she want to try and understand it. She thought I should be able to rise above it and not be so weak. I have been through the most traumatic time of my life, and came close to ending it twice. I have slowly dragged myself out of the gutter of despair and slowly getting my confidence back through medication and therapy. If 1 non-depressed person understands the illness better after reading and trying this exercise, then I have achieved a small goal – and maybe saved someone from ending it all because they think no-one understands.

    fortybutnotfaulty@lycos.co.uk

  • Nobody

    Depression is a process.

    Depression is boredom.
    Depression is pain.
    Depression is a motive.

    Trying to push you over the edge to feel the relief that suicide will bring.
    Depression is against you. The whole world is against you. So give in.

  • MIKE

    Depression feels like drowning. I have that feeling, like the world suddenly crumbles down and you don’t know what to do to put the pieces back together. When you imagine the future it seems kind of blurry, you really dont know whats gonna happen to yourself, everything seems really confussing. You feel like if your loved ones have left you all alone, the days pass either extremely slow or extremely fast the color depends on every person for example i see the days in a brown color others see them gray. You really dont have the mood to do things that you used to do, you dont see a point in doing them because is not going to take away the pain. Sometimes there’s a feeling of hating everything and everyone who surrounds you and you often aske this question….whats gonna happen to me?…that is one of the most awful feelings in the world…its really frustrating when your future looks pretty uncertain. I imagine depression as really heavy weight inside the head, your movements and thoughts are slower and sometimes you cant find the reason to get up everymorning, you often imagine yourself as another person. Sometimes what we think is really going to make us happy is just a way of denying and not being able to handle the real problem with ourselves. Everyday looks like a never ending record, it just keeps playing over and over again. You just know that the days have passed when you look at other people. Being depressed is like feeling empty inside, you feel an unfulfilled desire of being loved and protected, its almost like ME against the world. Of course i think most of the people who have felt depression in a certain time of their life have thought about suicide, you think that is going to take the pain away and it looks really tempting when you just want to throw everything away and just look for a place were you can finally find peace. I’ve considered suicide in my past depressions but i really think that there’s someone in the world thats waiting for me to love me, and theres a place full of people that constantly say that the love you and that they will always be there to support you, the only problem is to find them. And i think that sometimes you dont need other people to get out of depression i mean a friend is always good but i mean if you are on your own you just need to grab your balls and deal with the problem, although i should have done that a long time ago, but i really dont feel encouraged or have tha energy to do it. It sucks when you are just waiting for something and never comes, you just see the days pass like cars on the freeway and when you least notice you have lost many opportunities you just need to be aware of them and your dreams can happen. Im not really in the position of giving any advice because i havent figured yet a way of getting out of this hole that sometimes lets me out for a little while and then it sucks me right back in. i saw this website and i thought that is always good to see the opinion of other people who have kind of the same problems that i have. But its true, depression is quite a bitch and it wont let us out until we want it to, i think that you just need to find a reason to live, it really hard when you look at everything that surrounds you and you cant find something to live for. I just hope that this depression affecting me and all of you dissapears quickly, just find a reason to live that really haves meaning, and dont hold on to things, just listen to your heart and take some time to think before do something. Life is a beautiful thing eventhough sometimes give us a really hard time.

  • Jamie Mckendry

    In the summer of 2002 I completely lost my mind. Depression is like a slow mind water torture, it will break a person. But it can also be beaten and trust me when you get better your better then ever. Depression drove me to the brink of almost…. Trust me all you people suffering no matter how bad your head is going crazy inside it does get better. Im beating it and so can all of u.. Its hard, but trust me dont give up when u get through it.. U have a new LIFE… TRUST ME………

  • Pam

    When I’m “UP,” it’s like a raging storm – a tornado that I am inside – and it is inside of me. Unpredictable in strength and length of time.

    Sometimes it is too fierce to harness the energy. I can’t keep up with it.

    Sometimes I can hold the power of it, and have such enlightenment and productivity.

    I TRY to ride the storm, not let it consume me – I already know the damage it can do.

    But this has been going on for so long. I am getting very tired of fighting to keep the mask on for the world, so everyone thinks that I am ‘normal,’ when I know the truth. It gets harder each time. My strength, or desire?, gets weaker. Or the storm gets stronger?

    It is exhausting, once it’s over – whatever the case.

    It used to be useful and I looked forward to the high energy. Lately, it almost feels like fingers on a chalkboard ~ and I want – need – to get away from it. IT’S TOO MUCH. THIS scares me. If I can’t enjoy this, can’t FEEL this, WHAT WILL I HAVE LEFT??

    This thing consumes me — I think only of myself.

    The “LOW” times. I can’t describe the low times unless I am there – and then, have no desire to describe… someone (a doctor) asked me to “try.” So….
    I can’t find my way. It’s dark. Thick, dark clouds.
    I fear I will be lost forever.
    Too much noise inside my mind.
    Once I felt connected.. to something.
    I still feel it- something, but it’s getting farther away. I try to reach for it, and then forget what I’m even doing.
    I am frightened.
    I HATE having to be involved. It takes too much effort – effort that drives me crazy that I never have – because I’m LAZY. Only, I’m not lazy. I’m TIRED. All the time. This thing, this depression, takes all of my energy. And all of the ACTING – pretending like I’m “OK” for everyone, is draining.
    But I want to be involved. I WISH I could be. But if I try to get involved, “they’ll” get too close ~ and then they’ll hate me like I hate me. They’ll get sick of my excuses of why I can’t do something or come with them “this time” AGAIN.
    I wish I had a core.
    I don’t.
    Or I don’t recognize it if I do.
    is anyone listening?
    the cars go by – I can hear them outside.
    they don’t know I am here.
    they know someone may be here.
    but what does it matter WHO.
    I look around the room.
    Everything reminds me of something.
    and each thing has a story – in my mind.
    Seems most of the stories are painful – or lonely.
    I told ‘him’ that he was lonely and always would be, because he didn’t know how not to be…..
    How would I know that unless it was ME who was already that person…
    I want to drink – or something – until I am in the place of no feeling.
    Or where it seems that everything feels good –
    Where Good & Bad is acceptable.
    Numbness allows you to think.
    Think about things without feeling the judgment.
    I can cry then – but at least then, I am able to cry.
    To not be able to smile or even cry is hell – very deep – so deep it is painful – so painful it is forever.
    I want to work so hard, physically, that I don’t think or feel.
    If only I had a real, total talent for SOMETHING – anything – I could be consumed with it and all THIS might be blocked out – for a spec of time, at least.
    Feels like being in mud, and you finally get so tired – moving in thick, drying cement that you know is going to harden, that you just stop – stay still – it will go away and not hurt if you stay still enough for long enough.
    I want to be alone. In my room. In my bed. No light, no one to see you, no one to hate you, no one to hurt you. Soft bed. Quiet stillness.

    I think of ‘getting out of here.’ Death. It is the only way out of here, isn’t it? But WHERE is out of here??? And nothing I do HERE make THIS go away. So what makes me think that getting out of HERE, and going to who knows where, is going to make THIS go away? NOBODY actually knows what happens after we die. I want to believe in the teachings of my Christian heritage (which, of course, rules out suicide – yet another thing to struggle with). I admire the people who have true faith. And for those who think that there is NOTHING after death, well, at least they have THAT. So, I’m trapped. Too afraid to take THAT ride into the unknown – even in my manic mood, when I feel very adventurous. As awful as this all is, and as close as I come to doing it when I’m in some states of mind, there’s something that keeps me hanging onto this life. Only God – and I do mean God – knows what or why. And in my prayers, I’ve cried and pleaded for answers. Being so ashamed of myself for feeling so sorry for myself – when there are things that seem like they could be so much more terrible. EXCEPT this IS terrible, too. Why am I not aloud to feel like this IS terrible?
    Then, when I’m actually having feelings, they are so fragile that I break at the slightest pressure, and they are so close to the surface that I get shaky and weepy at everything – because it seems like everything is against me.
    BBB (blah, blah, blah)

  • Isolated

    Today I feel like I don’t want to see tomorrow, tomorrow never comes so they say, but I wish today never came. I have been feeling up down confused stressed alone and unhappy, I have realised that I have felt this way my entire life, now enough is enough. I have a problem with giving up though so the pain lingers eating me from the inside out, the demons inside me are running rampage I want to run to scream to bang my head against the wall to lose total control although I have been burning myself for relief, I just want to drive into oblivian leave the pain the emptiness, the worthlessness, the hopelessness, the guilt, the family have had enough I have had too much, after four attempts at dying, I have been saved by well meaning but meddling people. I hate my world I hate my life I can’t stop trying for the sake of the mere fact I can’t just give up even though I so desparately need to. The demons the blackness the black poison in my brain the need to cry a million zillion trillion tears leaves me feeling like I am being eaten from the inside out. I know I won’t see Christmas my family will be the better for the end of me. I owe my friend a holiday we have booked, a friend who has dragged me out when I have wanted to crawl under the covers has picked me up after trying to gas myself in my car has found me on the beach after taking all my freedom pills, has put up with the mood swings the agitation the crap that I have given them over the last year. She needs this holiday I need this holiday I owe her that much. Then I can clear my conscience and have eternal peace or burn in Hell or am I already dead and in Hell it feels like it. The jokes on me I’m already dead and am such a bad person that Hell for me is not being able to sleep forever as I wish but to battle on with this vast emptiness that is my world. I am a ghost, I am alone, I have tortured my family enough, and I can’t stand what I was what I am and what I have become. There is only one solution.

  • Gav

    I have two kids and I love them dearley. I have been depressed since 2001 and have attempted suicide once .The worst mistake I made was to even attempt it (its not the easy way out it leaves everyone scard). It just left everyone around me including me totaly confused. It was the pain of 3 years of stuggle in my own mind. Not knowing who Iam anymore or what Iam. I have been taking the medication but just dosent make the pain/confusion any better. I have lost the fight inside to get up live/excersise/work . I have no motivation for anything. The things I used to love I now hate. But I will never let suicide be an option again it wasnt right the first time and it wont be any time.

    There is “HOPE” for everyone wether it be a friend or family member or even a work collegue (they all helped me) turn to them when you are feeling at your lowest let them know how you are feeling.

  • matt

    I feel like the Universe, God, whatever, literally hates me and wants to push me into killing myself. The only thing that gets me by is my closest friend, (hey John), and the overwhelming desire to do my best and then give the Universe a big middle finger.

    My advice is this: get your closest friends together, let them know what’s up, and come up with plans to deal with it with as much love as possible. A giant hug works for me…er, for a few minutes anyway.

    Matt

  • KELLY

    IT MAKES YOU ISOLATE YOURSELF FROM THE WORLD BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE AROUND ANYONE AND YOU RESENT OTHERS JUST FOR BEING NORMAL BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER BE. YOU FEEL FORGOTTEN ABOUT , IGNORED AND JUST UNDESERVING OF ANYTHING ELSE.

  • Debbie

    My scream is a silent echo within an orchard with fruits of stone.
    Walls of the highest granite entomb me within its grey shroud.
    No stone ever crumbles, no gaps ever let in light.
    I can see greyness above, speckles of drizzling rain, tears of time confined within the cages of each second.
    Is it sky above? Is it earth below?

    My tears are falling grains of sand into an ocean of the desert.
    Nowhere in sight upon this boat, winds of howling wolves attack.
    Directions changing with the waves, trying to grasp each grain of sand.
    A frost is creeping up me like a serpent of fire, I know my boat is sinking.

    My anger is an explosion without destruction.
    Roaring rivers of blood red fire snaking into the eye.
    Piercing my inner thoughts and wrapping its tentacles around my heart.
    It’s galloping up my spine, I’m emerged within it’s waters.
    I’m clawing to break free, then I finally go under…

  • Katie

    I have not experienced depression, but my 16 year old cousin has a mild case of it. And for a psychology paper I have decided to research Depression. Your testimonials have helped me to understand it better!
    THANKS!! Katie Doughty

  • Ashleigh

    I FEEL LIKE IM TRAPPED! its a no win situation for me and i dont feel theres anything to keep me alive. Im only young but yet i’ve felt like this from the age of 8. No-one seems to appreciate what i do for them and just take me fore granted. I odnt know whether in reality this is all happening but thats what my head and heart is telling me. I wonder why things are the way they are and why a starving child in Africa should have just taken my place, because they deserve it more than me. They can have done something better with it, then write how much they hate it. I love all my friends and family but dont like them the most of the time. I HATE SCHOOL, THAT’S THE WORST THING IN MY LIFE, BECAUSE ALL THEY TELL ME IS THAT THEY’RE ALL THERE FOR ME WHEN IN ACTUAL FACT THEY LIE. One of my teachers has got a personal thing with me and keeps on lying and i get in trouble for it, because the rest of the teachers take their word over mine without even giving me a word in edgeways. They say this an ursuline school (catholic) but yet they’re injustice and one of the ten commandment said ‘do not lie’ but yet one of the peoples who supposed to be setting me the example is doing the complete opposite. Anyway gotta go now, 4th period!!!! Good luck everyone, fot the future!!!!

  • Devin J Kuberski

    Depression is when you loose all fear of death, because death is no longer something to be feared. It is something to be sought out. You wish to let this cage of flesh die so that you can be no more.

    It is when you really hope that there is no life after death so that you can finally rest. It is when you study evolutionary arguements because you want to believe that there is no God and thus no afterlife. I do not under any circumstance want to live forever. I would chose oblivion over some Christian Heaven any time. There is no way I could be around myself that long. I don’t even really want to live to be thirty.

    The only hope is alcohol. It is the world’s true lord and saviour, in which I have placed all of my trust. Nothingness is far better then the dull eternal ache of conscious thought and awareness. Give me a couple of fourties of bad tasting but potent liquor and I’ll be as close to good as I can get.

    My bi-polar disorder lets up on rare occasions, allowing myself brief periods of giddy delusion in which I start to believe the lies about hope again. The highs are scary in a way because you always know that the darkness is about to blindside you again at any damn moment and drag you back into the depths of the infinite abyss.

    I am the midst of a long low period. One of the longest I have ever had. I haven’t been able to do anything more complicated then dragging myself to my bullshit job at Wendy’s and lying around drinking and watching TV. Sometimes I convince myself to exercise, in hopes that I can summon up some kind of biological high from it. But I haven’t gotten a pump from lifting weights in years. I just do it because I figure I might as well be beautiful on the outside in order to make up for the fact that I am a rotting skeleton emotionally. It doesn’t really work though. I desperately want to write something too. I can’t come up with even the simplest story now, I used to have so many ideas.

    I am rotting away in this place. Someday it will be over, someday I will feel the merciful release of death’s scythe. But it won’t be this day. I will soldier on until I finally collapse. Writing this eased the weight alittle, but not very much.

  • amanda

    its been almost three years ever since i have been low and down in dumps…though i am under medication for the past two months but still nothing seems right…i hate t go to the doctors coz i feel that they dont and cant really feel my pain and the hurt. my parents keep telling me to cheer up and that its because of my own mindset that i am so depressed , my friends dont know anything about this coz i hide it well in front of them. i feel so lonely and shattered that nothing but suicide comes to my mind. i am always so irritated and restless, it makes me want to run away somewhere….far away from my parents, my friends and everyone else .

  • Kat

    Well…these days I feel really depressed.I did a test and it showed that I have severe depression.I’m 15 but I’m thinking of ways to commit suicide.I start crying suddenly when I think of my life,which is not bad,but I hate it.I want to go to a psycologist to get better,but my mom aviods it-I don’t know why-and that makes me even worse.I’m so desperate.I’m so lonely.When I’m at school,I don’t show it,I try to be happy.My friends have no idea what I’m going through.I know I can kill myself and I may do it.

  • islescarlett

    It filters through my consciousness like watery spheres of velvet blue
    creating devastating images that tear through my heart
    echoing shrill notes that kill my belief and deafens the truth
    Alert I seek alternate routes that may leave me unhardened and with a shred of decency
    yet still I find despair rapping on my chamber door.

    it is the beast that kills and somehow thrills me

    Arriving at the end of my destruction
    I have found that there is more an alternate
    And a reason to go forward
    I have simulated an ordeal for myself to overcome
    Try if you will to lure me aboard
    I would hock my mind, body and soul
    For one moment when in tyme when I did not feel, that my very existence was indeed a crime.
    Festive in this farce of giving face
    Devout in living the lies my conscience screams to abominate
    Heaven forbid one folly to air
    Tedious adversities bring me down
    Swallow the lump there is a bigger nut that has to be found
    As I consume my load how bitter the pill of dire consequence becomes
    Rigorous desertion of physical contact
    Denial the culprit
    Mocking second chances that don’t come back
    Previous errors of ways away
    Mirror their images in my memory night and day
    Canvassing hopes that I seek for a better life
    One damn day when something I want goes right
    There is no one here to listen to these words
    No one to call me absurd’
    So here I sit with fantasia all around
    Not one being in sight who gives a damn…

  • Sabrina

    To me, depression is a relatively new thing. I think (I am always trying to self-diagnose) I have an anxiety disorder, which in turn leads to depression because this is how it works for me:

    I am going along, happy and fine, and all of a sudden a darkness surrounds me. I feel the panic attack coming, and even though I know it is simply a chemical gone awry, it does not lessen the fear. I lose my appetite, and things make me nervous that seem utterly ridiculous. I get scared about talking to my fiance, cause I think he will think I am acting crazy or something. I am scared to be around my 11 month old daughter cause I am scared she will sense my tension and somehow it will seep into her and wreck her world. I usually go to stay with my mother, who is very supportive, and start taking zoloft. Usually within 2 weeks, I am fine and myself again, and I even forget how it felt at all. I feel silly, like I overreacted or something. Then I get stupid and decided that I am okay, I don’t need the zoloft and I go off of it. Then after a few weeks, or months, it starts all over again. This has happened 5 times in the past 6 years, and each time it has been because I was not on zoloft. This time, however, it has been more difficult. I am going on day 22 of this, the racing heart, the waking at 6 am every day wprrying about how I am going to feel today, the feeling that I am a bad mother, worthless, the lack of appetite, the dry mouth, the not knowing if I am ever gonig to feel like myself again. I feel like a burden on everyone, my mother, my stepdad, my sister who also suffers from depression, and my fiance, but I know in the rational part of my mind that they are all willing to wait with me, to do anything they can to help me feel better again. All I want is for the zoloft to begin working. I want myself again.

  • Vanessa

    Depression feels like mom and dad don’t love the loser i am. Like little sister is watching big sister slowly die. Like my husband either doesn’t want to know or is to blind to see my heart screaming for just one unasked for hug. It is just giving in to my heart and head saying i am nothing.

  • Chris Y

    Depression is basiclly like drowning. You somehow believe that the way you feel is because of something or many things that you’ve done. You feel worthless, so you must be worthless. To not believe you are what you feel seems illogical or impossible. You seek to either escape the feelings somehow or you try to do something (some great achievement)that in your mind will rid the cause of misery. This is where the drowning occurs. The problem is that it is a circular trap. When you seek to escape the feelings, you actually end up making yourself worse(Drinking,drugs, etc). Trying to do or achieve something that you think will make you feel good about yourself is a dead end because in the end, it’s never good enough, and this leaves you feeling even more worthless. This cycle just keeps repeating itself over and over until you are just drained. You then feel and become numb and isolated. It’s safe, but cold and lonely. Anger builds up because no one understands how you feel, yet you are scared to share these feelings with anyone because you believe that being accepted by others is the only thing that matters and that it will make you happy. The last thing you want is to be a burden on people, especially since you feel so guilty for every wrong you’ve committed against anyone else. It’s feeling like a hypocrite to seek help and love. Depression is the inability to be loved and to accept love. Without love, we are all bankrupt, and as good as dead.

  • Mary

    I have only suffered from depression a few times in my life. For some reason I was able to fight it, and my life returned to normal, but I must admit that I still remember how difficult the fight was… it was like I could see this grey blanket hovering above me and it somehow comforted me, I wanted to wrap myself up in it lie down and go to sleep, just forget about the world and it’s problems. That was the part that kept me away from it, it was the scariest thing, and it was so difficult to get away from that greyness. I came to your website not because of that, but because my fiance committed suicide 10 days ago. I am trying to understand everything, knowing that I will never get all the answers, but hoping I will at least be able to understand more about depression. He was such a wonderful person, none of his family, friends, co-workers, or myself knew that he was fighting an internal battle. I had noticed that he was losing weight, that he was forgetful, and I thought it was unusual that he stayed away from me for 10 days before committing suicide (of course I’m in Florida and his excuse seemed real, he said he was helping his father cut trees and repair damage to his home from the hurricane… there was no damage to his fathers home, the whole time my fiance was sitting at home alone, just sinking lower and lower). I saw him two days prior to his death. He called to say that he had just gotten home from his dads and was looking forward to a nice hot shower. I told him I was just taking a hot peach cobbler out of the oven and asked if he wanted some, he said no… he was dirty and needed a shower. I went ahead and put the peach cobbler in a dish and called him to let him know I was bringing it over, he said not to hurry too much because he was a mess and his home was a mess. I walked through his home, and it was messy alright, he had pulled a saw up to the front door, I guess to make it look like he really had been out working. I didn’t think he looked that dirty, and he didn’t smell swetty, but I didn’t really question anything, told him that I knew he was wanting to rest and I wouldn’t keep him long, just wanted to bring the cobbler by and say hi, then I left. He kissed me hard and maybe that should have triggered that something was wrong, but he was like that so I didn’t think anything about it. He called me to let me know that he had enjoyed the cobbler and he was about to get some much needed rest. I thought he had to be at work early in the morning, and that he had been at work that week, but I later learned that he had called in sick each day and there was no storm damage to his fathers home, his father hadn’t seen him in 3 weeks. In his letters to me he apologized for the lies, said he couldn’t stand to be around anyone, hadn’t been able to eat anything that week, but did manage to get down the cobbler. He said that when we were together he had smiled and laughed but they were all forced, he didn’t feel happiness at all, he was in complete and total misery. He didn’t take any medication, didn’t turn to anyone for help, never confided in anyone that there was even a problem. I have since learned that he battled this his entire life from time to time, and his journals show just how difficult that battle was. I hope that anyone reading this understands that your friends, family, loved ones would never consider it a burden to try and help you. I always considered him a blessing in my life, and I definitely would have supported him, done anything to help him get over that horrible phase, if only he had shared with me that there was a problem. The burden isn’t in helping someone overcome a problem… that actually allows a blessing in both lives, but the burden is in trying to deal with the after effects of his death. His children don’t understand, they blame themselves, his father, his co-workers, everyone is hurting right now, thinking that there was something said or done that should have triggered a response from someone that he needed help… but no one saw it. I hope that this makes sense. I’m probably not in the best state of mind here, you would think that I would be suffering from depression right now, but I’m not… I’m too busy trying to help his family and friends deal with this, and at the same time I’m trying to focus on the 5 years of wonderful times that we shared together. They were awesome, wouldn’t trade in one of those memories for anything in the world, and I’m hoping that after this maybe I’ll be a better person and recognize the next person who is suffering, maybe help them recover. Anyway… I’m thankful for your website and I hope you don’t mind hearing from a person who isn’t suffering from depression, just attempting to understand it. Your website was very informative.

  • Daniel

    Everyday is pain to me, I feel so alone. I remember when I had good friends and used to have hope. Now I have no hope for anything. Nothing in the world seems important any more,I throw away the money in my wallet and feel nothing. I cannot remember the last time I was happy for more than a minute. What’s the point of living if every day is going to be this hard. I dont know what to do, why is this shit happening to me

  • Deb

    For me, the biggest fear in my depression is that everyone will find out how crazy I am. Because I feel like everything has seeped out of me. I don’t want to be around my husband, but I can’t imagine being on my own. Nothing is the same from second to second. When I try to describe how I feel, it changes before I finish a sentence. I’ve never considered suicide (at least not consciously), but sometimes I’m so tired in my soul that I just want everything to stop.

  • Ajmal

    Depression is the worst human disease, it kills souls, good souls. I kind of knew I had it but after reading this website I am sure. Life feels so empty and my soul so dead…the worst thing is that nobody understands and you need somebody with infinite pure love to touch and light up the depths of your soul. But there are few people left like that in the world, and it makes me cry because I want to be saved, but I dont think I can do it myself. I wonder why God does this, and sometimes i do totally give up on him. People can come up with anything they want Karma or any other theory, but in the end its not gonna stop us hurting. I wish i could find love because I know thats the cure for me. It feels like I havent lived for a long time.

  • CAS

    Depression, the doom and gloom of life. My whole sytem is set on slow. I can only see the dark side of life and self destruction. Being alone constantly because I dont know what to say to people any more. What happened to the person who was always out there talking, socialising, living life? Now a broken shell is all thats left. Now its just me and my depression and the compulsive eating.

  • Gwen

    I look at myself in the mirror and am disgusted by what I see. I can’t hold down a job for any amount of time. I’m afraid to leave my house and don’t really have the energy even if I wanted to. I haven’t got any friends and I hate to upset my family, so I guess that’s why I am posting this. I feel pathetic and useless and it won’t go away. I’ve given up on getting help because I’ve tried everything and things have just gotten worse. I’ve seriously attempted suicide twice now. Is it an oxymoron for the hopeless to hope that next time I try, I hope to get it right?

  • Jona

    I can’t seem to figure out what to do. I live my wasted life and wish that it would all just go away. I can’t see anything in my future, I have nothing to contribute to anything, I can’t get past being totally empty, and to top that off, my wrists are all scarred and I’ve forgotten my reason to live…

  • Matt

    Depression is……a bleak grey sky covering my world, my life. I don’t know why I want to die. I don’t know why I hate who and what I am. I don’t know why I wish I could become another person, even if just for a minute.

    I don’t know why I wish I could find each and every person I’ve ever encountered in my life, and painlessly lift myself from their memories. I don’t know why I feel like such a burden to those around me, especially my family.

    I don’t know why I like the darker side of things. When I get in my bad moods I rent horror movies or movies I know will have depression overtones. I listen to angry heavy metal music to flood my head with guitars and lyrics so I don’t have to think about how bad off I am.

    And then there is the side of myself I really hate. The side of me that yells in my head to stop being a loser. The side of me that tries to encourage me, that tries to make me want to live. The side of me that hates this darker version of myself. It feels like a constant battle, threatening to tear me in two. One part wants me to die, and the other part won’t let me, forcing me to keep on living.

    The only reason, I swear to God the only reason why I’m alive today is because of what it would do to my family. My parents wouldn’t be able to bear it. Sure, I had a decent childhood, it wasn’t perfect, I was witness to brief moments of domestic abuse as a child. I witnessed my dad slapping my mom, and then my mom hitting my dad back. I witnessed my older sister getting spanked, and me becoming hysterical as a child, sometimes me crying harder then my sister.

    My parents weren’t perfect, they still aren’t, but neither am I. And my parents have been there for me in times I need them the most. I’ve been blessed with parents who would probably give their own lives for me or my sister. So somewhere in my head I see a contradiction. How can parents be so loving and kind, and yet seem willing to subject their children to moments of terror. I however try to see it from my parents point of view. To them when me and my sister were disciplined, thats what it was, discipline. My parents are older and come from the old school of raising kids, when using a razor strap or other seeming brutual implements for “discipline”.

    I don’t know if these moments in my childhood are what spawned my depression. I know I have unresolved feelings regarding the whole matter. The problem is I can’t relate the whole thing here on the internet, some of it I don’t even remember and only know about some of it from recent conversations with my sister. I know my sister went through alot more which would probably border on the line of abuse.

    The point of all this is that I want to move on. I want to get past it all, I want to forgive and forget. I’ve promised myself that I will do whatever it takes to make my own children feel safe, that they can come to me as a parent.

    I doubt I can ever say it to my parents, but I forgive them. If for no one else then myself. I won’t carry around that kind of baggage; it only has the potential to harm me, my wife (if I ever get married, and my family if I ever have one).

    I feel like I’ve gone on a tangent here. Its kind of ironic that when I get depressed, I slowly come out of it and look back on it and think “What an idiot.” about my self. It takes to much energy to be depressed, it sucks the very life out of a person. It is disease, one of the worst kinds. It can debilitate a person worse then drugs and alcohol.

    I suffer from depression, I know what its like. I also know that it can be beaten, I’ve had my moments when I’m happy, the sun is shining and I’m glad to be alive. To anyone who is reading this, I have an idea of what you are going through. This right now may seem like the hardest time in your life, and it may very be. If your reading this right now, that means your still alive. If your still alive, then some part of you, of your soul isn’t ready to die yet.

    Don’t give in. I know what I’m saying sounds easy, and impossible to ever do. Even I have my days when I don’t even get dressed or showered. My life is a mess because of depression. I’m 24, in college, and I’m overweight and I hate myself. But I’m slowly working to fix that, to become the person I want to be.

    My advice, “In action there is hope.” Depression debilitates by sucking every ounce of energy, motivation and ambition out of people. You can fight it, and you can win. In action there is hope. Think about it. By doing something, anything, you are loosening depressions grip on you. In action there is hope.

    I’m no medical professional, and my advice might not be worth the bits of information it takes to display my text here on this website. But listen to me, or to someone else. The next time your feeling depressed, think of one thing you haven’t done that day. Try reversing your thinking. Think to your self “I Can!” I can get showered, I can get out of bed, I can get dressed. I can get the mail, I can clean my apartment, I can wash my car. I can talk to someone, I can introduce myself to someone. I can have a conversation…..

    I hope this message can help at least one person. Depression is a cancer, a cancer that eats away at our souls. Depression tries to make it impossible to love yourself, to even like your self. Depression inspires fear. It can inspire such fear that people don’t even leave their homes. And once depression has taken hold, it seems nigh impossible to ever break free.

    I am one of those people that has to do that in my head everday. I have to reverse my thinking and get in that “I can…” mode every day. I’m not where I want to be, but I think I’m slowly getting there. I think it has to be better then suicide. Trust me, I’ve thought about suicide enough to know how much of a relief it would seem like. I’ve thought about it enough to have planned out some scenarios in which to carry it out.

    Suicide is not an answer. Its a permenant way to run away from your problems. I haven’t commited suicide because I know what it would do to my family. But another major reason why I haven’t is because I’m scared. I’m scared of living, and I’m scared of dying. I’m scared of how I might die, I’m also scared of what’s on the other side. Is there a God? Is there anything on the other side for us? Or what if this life that we have, this time we all have right now is it. Once you die your done. You punch your ticket, they lower your coffin in the ground, and your body starts to decompose.

    God its hard to type all this, I’m half tempted to just delete it and forget I ever saw this website.

    Depression is very real, and whoever has it knows how much it sucks. Please, please please please please anyone that reads this. I know you are thinking you’ve reached the end. That tomorrow is going to be just like today, so why bother getting out of bed. Why bother going to sleep in the first place. I beg of you, if not for yourself then for me, or for the pain of someone else if they lose you. Talk to someone, anyone. For every reason you think of not to live, there is an equally and just as profound reason for you to stay alive. Its hard, I know it is. I’ve been there and I’m still there. But I plead with you. Stop before doing anything you might regret, or end up doing something you can’t take back.

    This is the world we live in, and it can be a pretty crappy world most of the time. Life isn’t fair, bad things happen to good people for no reason….if you believe in God then there alot of things going on in the world that seem to prove that God is dead or God just dosen’t care anymore.

    I hope I get through to someone with this message. Stay alive. Don’t give up, don’t quit. Press on, get up, get showered, go to that job you hate, but go to it. And reverse your thinking. Tell yourself “I Can…!” “There hope in action!” Let that become your life, keep yourself busy. Accomplish one thing today that you didn’t do yesterday. For me, sometimes thats getting out of bed and getting showered.

    I’m not sure why I typed all this, part of it is because I just write, on and on and on when I get depressed. I never know what direction its going to take. To anyone who reads this, I reiterate with all the emphasis possible, suicide is not an answer. Get help, talk to someone, go to a counselor. There’s a reason we have counselor’s, they are trained to help people deal with their emotions. They can diagnose you, and can prescribe medication if your case is serious enough. Depression is a disease, and its not your fault for feeling like this. You can fight this, you dont’ have to feel this way all the time. GET HELP!!!!!!!!!

  • morgan

    Depression to Me feels like all of the experiences that I have read on this website, I wish I had come across the site sooner as I have suffered for 20 yrs +. This websit should be highlighted somehow to show fellow suffer’s they are not alone in there fit against this terribly dibilatating disease.

  • Jamie

    Depression is not enjoying anything in life. Things you used to enjoy don’t do anything for you now. You don’t want to go anywhere or do anything because you know it will not be fun and at worst you will be miserable.

    You are afraid to see family and old friends because they will ask you what you are doing with your life and you will have to say “nothing” or make up a lie. You avoid places where people you know might be. You never go to family gatherings.

    You pray to God to give you cancer or some other disease. You stop believing in a god.

    You sleep all the time or can’t sleep at all. You are in a daze all the time from sleeping too much and never fully waking up. You have horrific nightmares…either from the depression or medications or both. You wake up drenched in sweat and cold. The sheets literally look like you poured water on them. You can’t get up in the morning even though you have slept 12 or more hours. You stop going to work and just quit without notice. You don’t care about money or finances…it doesn’t seem to matter.

    You suffer from intolerable, mind-numbing boredom and nothing you do can relieve it. You are bored with life and wonder if there will ever be anything more. You know you need something, like you have a yearning for something, but don’t know what or where to get it.

    You don’t have the energy or desire to clean yourself. You have to take baths because you don’t have the energy to stand up in the shower that long. You can’t do simple things like mail a bill or do your taxes or a hundred other normal life things.

    On the bright side, I have finally found a combination of medicines that allows me to live a somewhat normal life. The depression is still there, I can feel it like a constant presence, a monster, but the monster is being held back by a chain around its neck…this chain is very fragile and you have to constantly watch it for signs of breaking. You know it’s there and you’re scared, but it is held at bay for now, not being able to terrorize you like it used to. You know it will get loose again someday. You just have to use your mind to pretend like it’s not there. You have to let your rational mind dominate your emotional mind. The medicines let me do this to some extent.

  • Karen

    I feel sad today I am worried so worried four suicide attempts and as I write this I feel devoid of emotion of any feelings at all the antidepressants do this to me if I am not down and out I am racing at a million miles an hour like a leaf in a cyclone. Now the medication has made me so dead inside numb devoid of emotion that I am burning myself to see if it hurts. Now I really am losing it over the almost two years I have been living this depression I have really hit an all time low now I am really dead I can’t feel anymore. I have also realised that this feeling has been with me my entire life, I have just not acknowleged it. I have just blundered on trying to do the best I can and not let the bullies the teachers the parteners the husband my parents defeat me but now they have won, I am defeated I have just gotten the guts to go to the doctor this arvo I am going to ask him to take me off the medication. If I kill myself it won’t be any great loss to anyone and it will free my children my family my friends from the abomination that is me.

  • gag girl

    I believe my depression may be a long-term (permanent?) side effect of taking Lupron. I think the drug did damage to my thyroid, which in turn has given me extreme mood swings (I’m gonna take a thyroid test to see). So my sadness is not constant..it comes on suddenly. I’ll be fine and suddenly things appear to slow and I become confused and walk slowly and stare ahead. Then I feel a pressure on my chest which grows and gets more painful and painful ’til it crawls up my throat and I can’t stand it anymore and I break out in sobs, hysterical, screaming, and run around the room cursing the feeling. I know when it’s happening that it’s chemically-related and I’m gonna feel better in about a half hour but it’s still SO painful, this mental pain, that it’s practically physically painful. Afterwards I calm down and still feel confused, and exhausted, and still stare ahead and it’s hard to talk. A few minutes later I’m back to normal and able to continue normal conversation like nothing has happened. Has anyone ever gotten any symptoms like that? This has been going on a year and I’m sick of taking anti-depressants but still getting “attacks” every few weeks anyway. A month ago I took an extra Lexapro during an attack (as my psychopharmacologist had prescribed) and I was rushed to the hospital because I had seizures! It turns out I had a Lexapro overdose (even though I seemed ok the other times I’d taken an extra one). The doc got me off Lexapro and I’m on Effexor now. I had an “attack” last night..not as bad as usual, but it still hurt. I’ve had panic attacks in the past and depression runs in the family (my brother overdosed on drugs and died), so my doc thinks that my serotonin level is naturally low and this makes me extra-sensitive to the hormone treatments I’ve been getting for endometriosis. If anyone has gone through something similar, please write!

  • keith

    i can honestly say that i have always denied that im depressed to anybody and myself. i have health worries/fears that i hold responsible but i know deep down that it is the whole way that i live that provides the perfect habitat for my depression. i see no way out of it and the only way to tackle it is to act like a zombie to everything you come across. i feel like an idiot because you cant seem to remember anything and a fool because u wont/cant do anything about it.the main reason that makes me jus accept it and ride the rollercoaster is that i believe if i knew for definite that nothing could be done about my problems then i would take drastic action. im not likely to hurt myself as id see it as cowardice but i may masquerade it as anger and drive myself to insanity.what the future holds for me who knows…il jus take it one day at a time…optimism tells me that i should still have hope but my mind still tells me that theres no hope and this is as good as it gets.i have missed out on so much over the years because i jus cant get the drive and motivation and i hate myself for it.im 20 now and iv felt depressed for the last four years. nobody really cares outside your family but you dont want them to worry either so you try and hide it.i feel like im somethin somebody jus stepped in,i am in effect my own worst enemy and when talkin to others even if they dont like me all that much they cant hate me as much as i do.im self critical of everything i do.if i get drunk i lose this feeling and gain an almost psychotic side which id rather keep caged up.i wont ever lose my self control out of fear of what i could be capable of.turning to booze/drugs helps none.it only shrouds the truth for a while and quite frankly what is the point runnin from the truth.there is no point ending it all and thats how i think about it just out of principal.what i have is shit and i dont see it improving but why the hell should i end it and have even less going for me than i do now !!! even writing this seems pointless but if somebody else has gained from it at least i have contributed to doing something worthwhile morally.others tend to think that i dont care when i do but i probably wont show it cos i dont want to get too close and sometimes cos the drive has gone.a girl could probably help me big time but i couldnt give her what she needs physically because of complications nor mentally because im stuck in a void from reality most of the time.id be nothin but a burden and even if the girl would lovingly accept me knowing this i wouldnt wish me upon anybody…unless im gona be a credit to somebody i wont waste their time because lets face it..im a mess inside and it aint up to them to clean it.people dont want to know people who depress them because its easier not to and i dont blame them one little bit.i like to talk to people when theyre down and out, ya know when they are out of character because you have an understanding of how they are feeling and bringing them back up is easy because i have been doing it for years to try and keep myself happy. the worst thing u can do is when somebody is down is to let your own problems kick in cos then ur totally useless.people have said to me on occasions like this jokingly: ;i knew you were good for something’. i dont take it to heart cos i aint gona burden them with my worries that they just wouldnt understand.its like nobody really knows who you are because ur ashamed of yourself,frightened you might lose them and basically that they wouldnt understand because they havent endured it.

  • amanda

    my boyfriend and i had a conversation a few days ago. He refuses to believe that depression isn’t the same thing as having a bad day and feeling down for a an hour about it. I tried to explain to him that it never leaves. That there seems to be no real reason for it other than life itself. Everything and anything brings you down. Songs from my happier days send me reeling into a black hole. Sitting on the beach staring out at the ocean doesnt give me a sense of peace or tranquility, it gives me a feeling of grief for what i wish my life could be. I get anxious and worried over nothing, and emotional and angry over the most insignificant things. And i feel so stupid for it. I feel like a bad person, and i cant help it. Reading these postings and hearing what everyone else is feeling is like reading my own thoughts. And knowing that there are others who have all the same thoughts and feelings that i have had helps me to accept it. i constantly anylize my thoughts and feelings and try to sort them into rational and irrational. It helps me to keep myself together and work things out. As long as i know how to apologize for my reactions and actions having to do with my overemotional state, i can keep things together… i can hold on to relationships and i can at least pretend to be in a good mood sometimes. Even if it’s like acting in the hardest role of your life. i’d make a good movie star, yup

  • me

    Depression feels like your not part of the world
    everyone seems to live in.You wake up everyday (and I mean everyday) numb to anything good in life.You cant make yourself do anything.A simple thing like getting up in the mornings is a mind torture.Your mind is having a war a full blown massacre.A million thoughts pop in and out and in and out of your mind.Thats the fun part because you have no control of your thoughts they can be moments in your life,conversations you have had,every horrible thing you can remember that you have done are always around the old mind,things you want to do,jobs you wish you could do,how shitty you feel,how misarble life is,why is a good one,WHY do i feel this way,WHY cant i make it stop,WHY cant i just get up and be happy,WHY cant i live a normal life,WHY cant anyone understand,Why have i had to deal with this for 11 years WHY WHY WHY? I have not felt true happiness at least what i think was happines in so long i dont know if i ever will.When your depressed you are hurting so bad inside that you cut yourself off to anything good. Everyday you deal with ok tommorow will be better but tommorow never ever is.Its the same old routine. You constantly feel empty of anything happy. You get crazy thoughts that flash through your head constantly.My head goes a million miles a minute all day everyday.I feel helpless like im in a hole that im never gonna get out i dont even see the light anymore.Everyday I wish I could be normal because I have found someone who I love more then anything and im doing nothing to better myself or the relationship.We want to live together but it takes money.I cant seem to get myself up and go to work.I cant make myself do anything.I feel like I have nothing to offer anyone.My family thiks im a lazy bum witch hurts.I think of death often enough(i dont think i could do it)but that comes after the thought of being like this forever.Death seems almost like a cure.I would give anything to be normal work pay bills take care of a home and family but i just dont see it.Even showering is something i have to force myself to do.Im not a dirty person but you get to the point where you just dont care.You know what you have to do but ya cant.Even if its something you want real bad like money or car or a home ya just cant make yourself do it.Pretty much everything i have written here goes on in my head all day everyday.The pain and hurt never stops.I do have moments where im laughing and i feel good but they are just moments(they never last)Those moments are just a taste a tease you could say because you know it will not last and in a few seconds your mind will be back to misery

  • Indiana

    Depression feels like there is really no hope for me, no reason for me to live. Everyday I look forward to meet death all the while praying that the ones I love and the ones who love me will find strength to carryon after I’ve gone. Tears fill my eyes when I remember how I’ve treated them, I wonder why they still continue to love me even with all that I’ve put them through. I drink to the point where I cannot feel my feeling anymore just to get away from this inescapable feeling of being worthless. Why is it that I never seem to have any luck at all? Why am I still alive?

  • Shelly

    I stumbled on this site…on one of the nights that I could not sleep.

    I was shocked to read these posts…and people were actually saying things…that made sense to me.

    I also am suffering from a major depressive episode. My husband has been so supportive…and I try to explain what I am feeling…but it is HARD for him to understand.

    If you have never had depression…you cannot possibly know what it feels like.

    It is NOT a choice…as well-meaning people might tell you.

    I am an RN in an intensive care unit. I have not been able to work for about 6 weeks now.

    My lack of concentration; confusion; lack of energy….problems with remembering…not getting dressed; not showering; feeling an almost constant pressure in my head….

    I always showered EVERY day. Now, I am lucky to
    shower two times a week. I feel like somebody
    took me out of my body….and this is NOT me. When I look in the mirror…I just think…”Where did you go???”

    Most of the days I don’t even get dressed.

    I am on two anti-depressants now. I am better…
    but I still have the confusion, difficulty concentrating…this pressure inside my head.

    I have guilt because my paycheck is not coming in and we will probably have to file bankruptcy.

    This site explains how depression feels…at least for me.

    Thank you to everyone for sharing their personal experiences…

  • L.D.

    I hate this, I hate being the person I am. This isn’t me…where is the happy girl that I used to be? I drove someone I love away…..this sickness drove them away. Now I have nothing.

  • Rachel

    I hate becoming my own biggest liar, lying to myself all the time, filling myself with poison.
    Telling myself that life is crap when I hate having it taken away from me.

    If I was poor and won a lottery, I would choose to be financially poor again and give away 100 million dollars to anyone who could allow me to be as free as I was when I was a child

    The depression beats me up all the time, and I’m getting weaker as I lie to myself. The truth of life’s goodness exists in hope and memory for me as the sickness takes me away to horrible places I don’t want to go to 🙁

    Even a rapist or a mugger leaves you alone after he’s raped or robbed you. But this just keeps on coming.

    How can I turn into my own worst, cruellest enemy? How can this be happening?

  • brokenheartedmom

    I can’t help but wonder what is the point of being here? what is the point of life? there is NO Point. We just get up and do the same old thing every single day. Now my daughter has decided she would rather live w/her transsexual “father” and …. and that’s it. I can’t even finish this right now… To be continued….

  • Kim

    Well.. i have been depressed many times … i have wanted to stop eating.. wanted to die… i felt like there was no reason to live… nothing was good in my life… i lost my mom at age 11… my dad is a pretty bad alcoholic… im not too confident at all in the way i look (actually i hate the way i look… i feel like no one would care if i died and like no one likes me or what ever… i have cut my self, truthfully … and actually i do it sometimes becuase it makes me feel better (instead of having emotional pain) and i was watching a show the other day and they said that was a disease.. that if you feel the need to cut or burn your self to relieve emotional pain you have something.. and i was wondering if anyone knew becuase i dont remember what they said… um, if you know try to post it up becasue i would like to know… thank you …

  • Marieke

    Depression is pain. It is wanting to crawl into a hole and die, but knowing that its never that easy. It is cutting yourself to see it bleed and feel it and know that you really are alive. It is not trusting anyone, not even your closest friends…if they really are your friends at all. Maybe they’re just humouring you, knowing that if they upset you you’ll do something stupid, slit your wrists again or take a bunch of pills and end it all. Sitting at home thinking about all the things you could be, should be doing right now but not caring because it hurts too much. It is hiding the scars from new people you meet because no one wants to be friends with a psycho. Making up excuses for why you just want to stay home, lying in bed crying. It is surfing the internet in the middle of the night because you know that sleep will never come, and if you don’t do something you’re going to go get the knife. Trying anything to make yourself stop thinking…because thinking about it is what hurts the most. It is needing someone to talk to, but having no one to listen, no one who understands.

  • KOETE SAKURA

    BEING COMPRESSED IN THE MOST CORRUPT AND DISDAINFUL FORM OF ALL; THAT OF HUMAN. I AM TRAPPED IN A SHELL. I WEAR THE SLEEVE OF HOMOSAPIEN WHICH HAS ONLY SERVED TO TURN ME INTO AN UGLIER BEAST. I CANNOT HATE, FOR NOTHING IS DESERVING ENOUGH TO KNOW SCORN. I CAN LOVE ONLY ESCAPE. I PITY THOSE FEW CREATURES WHO KNOW ME, AS MY ASSOCIATION ONLY SERVES TO COMPLICATE THEIR LIVES AND BURDEN THEM WITH CHOATIC CONTRADICTIONS. I AM AN AMALGAM OF DISSENSION AND AGONY, QUIETLY ROLLED INTO AN IDIOTIC PSYCHOPATH. HAVING JUST HIT 19 YEARS OF AGE, I AM IMPOSSIBLY SICKENED ALREADY BY THE PROSPECT OF CONTINUED EXISTENCE HERE. I AM WORTHLESS AS A MEMBER OF SOCIETY AND CONTRIBUTE NOTHING TO ITS UPKEEP. THOSE CLOSEST TO ME DO NOT KNOW OF THIS, YET I FREELY RELINQUISH IT HERE, THUS PROVING MY INCOMPETENCE AS A COMRADE. AS FOR NOW, I ONLY LIVE BECAUSE I AM ALIVE. I AM DISGUSTED TO KNOW THAT NO ONE CAN SEE ME FOR WHAT I AM. I MUST BE MALE, OF THIS SOCIAL STANDING ETC. I AM NOT A BEING, BUT SOMETHING TO BE NUMBERED AND MAINTAINED FOR MY REVENUE GENERATING POTENTIAL. THIS WAR IS HOPELESS AND I LOOK FORWARD TO WHATEVER END AWAITS ME, JUST A SLAVE TO A BIRTH I WOULD NEVER HAVE AGREED TO…

  • Karen

    Does it really get any better? I know I have improved in the last 8 months but the suicidal feelings are still as strong as ever I scour these pages looking for I don’t know what, some kind of answer to what I feel every day. I wake every morning feeling that another day has to be passed. I feel like I’m in a brick wall that can let no one in, yet I want to be able to let someone in anyone, acceptance, love, hope, self worth, caring, sharing but I can’t I can’t trust I can’t feel the antidepressants took care of that. I feel like an island floating alone wanting to be alone but wanting to be loved and accepted. I can’t even relate to my children anymore. They don’t or can’t trust me anymore after four suicide attempts I don’t blame them, I have totally blown them away with the intolerance the lack of being able to relate to them anymore, the inability of being able to keep up with the housework, cook meals etc. For me the emptiness, loneliness the worthlessness is hard to bear, but for my children I have to try, I don’t believe that I will make it I have so much self loathing, guilt, unhappiness, I spend my days trying to forget the feelings by working all the time when I work I don’t think, if I don’t think I don’t feel if I don’t feel I don’t hurt, if I don’t hurt I can keep trying. I feel like I won’t or can’t stand this much longer I can’t really even communicate how I really feel and don’t know the right questions to ask the counsellor, the phychiatrist was worse he didn’t help at all, if I’m not in turmoil and unable to stop I am at a complete standstill I don’t know which is worse. Turmoil is uncontrollable desire to bang my head against the wall release the demons inside that have opened pandora’s box leaving me whirling like a leaf in a cyclone, the most dangerous time for me I am very unpredictable in that state. Then comes the down time when I just feel empty like I need to cry a million tears that just won’t come. I can’t cry I can’t feel I can’t breathe, I shake inside and feel like the demons are eating me from the inside out. I don’t believe my time here will last too much longer but as I am forever the fighter unfortunately I can’t stop myself from trying even though every day is just like the last torture, emptiness uselessness and unhappiness, I have no real positive feelings anymore I don’t think I ever did, my children are what I try to show example to but now I believe they would be better off without me. I am a bad parent to put them thru all of this with me they are better off without me.

  • Joey

    It feels like everybody and everything sucks and there’s no reason to be happy. When I look around, I see everybody as ugly and greedy. I feel that people are selfish, greedy monsters who just want more and more! They’re never satisfied. Their greed is like a bottomless pit, a bottomless pit to hell. Then I become angry and violent but I know that will cost me, either in court fees for bashing someone’s face in or in some other unexpected form. I have a combination of depression mixed with some violent tendencies. I like to just become motionless and not move at all when I feel like that. When I was younger I used to let people know when they pissed me off but now, I can’t because letting them what bothers me , reveals my weakness, and revealing my weakness allows them to have control of me, therefore I just remain distant and unattached. I hope that I can find a more positive perspective. Maybe a good woman with big boobs and a big butt could calm my nerves. Yeah! that’s the ticket I feel better now!

  • Robert

    I’m depressed about everything. If I go out, then I spend money. If I stay inside, I limit the possibility of something bad happenning or doing something out of a compulsion to alleviate feelings of anger, resentment, pain, or misery. Finding a nice lady to relax with puts my mind at ease. But it’s depressing because women want you to spend money on them to show how much you care. I sometimes like to trip out and think about how cool it would be to have my own island and choose one nice kind lady to be with.

  • s gregg

    Knowing taht it will never change. Spending days hoping to improve. Trying multiple times to make things better. Never seeing long term results. Knowing other people are accepted and happy. Knowing this will never end.

  • Stephanie

    depression is not being able to tell your friends how you feel…its going to school with that same fake smile…making everyone think youre so happy go lucky and getting mad at yourself for being so fake just like everything else in the world.. depression is that knot in your stomach that wants to let everything out but you cant because everyone will think your stupid because theres so many other people in this world that are less fortunate…depression is wanting to be a little kid again because there were no worries in life back then…depression makes you cry about nothing and everything…depression is lack of self confidence..depression is doing all the things you used to love to do..but its not as fun anymore..depression is that feeling when you think something is gonna go right..but it doesnt..depression is depression..it sucks to be this way..but i cant help it

  • Jen

    Am I depressed? It feels like it, but everyone just thinks I have a bad attitude and that I need to get my shit together and do something about it. My mother had depression for years before being diagnosed, so did I get it from her or just develop a bad personality from being around negativity all the time? Who knows, who cares. I didn’t use to be this way. I’ve gained about 30 pounds in the past 9 months. That’s a lot for me, or anyone for that matter (I’m 5’4″ and weighed just under 130 nine months ago, now I’m over 150). I gained all this weight about 2 months after a new job. It was extrememly stressful for me and I quit about 6 weeks ago. I was there about 9 months total. No one could understand why I was so stressed, “It’s just a job” they would tell me. They would say this knowing that the company I worked for had about 10 people in my positon within the past 2-2 1/2 years. (And I was there about 9 months – what does that say?) Anyway did my weight gain cause depression or did depression cause weight gain? I don’t know, allI know is that I feel like a fucking cow. I look like I’m nine months pregnant and I have 1 pair of pants(jeans) in my wardrobe that fit me and even they’re tight. I exercise and I admit my diet isn’t that great, but it’s no diferent than it was before. I don’t leave the house anymore or do social things because i

  • Choking Victim

    Everything feels boring, you have no interest of doing anything, no matter how fun it used to be or how fun everyone seems to tell you it is.

    You just walk around aimlessly thinking negative thoughts and yourself and suicide feels like the best solution, the only way out. How can the after life be worse than this? Being very very bored is the worst thing I have ever felt, sitting in a chair for 5 hours with nothing happening and not being able to sleep. It feels like you want to go on top of a building and just scream your insides out (literally).

  • Kathleen

    Depression is wanting to be alone all the time. It’s rushing home to get into your apartment so that you feel safe, you’re in your own world, a cocoon… where no one can ask anything of you. It is a deep sense of dread when you contemplate your life and the things you have to do, feeling very overwhelmed even by the smallest tasks. It is getting very irritated when people ask what are your goals…where are you headed? Or being annoyed by people grilling you about your plans for the weekend, you feel as though they are trying to trap you. It is having panic attacks so bad you feel as though you are being suffocated, or having a heart attack. It was the worst breakup of all time that probably really triggered it and it also could stem from a long term illiness that no one can resolve such as postural orthastic syndrome. That is a disease/condiction where you black out all the time, feel like you have the flu (comparable to the worst hangover ever, and some days are ok other days you are rooted to the bed completely dizzy and drained with piercing migranes and racing heart to boot. It is taking tons of medications that still don’t alleviate the problem. Then missing 9 weeks of work throughout a six month span having to take medical leave most of it unpaid and barely having enough cash to get by living check to check totally stressed and having other employees talking behind your back resentful they have to take on your work, yet you show up as much as you can sick as a dog. You are so depressed by being sick so long you don’t care anymore. You feel asexual as a worm. Makeup is a chore, if you even bother, showering wears you out, you can’t get enough sleep, you gain or lose weight, you are at home all the time reading magazines sometimes not even seeing what you read, and watching movie after movie because that is all you can handle. You can’t handle running errands because you feel like everyone can see you dying inside. You try to put up this front for everyones benefit but they start to see you are smiling on the outside but crying on the inside. Your eyes look deadpan. You are a walking ghost. YOu start to try immersing yourself in anything you can to keep your focus off feeling this way but it’s unbearable pain. You feel along yet need to be. You find it pointless to talk to people when it is a farce. Why bother hearing about their menial problems when you can’t even deal with your own? No one really cares about you anyway they just want to use you to bounce their ideas and problems off of, or use you as a prop to go out with so they don’t have to go alone. It’s living in a city you abhor away from your friends. It’s having everything that could possibly go wrong all at once and not being equipped to deal with it at all. Car dying completely broke. Having cavities so bad you need crowns but can’t afford it. Needing glasses and contacts and you can’t afford it. Having no bed,(it broke the springs cut you) can’t afford it so you have to steal a mattress from the hotel you rent a room in which is the size of a cot way way to small and thin as a board so the one thing you enjoy sleep is pointless. It’s having friends keep asking you to do stuff and having to repeatedly try to tell them you have no cash and if you did you still wouldn’t want to deal with them, but you can’t say that because you know it’s cruel. Where did you go? What happened to the old fun me? I had so much fun 10 years ago. That is depression in a nutshell. Welcome to hell. Sometimes you feel like you must’ve died when it started and you went to hell and this is hell everyday because even 100mgs of Zoloft don’t work. Hang in there everybody thats all I can offer as comfort, at least I’m not alone.

  • Jenni

    Depression is like being caged in a dark room. four walls and no way out. I see a light in the distance and I can’t reach it. It’s like the whole world is against me watching my every move. I try to be better and I keep falling. I am scared and hopeless, angry at myself. I cry myself to sleep everyday wondering what I did wrong.
    I cry for everything, I feel stupid and worthless. I get angry easy and I find ways to fight with my boyfriend. He loves me and I love him so much. He is the best thing that has ever happend to me. and I am scared that he is going to leave me. I am not happy with myself and I feel like I am not good enough. He doesn’t understand how I feel. So I think about leaving him so he can be happy. I feel like he is miserable with me, because he is tierd of listening to me whine and cry all the time. I have to many problems and I am scared that he is just with me because he feels sorry for me. I am sad most of the time and when I am happy it doesn’t last long because I get paranoid that something bad is going to happened. I am drowning myself with all these emotions and I can’t stop them. “The same old jenni crying” it hurts when they don’t understand. I want to scape but I can’t. I want to sleep and never wake up.

  • Kathy

    It feels, at this moment, like falling into a deep void that I will never be able to climb out of. My family, although I have begged them to try to understand what is happening to me, chooses not to – instead calling me LAZY and telling me to GET OFF MY ASS. I want to be the person I used to be. I want it more than anything in the world. When I try to explain why I am so tired I am told that my SOB STORY will not work with them. I do not want pity! I just want some understanding. I need them to understand that what they say to me is the equivalent of stepping on my fingers while I am climbing out of the hole.

  • Fiona

    Yeah well i don’t really give a shit either way… I’m gonna die, and it’s probably me killing myself. Who’s gonna stop me? I don’t want support, but it seems in my poetry i need it. what i need is to be locked up in an institution where PEOPLE will stop talking to me altogether and where i’ll be in silence for the rest of my life…

  • Morgoth

    depression isnt about not having one particular thing.
    it’s about not wanting anything atall cause nothin can please.
    you fall back on memories…. think about the good ol days when u felt invincible and alive.
    now… you know you’re just 30 but u feel like you’re 70.
    it isnt about self pity.
    its just wanting to sleep and never wake up.
    dont wanna change much of what happened cause thru all the ups and down it was a hell of a ride…
    but just tired now.
    no fuel left inside.
    nothin to go on…
    no will. no desire.
    no governing logic.
    no drive.
    just a craving for sleep which your mind never allows or your memories never permit.
    this is beyond analysing and rationalising or getting drunk trying to distract your own self…
    you can fool anyone but your ownself.
    it isnt about searching for solutions to change circumstances.
    its about not having even the energy to contemplate any MORE attempts at turning life around…
    its about the mind dying.
    nothingness…

  • Morgoth

    i havent been sleeping well for years…
    Dead of the night – Im lookin at snaps of the girl I’ve been in love with, a decade ago.
    Im missing all that used to be a decade back.
    I wonder where 10 yrs have gone…
    I’ve been a workoholic and an alcoholic makin money, saving, creating financial security so the next one doesnt think im a loser and leave.
    now the moneys there. all friends are already married and gone.
    Girls I’d have liked to be with are mothers now…
    nothin pleases me. nothin i do. everything bores and i cant just understand the purpose of my existance.
    I’ve brawled, broken bones, travelled across the country on an easy rider royal enfield, painted canvasses, played guitar, been an employee, and an employer, worn suits in corporate boardrooms, made money, lost money, anxiety attacks, sleepless nights… made some more money again, bought a house, sold it, got a bike sold it, got a car, another bike, built muscles, broke bones and lost em, fought alcoholism for 3 yrs completely clean just to start again, grew out my hair half way down to my back just to have a crew cut, did that 3 times… dated hot chicks, tried to fall in love, never worked that out…
    now… 10 yrs later… what do i do next ?
    I’ll be 30.
    everyone i grew up with has grown away…
    I still cant connect with any women i meet regardless of whether i like em or they like me…
    Im still missing the one i was with for 5 yrs 10 hrs a day, a decade ago.
    and she’s on the other side of the globe, untracable, married , single, alive, dead, i got no lead to find out.
    Im tired… waiting…
    tired of everything…
    just what do i wake up to next… ?

  • Joseph

    O LORD , hear my prayer,
    listen to my cry for mercy;
    in your faithfulness and righteousness
    come to my relief.
    Do not bring your servant into judgment,
    for no one living is righteous before you.

    The enemy pursues me,
    he crushes me to the ground;
    he makes me dwell in darkness
    like those long dead.
    So my spirit grows faint within me;
    my heart within me is dismayed.

    I remember the days of long ago;
    I meditate on all your works
    and consider what your hands have done.
    I spread out my hands to you;
    my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.
    Selah

    Answer me quickly, O LORD ;
    my spirit fails.
    Do not hide your face from me
    or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
    Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
    for I have put my trust in you.
    Show me the way I should go,
    for to you I lift up my soul.
    Rescue me from my enemies, O LORD ,
    for I hide myself in you.
    Teach me to do your will,
    for you are my God;
    may your good Spirit
    lead me on level ground.

    For your name’s sake, O LORD , preserve my life;
    in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.
    In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;
    destroy all my foes,
    for I am your servant.

    Psalm 143

  • nat

    I feel so empty. Every day I drag myself out of bed and force myself to go to school feeling like I am living the same day over and over again. I feel so bored and never look forward to doing anything, i never get excited anymore and i constantly feel like someone is ripping me apart. Just being around other people and having to pretend i am happy is so painful, i find it hard to smile, having a conversation with somebody is such a chore. Because of this i have withdrawn myself from my friends, i never want to have to socialise with anyone. The only person i do want to speak to has shut me out of his life completely. I had the most perfect boyfriend in the world who i love more than he will ever know. He broke up with me about a month ago, at first i thought it was because he was so depressed he couldnt handle having a girlfriend and didnt want to hurt me with his depression, i thought he may even be suicidal. Every night i cry myself to sleep praying he will get better. I just hope he comes back to me one day, i dont want to be with anybody else and im willing to wait as long as it takes for him to get through this. Sometimes i tell myself to give up and that he only broke up with me because he doesnt like me but doesnt know how to tell me that. I get so confused and so upset, sometimes i cut my forearms because physical pain is easier for me to handle than the emotional pain which is tearing me apart. I hate myself so much sometimes, i want to help him, what hurts most is that i secretly know he is never going to come back to me, that makes me feel so alone. If you ever happen to read this tom, i love you so much, there is never a moment when i am not thinking about you. I am seeing psychologist because i am suffering from depression and have been bulimic since i was 13. When will all this end? When will the pain stop?

  • BARBARA

    Depression is self hate. Disgust. Fear. Pain. Lonliness. Shame. Depression doesn’t let you accept compliments. Depression allows you to remember insults only. Depression is a void you can’t fill. Depression is never being a part of anything. Depression is failure. Depression is knowing you’ll never be good enough. Depression makes you get up after you’ve been knocked down. Depression ………………

  • Alexander

    Depression is praying to God to let me die but never having my prayers answered. It is known that my actions will hurt my family but not finding a way out, it is knowing that I will die alone and welcoming it. who knows if this will be the only record off how I feel, only the next couple hrs/days/wks?

  • Sean

    What does depression feel alike? Depression feels like depression for eternity if there was no heaven, no impossible love that actually could engulf me and tell me every truth I believed about myself was actually a lie. That I was very much loved, that I had immense value, that I was meant for a purpose…..

    seanhart1@comcast.net

  • Tania

    I have been struggling with bi-polar disorder for about 15 years. But I am depressed most often. What it feels like is God decided to damn me with this horrible, unescapable cloak of sadness and despair. I have been on every med known, I think. My good friend recently told me that I needed a kick in the ass. Yeah, that helps. Thanks so damn much.

  • jhxg

    life is kinda fucked up , you stop doing E , weed and drinking and you think your life will get better but things just seem to stay the same and more problem occur.

  • Yogi Bear

    “It feels like you’re standing in a crowed room, screaming at the top of your lungs and no one even bothers to look up, no one cares.”

  • John

    Wow, first posted on here on May 8th. Was a very very depressed boy then. I’d had a real bad year and not long broken up with my girlfriend, which fucked me up a lot as well as all the problems I;d just ignored for years. However this Summer I’ve been very lucky and managed to pull myself back up to the level that you long to be at when you’re depressed. The first step for me was to stop taking drugs – every week I was getting through approximately 1/4 ounce of hash, 15 – 20 tabs of E, lots of whizz, lots of Ket and the occaisional line of coke, when i could afford it.
    That was a big acheivement in itself and since mid June, I’ve not touched a single thing, save alcohol. When I realised that I’d actually achieved something, I felt so much better about myself and felt confident to try and sort out the problems I’d been avoiding. Now I’m so much happier! I’m off to start University in a few weeks and I can’t wait.

    I just hope my success story shows that some people do come out the other side and do feel better!!!

    Good luck to you all, xxx John

  • Sean

    In my worst moments depression feels as if I have become an unemotional robot devoid of desire to taste, touch, smell, hear or see. I become mechanical. My spirit, mind and body crack, squeak, pop, and burst without any lubrication of joy or zest for life. I feel trapped in my own container……..however. I also know what healing and hope from depression feels like and everyone needs to know there is hope and healing available. But it can’t and will not ever come from circumstance or another human being, at least not with any permanency. Like I said, 6 months ago, I had no hope for my life and took a razor and made sashimi of both my wrists, up, down, left, right, diagonal deep cuts. My wounds looked like budding flowers as the skin peeled itself up from my veins and tendons. But I woke up. I couldn’t walk but I could climb 2 flights of stair dragging my body to a phone where I called for help. And that is how my journey back to hope started. In Hell but I know God refused to let me bleed to death. Today my heart and soul bleed with all of you who feel like killing yourself. You are loved by God and I. Call me or email me I will pray with you. Reach out if you want to live. It does require faith but even in our faithlessness or unfaithfullness, God is always Faithful to us in that he Loves us. And I love you my hurting sisters and brothers. I want to give you hope and comfort. seanhart1@comcast.net

    “I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble. When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way….Look to my right and see no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life….Listen to my cry for I am in desparate need…Set me free from my prison…” Psalm 142

    “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made…” Psalm 145:8-9

  • Amee

    I Am here now in my room,going online n feeling fine. Exactly 24 hours ago, I was crying uncontrollably, slashing my wrist. There’s this constant murmurs inside my head and i wish they would just go away. I always feel better after hurting myself..This is my depression. I wish Im dead every single time of the day. I wish, if anything bad was to happen, then it would happen to me n not someone who still enjoy this life. I get some kind of panic attack every day, and I feel ‘dead’, always..Im too afraid of talking to people because otherwise ‘guilt’ and fear would overcome everything and I would start crying. I withdraw myself from the people im close to, even my family, because I cant just be depressed the whole time in front of them, and I am REALLY tired of pretending..I get paranoid and anxious, and a big anger for not knowing why Im even like this..I wish that I would become my old self, having a reason to live again..

  • Star

    Depression feels like being covered with all the WEIGHT OF THE WORLD on your shoulders. Like every bad thing that happens is because of YOU. Depression feels like an ENDLESS NIGHT night. One that doesn’t allow a sliver of reflected moon for even a mooment.

    Depression feels like confirmation of all the BAD YOU’VE KNOWN ABOUT YOURSELF forever is now realized.

    Depression is a ticking clock awaiting DEATH. I think about suicide constantly. Can’t sleep no matter what I do.

    Depression is PAIN. I just want this neverending pain to stop.

    Depression is SCARY. I am afraid I will not have control and I will kill myself. I’ve already told my drs that if I do it, I’ll do it right. I won’t allow myself to fail because the pain from the failure would be deeper than the pain of now.

  • Dave

    To me depression is feeling distant. Its like you are watching your life through a video screen, able to see things, hear things, but just not respond how you want to. Things pass by, people pass by, people you would give your life for, but they don’t really care do they?
    Depression gives me chest aches, makes me run away from everything to be alone, and then collapse and weep. It makes everything seem so useless and empty. Worst of all, it makes the things we love so distant. The things that make us, and our lives, are separated from us by a condition we cannot control. I just wish I could have these things back, and they could see how much they meant to me. Maybe then they would love me back

  • Juliette Hansen

    This websiste is good for me. The person I wanted to be close to, who I thought was my close friend says she is too busy for me. She says I need to change my life and my expectations, Basically, she says she has no time for me. I am tired of this happening. I am so tired of everything. I am always climbing uphill. I need to have a friend, but, they don’t seem to need me. I have had two other close friends that I have had to leave behind. Now there are three. How can my life be filled to brim with casual aquaintances and no one who wants to take the time it requires to go deeper than that? I am so tired of being on the surface. When I go deeper, people run. Are they running from me because I am not worth being friends with? THis is what I think when I want to die. I am so tired of trying and if I died I would not work anymore and I could float. I want so much to rest and float. Like being on the water and safe from them hurting me. I am very caught up today in feeling I am not good enough to deserve relationships. I hate the person who has turned her back on me today. Yet, I don’t. I guess I just hate me for wanting it all. I wish I were numb and did not need friendship and could just function by skimming the surface like so many of them do. I want to cut out the part of me that wants more, because it can’t be matched up with anyone. Is this what depression feels like to me? Sure sounds like it!

  • Ryan

    Depression to me is like quicksand, the more you fight the faster you sink.

    If you don’t fight -your dead.
    if you do -your dead fast.
    If you ask for a hand, everyone that looks,
    States I not getting in there.

    In most cases I want to rebel them.
    Place my feet to the air.
    Head first in to the pit.
    Let it be done.

    But,

    In the end I usualy prove them wrong instead.
    Forever floting in this pit of sand.
    MY pit of sand.

  • Cyn

    Depression is like being held against the floor with a weight on your chest. It is difficult to breathe. You see people walking around, but you can’t seem to reach out to them to ask for help… and most of the time, they just walk past as you struggle in silence. You want to cry out, but you have no voice. Feelings don’t happen at the right times… like your wires are all crossed. Sometimes you want to lash out…but when you have pushed everyone away and are all alone, you have no one but yourself…to hurt. Or maybe someone is near… and you say or do something that you never EVER forgive yourself for… or forget. You think about it every day, along with so many other things. Imagine being locked in a room with several stereos all playing something different… a wall of Televisions… all on different channels… and someone standing beside you asking question after question….strange questions sometimes… berating you for your shortcomings….and you can’t turn any of it off, nor can you escape.

    You try to cheer yourself up by getting dressed up, maybe changing your look…. but even the most beautiful of ornate cages is still only an empty cage if the creature inside is gone. Depression is a wicked foe.

  • Sean

    Tenth Century Irish Verse
    Anonymous

    I’m ashamed of my thoughts and how they escape me.
    I fear dreadful danger on Doom’s endless day.

    They stray in the Psalms down paths not proper, run riot,
    make mischief in great God’s eyes,

    Through bustling throngs and flocks of wild women,
    through forests and towns more swift than the wind.

    One time they will travel by paths that are pleasant;
    by paths not so pleasant, I confess, at another.

    So crooked, they cross, the sea without ships,
    or spring in one leap from Earth up to Heaven.

    They run their mad races, near and afar,
    then return to their home, their wild wandering done.

    Though you try to restrain them or fetter their feet,
    they’re too fickle and thoughtless to try to stand still..

    No blade and no whiplash can keep them in place.
    They slip like an eel-tail out of my grasp.

    No lock, no arched dungeon, no fetters on Earth—
    No fort, ocean, bleak stronghold can hamper their course.

    Beloved, chaste Christ, who sees all eyes,
    gracious spirit hold them in check.

    Govern my heart, elemental dread God.
    Be thou my beloved, that I bend to thy will.

    May I join with Thee close, in union O Christ,
    Thou not thoughtless nor fickle unlike to myself.

    This is Sean again from Aug 11 posting. I can’t promise anything to anyone here about giving them hope or a solution but after reading many of the postings here and believing I am seeing more clearer in my life and that there are reasons and purposes to my pain and crap and suffering such as understanding and comforting those like me in this world, if you want to email me, I will listen and respond. I know it is impossible to believe/feel/live most of the time but if you want to talk to someone who has been through a father’s suicide at age 12, addictions of all sorts, bad relationships, spiritual darkness, guilt, recent suicide attempt (6 mos ago both wrists slashed), medication, Psychotherapy, books, prayer, Jesus Christ, marital separation, lust, loneliness, etc. then go ahead and email me: sphartemail@yahoo.com

  • lucy

    when i think of a depressed person i think of me cos thats all i feel, i feel so alone and sad all the time. ive been cutting myself on and off for bout 2/3 yrs but its got worse this past yr. i been drinking alot i also got into drugs at one point but havnt done that for bout a month now. everything good that happens to me seems to get messed up and its all my fault, im stupid and ruin everything which means i feel even more alone. i dont feel like i can trust any of my friends, wot if they r talking bout me behind my back or saying stuff to others bout wot ive told them. ive been seeing a councellor for a few months now, went to c the doctor to he is considering putting me on antidepressants if i go back to c him, but i hate going to the doctor, i cant tell him how i really feel,i feel silly sitting in the chair trying to explain how i feel wen i cant even explain it to myself. life seems so hopeless, an worthless, ive had lots of suicudal thoughts and bout how i would do it, ive come very close to it b4 now im scared if something pushes me over the edge i will go the full way.

  • ANGIE

    The people out there that do not have the contant sad and low feelings that I and most depressed people have are so lucky. Wouldn’t it be nice for one year out of your life to feel happy, yes still have normal stress but feel happy. Those people out there that do are so lucky. I wish I could walk in their shoes for one year of my life. Then they could walk in mine and see how lucky they really are.

  • thecloroxcowboy

    my 51st year is coming soon. for only what seem to be fleeting moments have i felt i “belonged” here. things you care about get taken away so often you end up not wanting anything anymore. even dying offers no relief or hope. there is a constant reminder that everyone else came equipped with something you lack. there is a constant stream of hostility and disappointment one sees in people’s attitude toward you.

  • Joe Pool

    No, I don’t have depression, but my partner does. I can’t seem to make her understand how much I care for her and that I want to help – or maybe she doesn’t care that I care. I really don’t know. I want to help. It hurts me to see her in so much pain and know that I can do nothing to ease it. I want to spend my life with her, but she feels that she would just pull me down with her.

    Is there nothing I can do? She has tried every kind of medication there is out there, and those all seem to make her feel like she is going crazy.

    I know there actually is nothing anyone can do about this, and I know there is no cure for what my baby has. Rhetorical question, I guess, but I ask myself that over and over.

    Thanks for listening. Thanks for this site.

  • Sean

    Depression feels like a slow but consuming malignant form of emotional cancer that has eluded healing or any long lasting typical treatments–the love of a parent, a spouse/significant other, the pursuit of pleasure, a career’s pinnacle of success, the love of God, a caring community of friends/church/support groups, medication, exercise, psychotherapy, counseling, kicking your dog, kicking your neighbor’s 3am barking fucking dog, graduations, travel, new experiences, yes even great food, sex and that one true love if you’ve ever been as bold enough to say you honestly know what true love truly is,….

    But enough of that, what about me? I just realized in the last 7 days that my suicidal dreams could not be cured even by having enough—money, importance, love, accomplishment, etc. And that is really depressing. I am stuck with myself and worst of it, my past hurts and mistakes that have impacted others. Suicidal tendency runs in families, I believe. My father was 38, I was 12, when he O.D’d on tranquilizers for his schizophrenia. Now I am 38. I cut my wrists 6 months and woke up unable to stand but I didn’t bleed enough—probably was that fucking cold cement garage floor. And yada yada, psych ward 9 days, outpatient counseling 3 weeks, yada yada, wife changes locks on our house door and we live in separate states now, and on it goes. Does the ride of depression begin before or after you get on? Is it the ticket of failure that gets you a seat or is it the sheer maddening helljoy once the ride is over? For me, it’s failure. I miss my “other” life I may I have had, had I not been who I am—I always wanted what I really never had–to be a husband and father that said “I love you” to his wife and kids. Who’d be there to provide, guide and encourage. Instead I have become what I had—alcoholic, addiction oriented, fiancially, morally, spiritually irresponsbile, hopelessly romantic, flawlessly bored with my shortcomings and ready to sacrifice my life for the one great love of my life, Beth, my wife of 9 years this September. I want her to have a second chance at life and love. To have children. To travel to Italy. To not worry financially….I want to get it right this time around but when is it ever the right time or place to end your life for another? Especially when you are not particularly brave like me. Or have God guilt about hell and suicide….that sort of thing.

  • wendy

    Imagine walking down the middle of the street with traffic coming at you
    from both sides. The colors of the cars are blurred and blend together. The sun
    is out, but not bright and seems almost as if a tinted pane of glass covers it.
    Sometimes you are walking blankly toward the fast oncoming traffic, as if you
    don’t even notice it is there. Other times you are paralyzed by enormous fear
    that everything coming at you is a threat. The adrenaline is pouring out into
    your body causing you to fight back, freeze, or run for cover. This is the state
    I spent the last three years going in and out of. I had a million excuses for
    why I felt this way, and why I could never seem to snap out of it. All of these
    were valid, tragic and stressful, but it would go on too long. I keep thinking
    when I get through this or that I will be better. I kept believing that it is
    just around the corner, but it is always, just out of reach. Most of the time it
    is as if there is a glass wall between the world and me and I couldn’t break the
    glass.

  • liz

    i always feel like everyone hates me, i can never do anything right, i am selfcontious. everyone says i am too pretty to be a ‘grouch’, and i need to smile more. but i don’t really think there is a reason to be happy, and i don’t think i am pretty but i have at least 7 or 8 guys that ask me out and they are all my friends. i have even cut myself acouple times, i know it is bad but when i did it i felt so good, and i am also on the verge of being anorexic. i just can’t help it i just get so upset that i don’t want to eat. i am trying to get help but can’t be on antidepressents because i am 15 an most of them could more suicidal actions. its like im in a tweilight zone kinda thing, everyone around me are all happy and im just not and it feels like i don’t belong.

  • Charlotte

    I feel as if I’m caught in a whirlpool. Constantly spinning faster and spiralling downward. I can’t escape. When that happens, I drink. It stops the spinning for a few days, then it starts again, even faster. I stop pretending and go into the darkness. So far there has always been someone there to pull me out.

  • Karen

    I feel like I am dying, both physically and psychologically. My entire body and psyche is filled with tormenting pain — so much so that I MUST DO SOMETHING to numb it. My brain feels like its trying to kill me. I am hopeless and helpless. I am dead… a walking zombie with neither a soul or physical body. I am like the clothes hung out on the clothes line flapping violently in the wind — with no direction, just clothes, empty and worn, without a body to fill them.

    My speech and movements are slowed to a snails pace, I stare in one place for moments to hours. I take to my bed as if it is my coffin.

    I do little, if anything, to live. I have no desire/energy to get out of bed, eat, take care of my needs like do laundry, put water in my dog’s bowl, cut the grass, answer the phone, use the bathroom (except when it is ABSOLUTELY necessary), bathe, and so on. There are many times that I tell myself, “Okay, on the count of 3, get up off the couch and go put the dishes in the dishwasher. One… Two… Three…” And, there I sit, my body fails to respond and I continue to sit and stare into outer space with the berating thoughts of “what the hell is wrong with you?” “why can’t you do a simple task like put one dish in the dishwater?”

    Sometimes I want, and have, hid in the closet with the door shut stabbing myself with the end of a wire hanger while I scream and cry my guts out. My one dog was very confused by my behavior the first time she saw me do this. She kept pawing at the closet door to get at me. I held the door shut so she couldn’t open the door.

    When the voices start, they scream inside my entire being “Doesn’t any body get it? I am hurting here! Is any body listening? Does any body give a fuck?” I need some comfort here and everyone turns their back on me and walks away. Ahh, but when they need comfort and support — it is my job to help them. All of this makes my head hurt and the room feel like its spinning.

    The toil continues. This dis-ease is cunning, baffeling, and powerful.

    Today, I suffer from suicidal obsession — my therapist says its my way of trying to deal with my pain. Going to a psych unit in a hospital does me no good — its only a place of containment. So I’ll have to cope any way I know how — finding this web site has helped.

  • phil

    It started when i entered high school. Everything was fine before;i had a perfect life up until 9th grade. Well, not really perfect but… enjoyable- almost everyday!. It actually started in 8th grade when i felt like everyone was changing, but for some reason i wasnt changing with them. By changing,i mean overall change- all ways but physical.I think i was supossec to…i mean, thats a part of growing up right? But i didnt. It was only when i experienced the way life REALLY is in high school that i did. I felt stupid, left out, naive. It was like everyone else was maturing and i was still a little kid, totally not ready for high school. I couldn’t write,(i used to be a good writer)and my vocabulary was fuckin’ horrible, i didnt know how to express myself at all. But worst of all, my best friend-my other half,my confidant,my bestest buddy ever whom i’ve known since 2nd grade, was slipping away from me too. She was suddenly into boys ALOT and wearing tight jeans and becoming more and more popular.We were so not like that, like everybody else. Yeah thats normal i guess,but it didnt seem so then.I was so heartbroken. It felt like i was being stabbed in the back, like she was leaving me, like she died and i could never communicate with her again.For the 2nd semester in 8th grade,i started to get really sad. I cried all the time, i hated everybody,and i couldnt talk;i couldnt say a single sentence without using the word “like” a million times and getting frustrated.

    I didnt understand what the hell was going on.Going to high school was about the only thing i was optimistic about;i didnt like that it was an all girls school, but i was excited to be going there. I thought that it would all go away when i got to high school but i was so wrong. When i got there, i didnt fit in at all. Everyone was so unlike me and the girls hated me. They were and still are disgusted by me. I dont know why though,i was a normal kid.They pushed me around and said nasty things to me, all of them except for the few friendly associates that i had.I started to become socially paranoid and anxious.I could no longer ride public transportation, i took cabs everywhere. I thought people were talking about me all the time even outside of school because i was so used to it.The pain that i suffered through that first horrific year there alone shouldve been enough for me not to experience ANY pain for the rest of my life. I was so helpless and depressed. It all happened so fast,i didnt even know what the hell depression was before i started searching online for crisis hotline numbers.

    For a while i was in a state of numbness.I wanted to die but i knew i couldnt. I knew that God would help me through it but for that year and 2 years after, I felt completely forsaken. I had absolutely NO ONE. Family, friends- no one understood.Countless nights i would listen to my favorite music and fantasize about living a normal teenagers life and cry uncontrollably after, tugging at my clothes and rolling around on the floor untill the cd stopped;thats when i would lay on the floor in the twisted position in which i stopped rolling for hours until parts of my body hurt because they were so numb.

    I’m still there. I’m still very depressed and lonely. Still no one understands,but i have the Lords guidance and you guys to talk to. I’m so happy that i am not alone. Trust in the Lord and He shall guide you and help you through life’s obstacles. Remember… depression is an obstacle that we must fight to overcome. We can do it!

    Thanx. God Bless

  • John

    Detachment. No emotions,I don’t care, it’s cold and calculating. I know what I have to do to change things and don’t even want to. I regret not pulling the trigger six years ago. Right now if I had it to do over the back of my head would be a wet spot on the wall. Yes I’m going through it as I write this. It’s hit hard over the last week. I’m 42 and I’ve done all the things you’re supposed to do. I’ve been persistent in following my dreams for eighteen years. It cost me the love of my life, but I stayed true to myself. Has the persistence paid off? Not a chance. I have to wonder sometimes why I’m even here. I was a mistake anyway. I really don’t feel anything, it’s like I’m not even here.

  • lisa

    I have been unhappy all my life, even in childhood. 12 years ago I was diagnosed with clinical depression and was very critical. I have since had so many ups and downs and so tired of it. I was just diagnosed as Bipolar but not very optomistic that the new med will help. I just broke off a relationship and I feel dead on the inside because we both made a connection with each other that has never been made before with anyone else. He wasn’t willing to give much. For the past 3 weeks I have been hiding under my covers never wanting to come out and keep thinking about all the ups and downs and how sick of it Iam. I do think about suicide. I’m tired of life and really don’t want to be a part of it anymore. I would like to know what it’s like to be normal and truly joyful. I have never felt truly loved by anyone. In relationships I get all the jerks. I’m so damn tired of it all!!!!

  • Stephanie

    http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/Understanding_Depression/understanding.htm

    if that doesn’t work, type on google “depression learning path” and be sure to read “understanding depression” because dude, this site is seriously the only thing that helped me. EVERYTHING ELSE IS BULLSH*T. you gotta learn to change the way you think and you need to understand the science behind depression. It isn’t about screwed up brain chemistry- its affected by worrying/built up anxiety which affects our REM sleep turning it into a vicious, preventable cycle. PLEASE READ THAT SITE. it changed my life. I know what you are all going through- depression has hit me on and off again in my life for the past 3 years and these last 2 months have almost killed me until i read it.

  • Stephanie

    For the past 2 months I have been severely depressed. At first it was just grief over the loss of a boyfriend who was essentially my ideal, my life, everything to me. From the start it was horrible. The day he broke up with me, i threw up about 15 times and couldn’t sleep. The next few weeks, I had no appetite, continuously vomited and was put into the emergency room hooked up to an IV because I lost so much fluid. Eating a small peach during that time would take hours- LITERALLY… i had a bowl of dried cheerios that I attempted to eat for days. I just couldn’t get myself to eat, and within a month, i had lost 10 pounds. I also became anemic because of this. I wanted to kill myself badly. If I had a gun on me at only point within these past 2 months I would have easily shot myself. I made due with suicide websites which disgusted me. While I really wanted to die, just reading them pissed me off. I didn’t want to relate to “those” people. I felt above them in a way yet at the same time had death constantly on my mind because I saw myself as constantly miserable without hope. I mean… depression isn’t seeing life as LIVING, its seeing life as a struggle to get by each day. its a form of misery where your mind is preoccupied constantly with anxiety, thoughts of how great my ex was- good “bad” memories, thoughts of how much i hate my life, how unfair it is, how each day is pointless/futile/worthless. I avoided everyone, was irritable to my parents. This entire 2 month period, I have done basically nothing but sulk in the house, hanging out with people only TWICE. You never want to do anything because nothing is fun anymore. Its hell. Looking at a suicide website with the desire to die is the worst possible feeling there is. My life was so shitty I wanted to drop out of college and just remain co-dependent on my parents forever because I felt like i’d never get the will to do anything ever again. The only thing that helped was reading about depression. I gave anti-depressents maybe 2 weeks and decided they weren’t helping. I tried therapy maybe twice. I hear cognitive therapy helps but the only thing that helped me was reading this website http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/Understanding_Depression/understanding.htm just understand what depression is, what causes those feelings, what i had to do to change about my thinking. this is honestly the only thing that helped in the long-term. i tried a stupid self-help book. it helped ONE day. just believe me, i wanted to die more than anything and now i feel fine. i realize that my anxiety was just a bad trick of my mind, that everything was. please just read that site. understand the science of whats wrong. infact bury yourself in science. it helps to understand things more than anything.

  • rhia

    depression for me is loneliness. absolute loneliness and hurt. it is like there is no one there for me. i met a guy on the john butler trio website and he was the best thing ever. but i got scared it would turn against me like everything has a tendancy to do and i pushed him away and in doing so i hurt myself as well. because i was alone again. he was a guy and i thought he would treat me like sh*t like every other guy does.

    i feel like i can trust no one. everyone i have loved and cared for hurts me. everyone. my family, my friends, my boyfriends.

    i used to be loud and obnoxios, then i had some really bad experiences. and after that, i changed. i became quiet, shy, let people walk all over me. they still do. everyone takes me for granted.

    i began to cut myself. i took a razor blade around with me everywhere. the teachers nearly called my parents. i got more and more lost and alone. i tried to kill myself four times. and i was deadly serious. i cried myself to sleep. i cut myself everyday. i burnt myself, i scratched myself, i bruised myself. i did anything that hurt. and began to lose a lot of weight and began to develop an eating disorder. my parents began to worry about me and because they were scared, they were harsh on me. they yelled. they threatened. and of course that made it worse. i hardly slept, i nearly failed my year. i was a mess.

    i began to drink a lot, going to parties i wasnt meant to so of course guys would try do things to me because i was so off my head. it it brought back all the memories of my bad experiences. i got worse and worse.

    and because my eating was so bad, my iron levels went down. i became anaemic. and becasue i was anaemic, i began to bleed constantly. i bleed for five weeks and two days. so mum took to the doctor and the doctor put me on the pill. i had a bit of trouble with the pill but i finally settled down and my weight piled back on. i’m not fat (though a little voice in my head tells me i am) i used to be ten kilos underweight but now i am two kilos overweight. i put on twelve kilos in two months.

    im no better than what i was. but i am still hanging in here and it has really helped to read all the experiences on this site. it makes me feel not so alone. i can relate to this stuff.

    all the people on this site, thankyou for sharing such personal things with people like me. and i want you to know, that i will be here if anyone needs me and we can look out for each other. because i can understand what it feels like to be utterly alone. so im here k?

  • Samantha

    As someone said earlier its all the same stuff! I am here with all of you, but our stories do differ alot. I wouldn’t say that I thought of killing myself, but I did want to roll into a ball and just die. This is my short story 🙂 It all started when I was prego lol I wanted to just go away I thought it would be ever for everyone. Then my daughter was born, and a feeling came over me and I remember telling my mother that I can do this I can be a good mama. Then at the end of June (almost 4 yrs later) it came back like a nightmare. I was terrible didnt want to be around my daughter I had this aweful anger at her. I didnt understand why? I love her so very much. I went to the doctor and they switched my meds up started seeing a counceler(?) and I feel that things are starting to get back to normal. People always compared me to the nun on sister act always happy always bubblely, but I dont feel like that anymore. My favorite saying is FOOTPRINTS “When there is only on set of footprints God is carring you” and thats how I feel right know he is carring me. I do not go to church, but I believe that I will get better soon. I have tried meditating and listening to severl self esteem tapes and we are worth it!!

  • Dana

    I found myself alternately crying and nodding in agreement with all of your different postings. I wish, just for once, my friends and family could walk in my shoes and understand how miserable and worthless this disease can make you feel. No one seems to “get it” though. I have every reason to feel happy and blessed. I recently graduated from college and have plans to attend law school in August, but instead of planning for law school all I can think about are ways to kill myself. People all the time tell me I’m beautiful, but when I look in the mirror, all I see are flaws. Every relationship I’m in I ruin because I never believe a man could really love me if he knew how fucked up my head is. I always think men only want me for sex and if they could only see how much more I have to offer, they just might love me. I hate my life. I can’t tell anyone how I feel because everyone views me as the strong one, the one who is going to be successful and have a great life. If they only knew how much time I spend on the internet researching ways to kill
    myself and mentally planning the note I will write to my parents. I think I have decided to pull my car into the garage and turn on the engine. I’m so scared to die, but sometimes I’m more afraid of living. Why are we like this? I’m never happy for long, the only thing that provides solace is alcohol. I keep thinking that one night I will just get really obliterated and then I’ll finally be able to start the engine in the garage and go to sleep forever. I will pray that God will get us all through one more night. Bless you all!

  • Amalea

    ever since I was a child I have been put down. I have been told that I am stupid, ugly, fat what have you. I have no recollection of most of my childhood except what my mother and sisters have told me. What I do remember haunts me beacuse it’s all the demeaning things that have been said to me. Now that I am older it hasn’t gotten any better I am still put down by my family. No matter what I set out to do they expect me to fail. In my head all that I hear is them at my ear saying it will ever work and I will never accomplish whatever task I am setting out to do. And you know what, I don’t, I fail at everything that I do. Throughout my whole life I have felt worthless and incompetent.I have never in my life felt happy completely. I am in a downward fall that never seems to end just keeps getting worse on the way down. Its not enough just to keep falling into oblivion but lets have her bash her head on some rocks and have branches stab her in the gut and poke her in the eye. As I fall bleeding it never seems enough. One thing after another. I have a few days when things seem to be ok, but it doesn’t last. Because for every one good thing that happens to me about five bad things follow. I have no friends, no one to turn to. I have been battling these feelings for more years than i care to count. I have many suicidal thoughts but never went through with them. I would probably fail at that to. I need help and have nowhere to go. My family thinks that if I home with them everything will get better and my bad feelings will go away. Please help, I am going out of mind with loneliness and despair.

  • Michael

    I am 32 now and have been depressed for probably about 12 years now. There really have been no good or happy moments in those years, and I honestly mean it. There are moments of less pain, moments of satisfaction with my work and efforts, but never happiness.

    I had a girlfriend in high school who I really was pretty crazy about. She was a grade younger than me so I started college a year ahead of her. It really seemed mutual, that there was something truly unique between us, and perhaps such a thing as “true love” existed. Late night conversations till 4am when we both had class the next day about anything and everything, daily phone calls, etc.

    Well it was pretty good thru high school. Then we both went to different colleges in the same state. Finally, after about 10000 clues and 6-12 months of downhill days in our relationship with me trying to put things back together she just breaks up with me. This was my sophomore year.

    My attitude toward life changed. True love no longer existed and could never exist. I thought I felt it but really was just deceived and played for a sucker the whole time. On top of breaking up with me she decides to rub about 50 different personal things in my face on the way out. Really a mean spirited breakup, like you aren’t good enough as a boyfriend and by the way I’m going to do my absolute best to make you feel as bad as I can on the way out.

    My view on human nature was forever changed. Someone who you put that kind of trust in to turn on you and become a bitter enemy for no reason. I had other girls who I dated later on in college, who would probably have been perfect under other circumstances but emotionally I had next to nothing to offer. I started doing drugs and hanging out with a bad crowd. I still got my work done and made decent grades, but I was heading down the wrong path.

    I went from being the quintessential “nice guy”, good manners, polite, everyones friend, the person who might even get walked on a little bit because hes so good natured, but still gets up smiling the next day. To a person with a serious meanstreak.

    Then after college I moved to NYC and tried to cover up my personal stuff with some serious ambition, i.e. throw myself into my work. My old girlfriend called me out of the blue I don’t even know how she knew I was there. It ended up that I think she just wanted to taunt me and made a point of telling me how many guys she had
    been with in college after breaking up with me. Well, I still cared for her at that point, and it was another blow in the face.

    My best friends all turned on me later as well. I don’t know if it was post-college jealousy or competition over careers or what, but I was AMAZED at how nasty lifelong friends from 2nd and 3rd grade through college could be to me. These were my best friends thru thick and thin, and turned into my worst enemies. I think about my girlfriend daily, and I think about my best friends who betrayed me daily. It is utterly impossible to be positive and look forward to meeting people now. The hatred and bitterness I feel for these old people burns in me every day. Most people look forward to things in life they enjoy but I look forward to seeing these people suffer for what they have done to me, that would give me satisfaction. My work is in research departments which is pretty isolating, and I never get to meet anyone. I hate my life and I hate the people who ruined it, I would like to see them suffer and experience true misery without end like I have. You would like to think that 5-12 years later after this stuff I would be over it but instead of me getting over it, it is more like this stuff has changed me permanently.

  • Michael

    Starting from the inside,to the inside out
    Filtering the sunlight,fade to dark
    No Heat,in a burning Sun
    A robber,who took the light
    then Nothing
    michael(of fishes)

  • D. Alan Cassidy

    I can relate to a lot of this. I constantly feel like I’m messing everything thing up. Like everything I do is a mistake. I don’t do much because I feel, either like I don’t want to bother, or like if I do I’ll just make a mess of it anyway. My current relationship is crumbling and I feel it’s all my fault. I have a councling apointment today, I’m going to ask about medication. If I don’t do something, anything, I’ll just fall apart.

  • jiggs

    depression really is so indescribable but ill try. it feels like someone close to you has died but you dont know who it is. you feel like all the things that make you feel at home and that you love feel alien… its like going to a foreign country with a map you cant even understand and you feel so lost and stuck. its so lonely and even if there are people around, you feel so alone. it gets tiring and confusing, and nothing goes right…..

  • brent simpson

    depression for me is like feeling of no hope and no one cares. going to work has become hard for me. lack of energy to do any thing. i find myself at times where i dont like to be around my family and friends. i stay at home a lot. i think of suicide at times is there any medications that can help me. for who ever reads this . thanks for your help.

  • shelly

    Depression is an awful creature that crawls into your inner space and if you allow it making a home. Sometimes when the clouds part for just a while and you forget the creature he is always there reminding you not to forget him. Locking the door of the creature only stablizes his comfort and he nestles down deep in your soul. The years have passed as I have tried to unlock the door to free this creature but nothing seems to work. I find now that acknowledging his existance takes away the surprise factor that he loves to use. I acknowledge every day that I must fight this demon and not allow him the power. I surround myself with healthy alternatives and laughter. I cannot be around other depressed people for the creature feeds on this. I understand what he needs for nourishment and I must use the opposite to exist peacefully and happily.

  • C.R.

    I just wish I could get the voice of family criticism out of my head. every time I see them they refresh it so that I never forget that in some way I am faulty to them. Im not doing something/anything right. Funny thing is, I am doing fine. Often better than they are. But listening to this my whole life, im the bad guy, has just dragged me down. I’ve had thoughts of suicide for 15 years plus! It even brought me here. I have tried to explain to them I dont think the way they do, I cant get a word in. I can give in or I can fight. So far Im fighting.

    I know one thing that is free and might help. exercise. go walk/run/cycle somewhere, breath the air, (hug a tree if you have to! 🙂 and build yourself. it does buy me time and my body then my mind appreciates it.

    dont let the b******s grind you down.

    good luck

    xo

    c.r.

  • Tim

    Depression feels like all the happiness has drained out of you, life is dull, grey meaningless. You dont enjoy anything, even things which you used to love.

    You are in a little bubble of sadness, you can see through the window happy normal people but you cant get there, you just cant make yourself be happy again.

    Its a life of coping, keeping going for other special people in your life in the hope that one day you will be better.

    A quote by Abraham Lincoln I think sums the feelings up exactly: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me”.

  • Dan

    I’d like to add another thing about the meds. When I started to take them,A friend who had taken them before wisely told me to let the meds give your head a break, when the meds start to lift your spirits (can take a few weeks) try to appreciate and learn. It gives you a chance to retrain your mind. Feelling bad is what it is use to, dont give it any more help. there is a very good chance that you wont even notice the effects of the meds except that some wieght has been lifted. You can still feel down, but things just seem to roll off you easier, and you begin to enjoy the aftermath of otherwise erritating situations. Retrain your mind, the meds can help. Please talk to any doctor, and he can help. We are all beautiful.

  • Crowdreamer

    The past few days have been especially bad. I feel like there is a hole in my chest where my heart has been ripped out. The rest of my body is numb. I cry non-stop when I’m not at work. All food tastes bland to me, so I don’t feel like eating. I can’t even sleep at night, but I still have to get up to go to work the next day. I’m about to get fired because I can’t concentrate enough to do the work, and it’s been like this for two months. The pain was so horrible last night I just wanted it to stop, I wanted to stop it any way I could. But I decided to get help before I did something drastic, so I called my friend and asked if I could spend the night. I just could not make it through the night alone. That really helped, at least for the night.

  • Angie

    Depression is like going through life straight.

    No drugs. Our Serotonin production is screwed up. It’s a shame that we have to have it to get through everyday life. We see things how they really are when we are depressed, I think.

    I felt better with Wellburtin, Tileptal (sp) and seroquel, but I recenetly missed some doses (quite a few) and now I feel like I’m getting depressed again. Hopefully not. Maybe I can reverse these symptoms if I get back on the right track.

    You can feel better! Hang in there! I mean feel really GOOD!

  • andrew

    Depression to me is a constant knowledge of the pointlessness of all things in my life. It’s looking over my future and seeing nothing but bleakness and misery. My whole life is a downward spiral, ever leading me to the same inevitable climax – death, by my own hand.

    Depression is sleeping for 14 hours every day, and still having a hard time getting out of bed. It’s those occasional nights when sleep is worlds away, and you sit up in bed, worrying about everything. It’s losing interest in all the video games and books that I used to be so enthralled with, instead spending the day worrying about little things. It’s severing all ties with old friends, and staying away from the parents whenever possible. It’s the lack of hunger, all day long, and having to force myself to eat anything.

    Depression is the ultimate cause of uncertainty and indecisiveness, robbing me of the ability to continue with college or work. Depression is breaking into tears over the smallest problems. It’s listening to ear-shattering metal all day at full volume, trying desperately to escape all the pain in my heart. It’s taking a knife to your wrist and pressing it into the skin, sobbing uncontrollably the whole time. It’s the reason why I refuse to believe in God – how could there be a loving, omniscient being watching over me, when I am in such great despair?

    Depression, to me, is the ultimate hell on earth, where nothing matters anymore and everything is so terribly wrong. It’s an endless abyss, and in that utter darkness, there is no hope of release. Only death.

  • Carrie

    It’s like I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be happy. Every once in a while I’ll feel happy again, for a short time, but it never lasts more than an hour or two, and then it’s right back to being miserable again. It feels like nothing good will ever happen to me, like I am doomed to have one miserable experience after another for all eternity. And I no longer have thoughts of suicide, because I don’t think even death can save me from this misery. If I thought it could, I would surely be dead by now. I just wonder, if there is a god, and if he/she really does love me, where is that love and where are the good things that are supposedly meant for me? I’ve been waiting all my life for good things to finally happen–I’ve worked hard, tried my best to live up to my integrity, tried not to harm others. I’ve been through years of therapy, schooling, healing, church and spiritual endeavors. Yet I cannot get away from the misery. I go through periods of time (usually several months) where I feel like things are starting to look up again, and then suddenly I get hit with unexpected debt, rejection, and abuse all at once and I have to slug through it all at the same time. This happens over and over and over. Will it ever stop? Will my life ever be stable? Will I ever have a family of my own? A partner who treats me with the respect I deserve? Children? Financial stability (at least be able to pay my bills even if I can’t save anything extra)? When I stand up for my right to be treated with respect, I am always alone. Then nobody wants to have anything to do with me. Nobody loves me when I ask for respect. Nobody cares. They could care less if I go to Hell if I’m not meeting their needs to the exclusion of my own. Where is the love?

  • Maya

    my heart feels like an open, festering wound and there is heavy pressure like bricks laying on my chest. some kind of strange anxiety is creeping up my back and over my shoulders. i just want to hide. i want to curl up in some black corner where i can block out the world and sleep or die.

    the past is pain, guilt, and regret. the present is empty, meaningless. the future hopeless.

    i am tired from the minute i wake up until i get back in bed. i am tired even if i sleep all day. i could cry at anytime. the tears are a tight lump in my through that is begging to burst.

  • adrian

    when i dream, i dream of life, i dream of happy times, i dream of lies, each and every night i lay and wonder how things went wrong, i feel cold, empty and alone, the saddest part of it all is that i know im not, i just can seem to hanlde the situation correctly, when im with someone i wish to be alone, and when im alone i want to be near anyone that is willing to listen, and that im willing to open to, the sadness is just to deep, i feel like every passing day gets worse, whem something is finnally taking the “right” turn somthing else comes in and crushes the hope away. ive had faith, ive hanged in there, and tried, still i feel cold, empty and most certainly different, like no one can understand me.
    ive been told that im a smart, and a great person, yet it doesnt seem to fit, i dont feel that way and by doing so i dissapoint myself.
    so depression is knowing that it could all be different, but knowing still that things wont change.

    “i stand alone, in the midst of rain, i stand alone with a heart in pain”

  • Bruno

    “Been here before…been there and done that, in the end, it’s all the same…pointless. My life, as I once knew it, is over. What I have left, is something that no one on this earth should ever have to endure on their own. Suicide…the end of all things, is as common to me as every breath of fresh air that I take. I don’t want to die…I only want to escape that which I can no longer stand in opposition to…the deathwish of my own life and the end of everything that the future holds for me. I am a living, walking, breathing statistic toward suicide…just waiting to happen. Tonight…I came home, alone…again. I got high like so many other nights in a feeble attempt to escape the mind numbing pain that I feel each and every waking moment of my life now. The only difference with tonight, is that I actually put the barrel of a .45 colt to the side of my temple. And in my fucked up drug induced stupor, I now know this…I actually pulled the trigger this time, only to realize, much to my sadness, that in my drug influenced trip…I seemingly forgot to load the magazine. Whether this was fate or folly, I know not. But…if there is anyone out there as fucked up as I appear to be, feel free to let me know one way, or the other. It would be nice to hear a voice in the dark…alongside my own.

    Posted by Glenat June 27, 2004 03:30 AM ”

    Reading what you wrote makes me think that it was me.

    I’ve suffered with depression for a long time, and can’t even remember when it started. I smoke cigarette and have become addicted to alcohol(it is the only thing that makes me have good feelings and dreams). I’ve been thinking of ending it, but I don’t have access to a gun. When I was 18, I actually had a strong belief that things would get better. Now I am 23 and completely pathetic. I live my days fantasizing about an alternate universe where I am the opposite of my regular self(great looking, very intelligent, and depression-free). My sister is great and I love her so much. She will do well in life and I am not worried. My parents(they are Portuguese immigrants and grew up in poverty but are now doing well) are a different matter altogether–My mother, like my father, is very un-educated and was never prepared to deal with a someone like me. She uses too much of her energy doing things that don’t help me. My father is a nice man and husband but still an ignorant, workaholic construction work. He hates, and criticizes me because he was raised with no education and a firm back hand. I hate him most of the time because I feel most of my negative genetics(looks/depression) come from him/his family–I can’t help but blame them for almost everything. Suicidal thoughts come into my mind daily. I don’t want to die, but since my mental/physical issues can’t be changed, it is the only way.

    I’m not aware if depression if related , but this is a list of other problems I have:

    ADHD
    Passive-Aggressive
    Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
    Inferiority Complex
    Shyness

    My looks disgust me. I put cigarettes out on my hands a year ago. Stretch marks on my arms and moles all over my body, big ear lobes and head(my mother’s fault for marrying/breeding with this dumb bastard–My mother and sister share great looks and I have to look like my midget, big head/ear short father) I can’t take it anymore. Short, ugly people should not reproduce!! My mother’s look-alike sister married an tall, dark, handsome and intelligent man. My cousin is 6’2″(unlike my 5’8″), handsome, and intelligent. He’s on his way to a great life with a beautiful girlfriend. I’m on my way to an early grave. Irritation/envy is part of my everyday being.

  • mysteriousM

    I’ve never been diagnosed w/ depression, but when you know you can’t even move w/out feeling empty it’s hit you…yeah i could tell my story …..but they’re all the same stories….it’s a disease that you don’t even know for sure if you have..everyday i wonder what i am or what i’m doing…or if this is even worth dealing w/…..you become distant w/everyone….it hurts to listen to people talk about it…it hurts to listen to music anymore…it’s like this void you just can’t fix…everyday it’s who am i going to hurt becuz i can’t feel any emotion….I CAN’T feel anything in my life i just want it all to end or change…but i’m stuck in the mud..and there’s no one there that understands…am i normal, will i be?!? it’s all questions and no answers..depression is the worst way to live…..

  • Susan

    Depression feels like you are standing on the edge of a cliff trying to decide to jump or step back. You are unable to make the decision. So you stare at the oblivion hoping to see some shred of light, some ray of hopefulness to push you to step back. But there you are on the edge, day after day, week after week, staring.

    You feel like the fish out of water, flopping on the shore gasping for breath, waiting for death.

  • Jen

    I remember reading somewhere that “Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds
    resources for coping with pain.” And I completely agree. I haven’t had much experience with depression, or with those who have it (my mom takes anti-depressants for her SAD, and I haven’t been diagnosed), but I do know that for the past three years, six months, and a couple weeks, I have felt hopeless, like I’m drowning, and that I have no reason to be here.

    I grew up in a nice home, despite the fact that my very first memory is of my parents fighting when I was six-months old, and that they divorced when I was 5. I was never abused, my parents aren’t alcoholics or drug-users, I guess you could say my house was picture perfect, besides the divorce.

    I have never touched alcohol or drugs, not even tylonol, and that could be partially because I’m a social reject, (I can count my friends and alliances on both hands), and I have been called names, poked fun at, and generally been tortured throughout all my years at school, yet, this still isn’t the reason for my self-diagnosed depression.

    The real reason is love. That’s what put me over the edge, sent me into the abyss, destroyed my life. I know it sounds stupid, and why should love cause all my problems, and I agree, since I have never dated anyone, nevermind the one that I fell in love with.

    Three years, six months, and a few weeks ago, when I was in grade 8, one of my best friends started dating one of my other good guy friends. She technically wasn’t allowed to date, so she invited me along on their first date to provide the cover of friends hanging out. It was during that date, their first of many, that I realized how I felt about my good guy friend. He was sweet, caring, sensitive, not to mention fairly good-looking. I was head-over-heels after about ten minutes into their date.

    Since he was one of my good friends, and dating one of my best friends, I couldn’t say a thing about how I felt. I repressed my feelings until they were in a little ball inside my heart. Eventually, about a month before the two broke up, I managed to tell my girl friend that I had a crush on her boyfriend, which wasn’t uncommon, since I developed a crush on her last boyfriend too, we thought it was like a running joke between us.

    I wasn’t able to tell her how I really felt though, and we never mentioned again. Then the two broke up and a few months later, me and my girl friend stopped being friends.

    And I was still in love.

    I found this fact hard to comprehend, since when I had developed a strong crush on her last boyfriend, it had stopped after a few months. I thought maybe it was because I was friends with him that I still liked him.

    After a few months, I just couldn’t take the pain anymore. I would see him everyday at school, and I couldn’t be anything more than a friend to him, and even that was on the rocks for a while when we both became really busy. Anyways, the pain would cause me to just stare at my ceiling for hours on end at night, or to create daydreams where him and I were together, and were happy. I began to just ask God to take this pain away, to help me get over him. The pain went away, but so did everything else. I felt nothing, I was an empty shell. Whenever I looked happy, I was really wondering why I was smiling, there was nothing to smile about.

    Grade 10 rolled around and my love moved to a trailer in the trailer park where I delivered newspapers. I began to see him on Saturdays, but that too stopped quickly. He would tell me to knock on his door whenever I delivered the paper, but I was too scared of seeing him, too scared of facing my pain again, so I never knocked.

    Another thing around this time, was that my bestest best girl friend moved to Mexico for 8 months, and then up to a town 6 hours away from mine. I was devastated, now I had no one.

    I found other friends, and kept in touch with my best friend, but I never really felt whole.

    Last September was when I really started to get scared. Everytime I heard of my love getting a new girlfriend, I would become jealous. But, of course, I wasn’t allowed to show my jealousy, so I squashed it down and added it to my ball of pain. Also, I started to recognize that a strong feeling of hate was beginning to grow in me. Hatred for everyone in my school, everyone in my country, everyone in the world. I couldn’t stop the hatred from growing, and so still it grows.

    Now here I am, newly appointed grade 12 student, a social reject, completely and utterly in love with someone whom I can’t tell, and also whom I’m going to grad with (Yes, I know, he asked me. It was the one purely happy moment in my life. Which is kind of sad when I think about it.) And also, I’ve begun to realize that we would be completely incompatible as a couple, since we are extremely similar, except for the fact that he’s more popular than I am.

    My depression is an ongoing thing, and I’ve definately contemplated suicide…But I have too much ‘good girl’ in me. I get good grades, I read, I don’t rebel at all….I’m sick and tired of it all…And this ‘good girl’ streak in me keeps me from killing myself. Another reason, however, that I don’t commit suicide, is love. Ironic isn’t it? Love makes me want to commit suicide, and love makes me not want to. It’s the same love by the way, love for my friend, for the boy I’m going to grad with as a walking partner, the boy who just recently told me that he actually sees himself and his current girlfriend growing old together and having children.

    A knife straight into my heart.

  • why_me

    I was once happy, confident and had a great girlfriend (the type you wait your life for), and this bastard depression slipped slowly back into my head. Changed all my thoughts to negative ones, clouded my memories so that I couldn’t reach them, stolen my smile and replaced it with emptiness and hid my common sense. I’m just an empty shell now.

    There is very little information about this illness, unless you research it yourself on the internet. I never knew waking up at 4am in the morning was a sign of depression, or losing interest in something you enjoyed was depression creeping back into your head.

    I would love to feel “normal” again, or to give my depression away to my ex-partner as she never took the time to understand what a depressed person feels so she could experience the emptiness for 24 hours. How can a “normal” person relate to this illness, when getting out of bed is a struggle. When there is no enjoyment in life – not even from a bright sunny morning or the smell of flowers. I can’t remember the last time I smiled, or when I felt happy in myself.

    Normal people don’t want to be around depressed people because it brings them down. I’ll remind them of that if I see one of them drowning and I’ll say “Don’t bother me, your spoiling my day”. We are drowning – not in our self pity, but from an illness that is inside our head.

    There is nothing on this earth that can be as bad as losing yourself in your mind. The mind is a powerful organ and great when it’s working, but when it flips out, you can be thrown into hell on earth until you can find a way out.

  • Mac

    Well, I haven’t been diagnosed yet, but I am certain I have depression. I am getting married in Oct., just bought a new house, a new puppy, and even got a raise at my job. However, I feel as though I am being haunted (or hunted, rather?). I feel undeserving of marrying this wonderful and can’t help dwelling on some of the “terrible mistakes” I’ve made in the past and in our relationship. I feel like everyone will be at the wedding thinking, “What a joke!” I feel guilty for even laughing nowadays. I immediately remind myself that I’m not allowed to be happy. Then, I cry, longing for the innocence I feel as though I’ve lost forever. Sometimes, I almost feel like a perfectionist…like I can’t get married unless I can go back and erase the bumps in our relationship. I also feel like I’m looking for a reason for my life to fall apart. Maybe I’d be happier alone…it’s ironic because I’m lonely, but too intimidated to contact the friends I’ve lost touch with. It’s a scary, out-of-control feeling…

  • Ben

    I think trying to describe depression is, well pointless, as far as a feeling goes. I think of it as a disease or an addiction take you can’t overcome.

    I have the usual sad story. As a child, I grew up with a father who would rather get drunk and gamble, then spend time with his son or pay the bills. This is probably the beginning of the problem, because through his neglict, I developed a codependence issue, but any ways. The emotional abuse went on through out my childhood and into my teens. Not being able to understand why his son wanted to skateboard or be different, evenually led to physical abuse. I remember the first time. I was working full time and going to college full time. He ask me to clean my room, and in my crazy life, I didn’t have time. I am finishing my physics homework, and I got a physical demo on Newton’s Laws because I had not got to the room. Fun 🙂

    Adding to the plot, during these troubling times, the only true joy in my life was about to go so wrong. I loved and still love my exgirlfriend, Heather, more than any thing I have ever known. I know one’s memory can’t be trusted to be corrected, because we subconsciencly change things, but I still remember the first day I saw her. I would love at first sight. We were in highschool then. I was 15 and she was 16. We started dating about a year later. Things went great for the next 2 and a half years. Yeah, we had fights, but there was a chemistry that was so strong. I know, u are saying the first love thing, but we were no each other’s first loves, but we bonded on a different level, or at least I thought we did. In the summer of 98, I was working full time and taking a summer course in college, so we went from seeing each other everyday for almost 3 and a half years, to only getting to see each other on the weekends. I started noticing her acting different, and then the bomb dropped. She had be cheating on me with one of our good friends. I was shattered. I trusted them both so much, that even when all the evidence was in my face, I never saw it. It was like a child’s innocence, that was stolen. So here I am, 19 just in my 2nd year of college, 4.0 student. I had a plan. Everything lined up, and then it starts to break. My exgirlfriend who is 21, is sleeping with one of our friends that is 15. This kid grow up with me. He lives a block away…. Being the strong person I was, I try to keep going, but evenually I crack. Between my father and her, it was too much. I could go into a lot of details, but lets just say, this person, who was suppose to be my soulmate, well would sleep with him, and then drive down to my house and want to hang out. Things of that nature. Finally, I can’t take it. I decide, I must die. That is the only way out. This was a hard decision for me, one of my good friends had taken his own life just 2 years before. I had seen what it does to families and stuff, yet I was selfish and thought that it was the only way. I overdose on a lot of meds. The irony, I think Gods way of saying he will give me something to be sad about, is that half the pills were anti depressants that may have caused a chemical imbalance in my brain. Back to my sad story though. Here I am, dying…I feel myself slipping away..the only thought I have is her..how much I love her…how happy I was…and then nothing. I have no memory of the next 24 hours, but some how my father found me, and took me to the hospital. The doctors said the whole time I was out, all I did was cried out for her..sad….Jumping forward a bit.. Rehab, doctors, drugs, etc.. I try to put my life back together. Somehow, my grades stay good enough for me to get into Georgia Tech., which is a wonderful school. Everything is going in the right direction, and then, she finds me. Breaks my heart again, and I start missing classes. Then I get myself kicked out for a semister. Parents, make me move back home, back into the middle of everything. This is the Fall of 2000. I was in my third year of college, 68 credit hours, where I was suppose to be. Once I got back into all this crap, almost 5 years has gone by, and I have 102 credit hours, and 2.46 GPA. Somehow I have stayed in school, yet I keep coming apart. It is not that I can’t do the work, when I can focus on my school work, I make all As, but it never fails that my old friend, depression, will come along and win.

    So here I am…years later, a shell of the man I was. Everyday is the same…pointless. All my plans and goals are still there, yet just a little too high. I build a little ladder, grap one, and try for another, just to fall back down again. I am full of pain and anger. Yet with no opinions. I have been on meds for 2 years now. Tried almost everything, but in the end, no matter how hard I try, depression always wins. I have tried to reason my way out. Almost everything can be solved if u try hard enough. It is in my nature being a dual major in Math and Physics, but this is one problem that I can’t solve. The sad thing is, I want to live. I have seen so may people throw everything way on drugs and stuff. I know people who have been through all kinds of crazy stuff, and can look and smile at u. I can’t. My best friend, just got out of jail, after 6 years. After everything he has been through crack and jail, he is happy to be here, yet I sit next to him, and can bearly even laugh with him…I guess I am starting to just go on without a purpose, but that is kind of the problem…it is how I feel.

    I am losing hope that I will ever be better. I have some good days, but the thoughts of all the things that I have lost over the past few years is unbearable. So much time, just wasted..Last night, I was so close to death. I was mad because I past my exgirlfriend on her way to her to his house. I lay in my bed, alone on another holiday. The only thing that stopped me this time, is my love for my dog, believe it or not. It is sad, but I love that dog so much… Anyways, it is like I look at life. I am closer now to getting back on track than I have been in years.. I am doing good in school for the first time in the longest. Might finish, soon… Yet, the grey cloud is still there. I want a life again. I want a family, yet I drive every person away, becasue I can’t open up any more.. All this, and I still have not really made a point.. I could have really answer the question in one sentence, but it was good to vent a little…

    Depression is like a meth addiction, only 6% of the people ever overcome it to live a normal life.

  • Paradise Gone

    I am 37 years old and have suffered from depression as long as I can remember. My mother left our home when I was 9 and I was left to care for my dad and two brothers. For most of my life I have felt as if everyday was just another day to get to the next one and so on and so on. When I had my children I just wanted to die I thought about lots of ways to kill myself and just end it all. The times when I should have been happiest I was the most miserable. I shut everyone out of my life, and probably still do to a point, most of the time I don’t want my family (other than my husband and kids) around me because they know. I enjoy being out of it way too much. From the outside in you would think that I was very normal I hold down a good job, I have two great kids, a lovely house and a good husband but none of that changes what is in your head. Last Friday my 10 year old son was diagnosed with depression and I know I have to be strong for him because I don’t want him to have the life I have had. He has always been difficult since he was a baby, I have always tried to make life easier for him because I guess deep down I always knew he was just like me. Truthfully I am probably the strongest I have ever been in my 37 years but since Friday I am starting to fall down that black hole and feel like taking my children and running away from life itself. I don’t want to work I don’t want my marriage and I don’t want my family. I know I should contact my doctor but it is just to hard. Here we go again…

  • Robert

    Depression is having nothing to look forward to that will brighten your outlook on life and enable you to experience joy. Joy that once filled your life is gone. You experience nothing but loss everywhere you turn. Even when you do achieve a goal, it still seems meaningless, as do all other things in life. It rips out your guts and stifles your soul. It is a living hell on earth while you wait for death to come so you can be free of this horrible feeling. The only thing to look forward to is a life in heaven, free of pain and agony, but I have been taught that it is wrong to take your own life because then God will not take your soul there, but instead, will send it to Hell, where your pain of depression here on earth pales in comparision to the agony that you will suffer for eternity. So I wait out my years, going through the motions of living one empty day at a time, praying that I will enter eternity and be in the presence of God and everlasting joy forever.

  • Sarah

    I don’t know if I have depression or not for sure, but what I can offer is the way I feel. The way I feel is hopeless. My days are spent in this state of chronic despair. It’s like the sun is never going to come out again, and the worst part is that I no longer care if it does. My parents don’t understand either, and that makes it all the more difficult to feel this way. Their favorite phrase being “Sarah is having one of her mood swings again.” Others being “Sarah is always so miserable…Sarah has such an attitude…Sarah learned to cry the day she was born and she hasn’t stopped since.” I don’t understand it. I didn’t think that I’ve done anything to hurt them but the more they say things like that the more worthless I feel. I’ve tried to talk to them about this but nothing has become of it. My father and I don’t speak often and he seems to think I “hate” him. My mother always says that I give her a headache whenever I try to say these things and seeing me cry makes her feel guilty. So she looks away. I don’t think anyone really understands what happens to me on the inside but what’s unbearable is the fact I do know and can’t stop it. I feel like dying and I do not fear the end. Should I fear the unknown? If it is better than this then I could not. People seem to think that if one has “so much to live for” they should only want to live and never ever think of death. I feel as if I have failed this lifetime in some way and a close would not be unwelcome. I wouldn’t commit suicide but death in itself does not strike me as an unhappy thought. I just thought I’d post this in case it helped anyone else. I can’t help myself but I can at least try to be useful to others.

  • Emptiness not Darkness

    Emptiness, I can not feel my soul any longer, it to has left me. I breathe in, breathe out that is all I have left to do. When that is gone so will I be, once again with my soul.

  • Anotheramy

    Living behind a mask!
    Wondering if you are really who you are!
    Black clouds and torrent rain.
    One big pain in the ass
    Hating yourself endlessly

  • trr

    it feeels like iv got no friends, no one to talk to and no life.

    even typing at this keyboard is taking all my effort not to collaspe in agony and cry myself to death.

    i am a pot smoker and i think that is what has caused all this pain. its all self inflicted and now all i want to do is die

  • anonymous

    i am only 15 but i have had depression since i was about 7 years old when my mum tried to kill herself i dont know how to explain it it is just all i want to do is die everyday and when nothing is happeningand i am alone i cry for no reason and think of everything bad when something good happens i dont always take it in and i dont see the good side of things i never speak my mind unless im talking to people on the computer or when im with my best friend but then i ramble on about death and we usually end up arguing which i hate but i know she understands which is hard for her i know because not even i understand this hell of a life which is mine i have always had a loving family but was bullied a lot at school and stuff i am very moody a lot and angry and when i lose my temper i take it out on myself and i also break things whic is bad and very dangerous but at the time i dont realis and after i cry for hours because i worry i may hurt someoneelse but i dont know and i never mean it i just dont know how esle to cope and i am very shy i dont know why i am like this why me i want something to make me happy (which will propbaly be my death) and i know it wont i am afraid i will kill myself soon i hope everyone here does get their lives sorted and be happy

  • Robert

    After losing the love of my life due to outside influences, I have been in a constant state of depression with absolutely no interset in anything or anyone. I am continually engulfed in despair, hopelessness, and complete loneliness. It is truly a living death. A normal death would be welcome; suicide would destroy my child emotionally. I have been on two anti-depression meds; about like drinking water. Cannot focus on the present for thinking about the past. Would like to run away from my own mind and escape into something better.

  • Lisa

    Depression is feeling like there is always a dark cloud hanging over your head. It is episodes of feeling like you are just skin and bones and that nothing inside of you really matters, that you are worthless. It is feeling that you aren’t good enough for the world and have no hope to ever be. It is thinking about how someday you are going to die and that you don’t really matter. It is contemplating what the point of life is. I have been on medication and it really helped. I felt like it lifted the cloud that followed me around. I have gone of the meds because I was pregnant but I think I have to go back on.

  • Lost and scared

    I feel The same way Balm feels. Everyday I put on this fake smile so no one will ask what is wrong. Everyone tries to help me but the truth is I have given up on myself. I have lost all my will power and I have no more effort. It is not fair to me. I just want to scream. I want to be let out of this black hole of hell. I have given up on God because i dont understand why he is putting me and so many other people through this. I didnt think i did anything wrong. May be everything i do is wrong. I am so lost and the fake smile can only last for so long. I have already planed out how i can die and i am just waiting for a rainy day. This black hole will come to an end. I will not have to wonder what people say about me. I wont have to be alone anymore. I wont have to cry anymore because my heart is being killed and my mind will never stop thinking if i am crazy. I will be able to smile when i want and how i want. And the funny thing is for once i dont want to know what happens to someone after they die. Peace is what happens. Thats the way i see.

  • balm

    Depression feels like everyone is against you and everything in your life is wrong and you’re a failure. I’ve been feeling this way since my childhood, I’m now 32. My family thought I am just difficult to handle, that I have an attitude problem. I felt so different from my siblings. I felt so alone. I felt so unloved especially by my mother. I used to spend my childhood afternoons on top of our house’s roof. Just lying there, thinking, wondering why am I so “negative & different”; staring at the clouds, mountains, sky, wondering how come they are there & why are they colored like as they are. Am I insane? There were voices in my head; they talked so fast, as if they were in a race. There was “water” behind my head, like a waterfall. Is it normal?

    I haven’t been diagnosed and I’m not into any medication coz I haven’t seen a doctor. I’m afraid of the stigma attached to this illness. If I see a doctor, my friends and relatives will know that I’m mentally incapacitated. They will be shocked! I’ve been living a lie all this time. My friends and relatives see me as a happy person. I’m just pretending that I’m happy. It’s so hard to pretend. It’s so hard to live daily. I’m overwhelmed to do ordinary things, like cleaning my room, brushing my teeth. I easily get irritated with my family. I thought they’re talking about me behind my back. I’m a burden to them. I think they’re better off without me here.

    Medication and therapy will be costly. I don’t have money. My father will be financially burdened with me again. I wanted to leave my family, go somewhere else where no one knows me and start a new life so I could make it right this time. Or just leave this world so I could finally rest and my family can get rid of me.

  • teresa

    it is a giant black hole that swirls around and around and sucks you down. it’s like being the walking dead…i have no feelings…i cannot cry….small talk at work is torture….it’s all so fake…it just all feels wrong.

  • alexa

    Nothing feels good anymore, everything is fake, and meaningless. Time passes so slowly, it’s almost unbearable. Nobody cares about me, or understands me, most don’t even believe me about being depressed, and how can i really blame them? I’ve been nothing but a burden to everyone my whole entire life…. It feels like if someone I know adds one more ounce on the weight I am carrying around on my back, I’m going to collapse, and I hope I do. I often burst into tears when this happens. Anything even slightly critical triggers it, sometimes even friendly comments trigger it. It feels like the world would be a better place without me because I ruin everyone i come into contact with.

  • Sarah

    Depression to me, is the world storming over you and feeling as if nothing can help or stop it. It builds up, gradually, the stress, the anger, the chaotic uncontrolled emotions until I just want to tear it out of me. Its like going through the day, each and every day, with friends or being alone, either way it always follows, it makes you feel alone even in the midst of laughter with friends. I can smile, even when not fake, yet their is always this… heaviness weighing me down, even if no one can see it. It makes me feel weak, both pysically and mentally, even if people see strength in me.. I just don’t… To me that is depression.

  • Amanda

    Depression drowns all my thoughts and emotions and makes them all negative and depression makes me tired and bitchy alot.. I hate depression.. i wish i could ecape..

  • Sergio

    Depression puts my body at ease and my mind in hell. The body is too lazy to help itself and the mind is too busy hating itself. You just float through life taking everyone else’s **** because your too busy remembering why you suck every moment of the day. love destroys you, fear means nothing, and materials like money mean less. if anything high risk comes my way like purposely forgetting to turn my air on in the scuba tank i jump all over it. if someone notices(which they did) then who cares, this prolongs the inevitable. All the people i know look for something in life that really makes them feel alive. I look for something to make me dead. maybe im lonely maybe im heartbroken maybe i have multiple personalities fighting each other. either way, death can’t feel this bad.

  • kylalynn

    Depression is the most dreaded feeling i can have.Wakeing up everyday with a different hat on.The children afraid to speak to me because of the unknowing emotion rage inside of me.The really hurt to put on a fake smile to keep my front with people.Medication is only false hope!

  • Tom

    Heh….. where do i begin?….. i can be feeling fine, and then i start thinking of everything. things go so fast and then slow. then i cry, most of the time i have no reason why. i feel as if i cant talk to anyone, that my life is a steamy pile of ****. at times when im in one of those moods, which is usually almost everyday, i feel that my girlfriend really doesnt love me and that everyone is looking at me and that i can never ever be right….. i think about my future and i want things to happen in my favor, but i always doubt it. thinking that it will never happen. im not on any medication ive actually never been to the doctor. my girlfriend gets upset when im in one of my “moods” and that makes me even more sad… because i love her so much and i feel that she is all that i have.

  • Fiona

    I feel like my life is so pointless. I feel like I am going to be just another person who was born then dies, with leaving no mark in the world.

  • becky

    It’s always wondering that if in some “parallel universe” you might actually be living a happy, care-free, productive, loving, “normal” life?????
    Because you know for sure that the life you’re living here is awful……………

  • Glen

    Been here before…been there and done that, in the end, it’s all the same…pointless. My life, as I once knew it, is over. What I have left, is something that no one on this earth should ever have to endure on their own. Suicide…the end of all things, is as common to me as every breath of fresh air that I take. I don’t want to die…I only want to escape that which I can no longer stand in opposition to…the deathwish of my own life and the end of everything that the future holds for me. I am a living, walking, breathing statistic toward suicide…just waiting to happen. Tonight…I came home, alone…again. I got high like so many other nights in a feeble attempt to escape the mind numbing pain that I feel each and every waking moment of my life now. The only difference with tonight, is that I actually put the barrel of a .45 colt to the side of my temple. And in my fucked up drug induced stupor, I now know this…I actually pulled the trigger this time, only to realize, much to my sadness, that in my drug influenced trip…I seemingly forgot to load the magazine. Whether this was fate or folly, I know not. But…if there is anyone out there as fucked up as I appear to be, feel free to let me know one way, or the other. It would be nice to hear a voice in the dark…alongside my own.

  • kaye

    When all the world seem hopeless, all your dreams shattered, and the only person whom you trusted to be with you always has left you with nothing. Life really sucks. Just when you thought everything’s alright, surprise!!! It’s not.. It’s like holding on to nothing and you just want to let go but you can’t because others will be affected – this is also depressing, when you wanted to end your misery(read:life) and you still think about the burden of guilt you will inflict to others…

  • Hector

    Depression to me is a nightmare in the middle of the day.It’s like everything around me can be perfect; the sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky,the birds are singing.But my entire world is crashing down all around me.I have done many things in my life that I’m ashamed of and still at times continue to act this way.I was diagnosed a few years ago with ADHD and I believe that this has been the source of all of my evil,whether for real or just in my mind.Although I have a good career and a family that I know loves me and I still feel like a total failure.I truly believe everyone would be better off without me.If I didn’t have a family that needed me and relied on me I think I would have offed myself a long time ago.

  • M

    Depression is a thief in the night that robs you of your very being. It takes and takes and takes until you can give no more.It locks you in a terrible exile of which it seems like there is no escape. It controls you and taunts you. It makes you doubt yourself. Someone ( medical researchers ) needs to take this evil thief from us.

  • Anni

    Depression to me is as though, death comes a long and opens its gapping mouth and closes its jaws around my head, there is darkness, pain, hurt, nothingness.. I forget happy times I forget that life is possible and all i want is to die. I’m actually incapable of remebering joy during those times, I know it exists but the physical memory is blank. Some days I walk in sunshine and forget my monster and others where I see shadows and fear the return. I cry because I don’t know how long I can hold on and not succumb to my internal death. And when I’m in the dark how far can I go into the abiss and return? Each time it leads deaper some new pain is found, nothing logical, once one anguish I learn to deal with another comes.
    All I know is I can’t let it take me, my family cares about me and it would destroy them should I choose to take those steps, I never have, and I love them to much to hurt them so much. Just because one thinks of death doesn’t mean you have to act on it. Suicidal thoughts come and go but I have to ignore them no matter how strong they are. I know if I don’t have something to do almost every minute the day I get sucked into a downward spiral, to distract me, to keep me in the moment and out of myself them I’m fine.
    I’ve been on medication for almost a year now, the throbbing pain in my head is gone, it can return if I go down to long. I don’t know what the answer is going to be.. maybe one will never come. I have to exist in the present thats all I know, or can deal with.

  • Fem

    So..I have finally forced myself to recognize that what I am feeling is not something I can snap out of. This is not some silly mood that I can just put aside and move on from. No, this is something that is the polar opposite of just that. I have lost the person that I am on the inside to the world around me. I am crying..always, and for everything. I feel alone and unloved, and as if I were not to exist, that no one would notice, let alone care. It’s incredibly difficult to feel so alone, but I am working on getting better. I never thought that this would happen to me, that I would be, “depressed,” but I am making it a point to make it through..and be okay in the end. There is a solution to every problem, and I am searching to find the solution to probably the hardest thing I have ever had to face in my entire life.

  • Julie

    Being depressed really suck.I don’t like things I once used to and the whole world anoyys me.Sometimes when Im watching tv I get really pissed off at all these happy people and it just makes me sick.Sometimes I just throw a pillow at the tv.I hate being depressed.Everything makes me mad.Sometimes i turn violent and deadly.Sometimes I just crawl into my little world were everything is fine and dandy only to wake up and realize its not.

  • LithiumQueen

    Great life. 4 beautiful kids, loving husband, supportive family…happy home…Miserable me! Where do I fit into this picture of happiness? When do I get to feel it? When do I get to run care-free outside laughing and playing with the kids enjoying life’s precious moments? When do I get to stop dreading the next breakdown? The next moment of rage? The next long night of no relieving sleep? The next wasted day lying around wishing I had the energy to move? “Mommy, what’s wrong? Do I make you sad?” When will they stop asking? Why do they need me? Won’t they be better off without me? What do I have to offer them? Anger? Rage? Misery? “Mommy’s tired again today” “Mommy’s sick again today” “Daddy, why does Mommy keep crying?” They’d have to be better off not watching me go through this. “Snap out of it!” I say “Get over it!” I say. It doesn’t work. Nothing works. Nothing works out right for me. I can’t do anything right. Even if I tried, I’d just fail. Or quit before I could fail. I’ll just sleep a little while. Can’t even do that right. They need me. They depend on me. They don’t know me. They don’t see me. I don’t know me. I CAN’T see me. I wish I could. I wish I could…Smile. A real smile. A heartfelt smile. Like when they were first born. Like when I thought my life would be great. But it is great…it just doesn’t include me. Left out, all alone in a house full of people. Sad in a happy time. Down with no where left to go and no way to pull myself back up. Lost! Alone! Sad! Here but nowhere! And on to the next day! Hoping it will be better…Knowing it will not…Living with it still the same. Maybe they won’t grow up to be this way. Maybe they will love me enough to be different, maybe they will hate me enough to be happy! Maybe, I can smile one day! Maybe! Maybe!

  • Sherlynn

    Depression is: not wanting to feel, not wanting to know, not wanting to exist. It is looking at a rainbow – the sun’s energy reflecting off the multitude of tiny rain droplets scattering the color spectrum of red,blue,green,yellow across the sky; the morning sun rays gently peeping out from behind white, whisping clouds and falling upon the calm ocean waves leaving a shiney, glistening sparkle — and not seeing or feeling the wonder and beauty, only darkness and numbness. Depression is a living death in hell that never ends.

  • Jakki

    I am currentley recoveing from anorexia and recentley this strange evil feeling has taken over me. It scared me at first- thinking that i was schizophrenic and all sorts. I came out of a mental health unit that treated me for my eating disorder for over a year. I am now at home. I eat well but still have my little ways with food, which is very hard to admit. I find it hard admitting i had a eating disorder. As the eating side of things sort of settles down a bit this other sde is creeping in. It feels really awful. I feel worthless and i look at other people and wish i had their life rather than mine. I don’t understand why they don’t feel like this.

    When i was at the unit i saw alot of peple come and go, all with different problems which included depression, schizophrenia and anxiety etc. I think seeing people with other mental illnesses didn’t do much good as i am quite a paroniod person and i then started to belive i had these disease. I have been searching on the net to find out what the hell this feeling this and this website is very useful.
    I don’t know if anyone else feels like there’s another evil person type thing in your head but i sure do. I know i’m not schizophrenic as i don’t portray any other symptons. I feel lonely like no-one else has ever felt like this before. I wish i could be back to my happy myself i was a couple of years ago but it just seems so far away. I also am very obbsesive. I find my depression is worst in the morning. I try to block it out but it fights back. I am not currentley on any sort of medication but i hopefully am going to get some as i feel it’s the only way to stop this over-powering feeling. Please if anyone else feels like this write back! I am so desparate for someone who can relate to me. I will post another message agin soon to tell you more on this awful feeling iside my head.
    thanks!

  • Melissa

    Being depressed to me means “flat” not happy not sad just flat. I dont eat, shower. I do not live in the moment I go through the motions.

  • Confused SRB

    Depression is such a well known word to me. It is mostly built up feelings. I hate to show my feeling to everyone because it hurts so much. My feelings are all messed up and i just stopped caring. You just feel like giving up on the easiest things in life. Well i am at the point of just giving up. But my friends are holding me back. It kills me inside knowing that they know about what is going on in my head. The feelings inside are like HELL. Its inside you and all you want to do is to kill it. Everyone that trys to help you, you push away. I Say i DONT need help and that i am perfectly normal. I am fine. I cant accept the fact that i am not okay. I need help but i dont want it. I think i will get it soon though because may be these feelings are just getting the best of me…
    All you want to do Is punch a wall to get rid of all these bottled up feelings. I say hit the damn wall as hard as you can. I did it and it hurt so much but it helped me a little bit.
    I want to say thanks to all the people who wrote on this web site you have helped me realize that i am not ALONE. I know there are people out there that feel the same way i do.
    Thank you everyone

  • LivingDeadFear

    I am talented, black, and bisexual. I have no one to support me emotionally. Im afraid to come out with my bisexuality because people still hate the gay community. and often times I have to deal with the hate of racism(even in this day and age). I have tried and failed to make a name for myself in music, and art, everthing I have done to make a name for myself hasnt come to fruition. I long to have love and family in my life but I really have no one. Im tired of being so alone that death seems like a way out. but the thing is Im afraid of eternal damnation should I kill myself. Fear is what keeps me alive. but somedays the fear dosnt seem so intense.

  • Sandra

    I’m only fifteen and the pain is just so much that i’ve grown an immune system to it. At first the pain is so much, so acute, that you just cant breathe; then slowly you become numb unable to care or feel. Nothing matters anymore right? I’m gonna be gone soon enough. There migh be hope and i can get help but i dont want to. i dont want to see the world as a better place again and place myself up just to fall down again. i prefer to see the world as it really is, cold and unfeeling, i dont really want to die but it’s my only way out. My only way out.

  • Jimbo

    Hello, friends, I am still here. tried to get away, but failed again. Felt pretty good for a couple of days, then gloom again. Kinda don’t give a flip about nothing. Pilled up tonight, and 4 beers, and still able to find this web site. I know how all of you feel. I wish I had some words that could help. I don’t. It will be “Fathers’ Day” in 15 minutes, and all I can expect is what can I do for them. I would really just like to sleep. Nothing seems to help. Smilling gets harder each day. Just hanging on takes all of my strenght. I tried asking “Why?”, but I ended up getting more crazy. I guess that there is no end. I have had it all my life, and probably will continue it for the rest of my life. It sucks. I hide and cry, at times, and to know avail. I thank you all for posting on this web site, because, it’s the only place I can find people who know what I feel.
    To all you Dad’s out there, “Happy Father’s Day”.
    Thanks, Jimbo

  • Sheila

    I am a 16 years old female that is pressured by sex and drugs everyday. I stopped smoking pot last year because that was something that help to hide who i was and still am. I am still a virgin and no one can respect that. I listen to depressing songs to make my life seem better in some way. I feel like the world is agianst me and everyone wants ro hurt me. I dont act like most girls. I do my own thing and I know i am different. I have had bad stuff going on everyday of my pathetic life. I go to school full time and i work full time. I have no money and i have no life. I live in hell that only i see. I dont have the perfect body and i constently put myself down by saying that i am fat (which i am) and that i am not as pretty as the other girls. ALL I WANT IS TO BE AS PRETTY AS THEY ARE FOR ONE DAY. Just one. I cry over that. I hate to smile and i am depressed.
    I feel like just giving up everyday. I cry so much when i am alone because that is when i let my feelings out. I dont tell anyone what is going on in my head. I fear that if they knew the real me they would get scared and leave me. I hate to be alone yet i would rather be alone then in a group. I am really messed up and i feel like i am drowning in my pain and sorrow. I hide all of my feelings and i act differently around everyone. I dont live in this life. I hide in the shadows and live a fantasy life. I havent got help from a doctor. All i have is my friends. But i still dont tell them everything.
    My biggest problems in life is that i want to fly away and dissapear from the world. Just get lost where no one can find me. Not even myself.
    I feel different from the world. I am so parinoid that everyone is talking about me. I feel like i know they are.
    I have very little self- esteam. I constently put myself down. I give up on things that are so easy to do. I just want to end this life. But something is holding me back. I feel that if i do, i will be hurting so many people that have tried to help me and that care about me. I cant hurt them. One day it will all end. I have to stop thinking and worrying. I feel like i have to just give up and die. I will one day real soon. I cant right now. So for the time being i will hide in my shadows and keep acting like everything is fine and that i am happy.

  • Tami

    Lost in life, lost in death. Just Lost… Not even able to think or react as normal. I can not even seem to exsist with ease. Everything is SO hard. Each breath, each heartbeat, comes with so much effort that giving up would be so easy. I do not have the strength to put out such mountains of effort. God help me!

  • Kathy

    I am empty and tired. Nothing matters-I don’t even care if I get better. I just want it to be over. I don’t remember how it feels to be any other way but sad. I feel better that I’m over forty because I figure I won’t spend too much more time on earth.

  • Angie

    Depression sucks. And all the things that are related to it. All the normal problems of life weigh on you like a ton of bricks. My son has ADHD, and in the process of learning about that, I learned that I have it too. My husband thinks we are both nuts, like we are looking for attention. But everytime my son goes into a rage over some little thing that means nothing, I am completely aware of what he is going through, but nobody else seems to get it. I try to explain what it feels like to those around me, but they answer me with blankness. I am the rock that will be there for my son, and I will get myself through too, but sometimes I wish there was someone who understood to take care of me. Some days I just want to cry my eyes out. The world is a lonely place sometimes, but the strong WILL SURVIVE!!! I am a survivor, and nothing, even Depression, or ADHD, or any other label that they put on this feeling will get the best of me!

  • jamie

    its like this one line from a limp bizkit song- “its just one of those days that i dont wanna wake up, everythings fucked, everybody sucks” except that its not “just one of those days”- its each and every day.

  • Shannon

    When I am sick (that is what I call it when I have a depressive episode) I don’t care about anything anymore. I am afraid of everything. All I want to do is sleep. The only thing I think about is sleep because then I don’t have to think or feel anymore.

  • Dave

    I have suffered from depression for over 40 years.Somewhere along the way I died inside. That title, “Dead Man Walking” is pretty accurate. I don’t even listen to music any more. Nietzsche said “Life without music would be a mistake.” Several times a day I say “I wish I was dead.” I injured my spine in a recent auto accident. If I fall or get hit again I’ll be paralyzed. The frightening thing about paralysis is that you can’t commit suicide!

  • amy lee

    has anyone seen the “Everybody’s Fool” video by Evanescence?? well that’s how i feel. Like, people see the fake side to you but underneath, you know the truth…you’re not the happy, cheery person you pretend to be…you hate yourself so much but you gotta keep preteding everythings ok…you want to believe everything will get better…but it only gets worse. nothing is what it seems.

  • Monstrosity

    I’m 21. I’ve never had a girlfriend, never had sex. All girls I talk to appear to be frightened of me and worse, I have absolutely no idea why. Do I strike them as perverted, threatening, oily or chauvanistic?

    When I’m around other people, any people, I feel uncultivated, unintelligent and unable to say anything that is interesting or even just plain normal. I can hear all my sentences sound stupid but shutting up will just make me appear even more distant and hermit-like. Everybody seems unconfortable when I enter the room.

    I have bad taste or rather no taste at all. I seem to think slower than everybody else and unable to relate as other people do. Any of my opinions on anything sound phony. Any attempt to look well-mannered and polite looks insincere. Any question feels like an attack on my existence.

    Everybody else seems to have a good answer to every situation – I fumble around and usually miss the train. Everybody else seems to know what can be expecteded of them and what is unreasonable. Everybody else seems to know what they know and what they dont. Everybody else seems to know something or have something in common that I do not.

    When I make even the smallest mistake I think everybody sees it and that it’s all they think about – and talk about, behind my back. I’m overwhelmed by shame, paralyzed, and every attempt to divert attention from my mistakes just makes matters worse.

    I feel stigmatized, as if everybody have something to blame me for. Any attempt to move on feels hypocritic or out-of-character.

  • yasmin

    for me i have been aware that i have had serious depression for just over two years now @21. it lives my life for me yet it is not living just existing. being here present with a heart beat but with no life.at times never being able to think i can feel alive again.it seems to have rewritten my past and i end up believing my life has been the darkest place for any soul to have lived.everything seems deep,deep thoughts, deep feeling and emotions.thats what my world revolves around these feelings.i know feelings have to be dealt with from the past but every new day creates just soooooo many more that become confusing and just sooo much.helping myself like going out doing stuff meeting up with mates is like some huge big deal and most of the time i come back feeling worse. keep trying, youll get there,things aint gonna stay the same forever im always hearing. whats forever a? maybe i should just be hearing it from myself and it would mean more.

  • yasmin

    for me i have been aware that i have had serious depression for just over two years now @21. it lives my life for me yet it is not living just existing. being here present with a heart beat but with no life.at times never being able to think i can feel alive again.it seems to have rewritten my past and i end up believing my life has been the darkest place for any soul to have lived.everything seems deep,deep thoughts, deep feeling and emotions.thats what my world revolves around these feelings.i know feelings have to be dealt with from the past but every new day creates just soooooo many more that become confusing and just sooo much.helping myself like going out doing stuff meeting up with mates is like some huge big deal and most of the time i come back feeling worse. keep trying, youll get there,things aint gonna stay the same forever im always hearing. whats forever a? maybe i should just be hearing it from myself and it would mean more.

  • Julie

    I am only 13 years old and have had BiPolar Depression for 8 years. It makes everything terrible its hard to exsplain its like falling into a dark pit and even tho u see the light at the top u see no way to get out and everyone who wants to help u reject them in fear i donno but if anyone can plz try to help me. Just having sum1 to talk to would be nice.

  • Patricia

    My Dear Friends,
    Although I do not suffer from depression like you my husband does and has for years. I have worked with “clinical depression” people for many years and, so, knew what was wrong with my husband when I first met him many years ago. He was never diagnosed until 1998 when I finally got him to go to a doctor. He still denies many aspects of this terrible disease, hoping it will go away if he ignores it.
    Your comments made me cry with pain for you all and for my husband. Also, truefully, for myself as well. For you see, I don’t know how to help my husband any more. It is very hard for me at times too: I become angry, tired, wanting it all to stop, and of course, feeling quilty. I have printed all your comments and plan to give them to my husband to read, just to let him know that there are others with the same feelings as him.
    Please don’t stop trying, no matter how hard the days and nights may feel to you. There is someone out there that does care: ME!!! With all my heart I wish there was a way to take away your pain, but I can’t. No more than I can take away my husbands. But, there is one thing I can do….Love him no matter what!!!
    Thank you all!! You all have helped me this day. You see I was falling into that trap of feeling sorry for myself. You helped pull me out. Thank You! And although I don’t know any of you….I know that I love you as one of God’s children and wish you all well.

  • Abigail

    Depression is something that I have struggled with and been medicated for since I was around ten years old. Depression to me does not feel like an illness so much as a disability. Without any warning or hesitation my moods swing completely around leaving me angry at my fiance for nothing, unhappy, unable to bring myself out of bed let alone work, and afraid to talk to anyone about what is bothering me. It is causing a huge gap between me and my fiance becuase he’ll ask me what is wrong and all I can say is, “I don’t know”. It feels like I am punishing him becuase I can’t make him understand what is going on inside me but I expect him to be able to support and console me for it. Everytime I have a modd swing the thought of me making him miserable only saddens me more. I feel trapped inside of a fog that can never clear, and I am very afraid of simple things that I know can trigger a mood change. Setting the table wrong, dishes in the sink, a spot on the carpet, any little thing can make me feel like a failure. I feel like I am battling the monster of myself and no matter what I will never win.

  • Clare

    Depression feels like you are drowning in hopelessness and self-pity. You have no energy and all you want to do is sleep. Every minute of every day, you want to cry and scream and beg for mercy, but instead you walk around and act like it’s all ok. You hate yourself, and, many times, everyone around you. You begrudge others their happiness, and feel guilty about it. You feel ugly, unloveable, and desperate for reassurance that your life is worth something. You think about suicide constantly- it’s a thought thats always there in the back of your mind. You dread the future, for you know it can only bring more misery, despair, and failure. You are desperate for people to like you, but are convinced that they don’t. You can have fun, and there are small victories, but at the end of the day the depression is always there. You take a thousand risks, not caring what may result from them. You do things you are ashamed of but repeat your actions over and over in a hopeless cycle. Overall, everything- your past, your present, your future- all is black, and all you can do is pray that if there is a God, he will let you die instead of living day after day feeling as though you are already dead.

    That is what depression feels like.

  • Sarah

    I feel like I am never going to achieve what I want in my life. Maybe because I want so damned much!. I am in my second year of studying to be a pharmacist at the moment and I feel like how can I give healthy advice to others when I’m not healthy!. I really want to be studying medicine but just feel like I can not cope with any study anymore. I feel like I am not going to get thru any of this. I feel like I am not going to achieve any of my goals. I seem to have lost the absolute passion and inspiration. I don’t feel like a young zealot anymore- I feel dead!. Everything is just way to much. I’m not eating, sleeping, concentrating in lectures. My mind wanders. I have suicidal thoughts many times each day. I feel totally unmotivated and devoid of the optimism I once had. I’ve withdrawn from my peers. I feel totally totally alone and I’ve been this way it seems forever. My family treats me differently- like I’m not normal. I also have anxiety attacks and have been in sexual situations where I couldn’t do nuthin about what was happening. I feel like I’ve lost control over my feelings. I’ve let people say stuff to me many many times and I get glazed over in shock and have believed and accepted what they say for many years. I have an extremely low self esteem. I feel like there’s nothing left for me on this planet. I feel like a piece of rubbish. University seemed to be the last thing I had going for me and it seems to be slipping away. My mental state seems to be slipping away. Depression is waste. It’s a vacuum which sucks away true moments of joy we all deserve.

  • Markku

    Depression for me is mostly about feeling numb, feeling something gnawing inside you, but not being able to let it go. I have had depression, more or less, for about 12 years, (now I’m 21) it started because experiences in my childhood, somw of which were in my life for years.

    There are times when things seem a bit more bright and I think I have gotten over it, but I can feel it lurking inside, always. I try to think positive, and I have actually learned and changed a bit. But still, depression is in me, and sometimes people dont understand the contradiction that is in me and that perhaps is a big part of depression; you can think positively, at least try, and you still might get depressed at the same time.

    Depression is being tired. So tired that you just dont feel anything else but sadness. I have felt it so long that I have lost the ability to cry. I miss crying, because it feels purifyig, ability to feel the sadness. I just feel empty. There are goals that I want to reach, an university to be presice, but depression makes it harder. I feel like I could be in bed for days; yet I have an ambition that drives me, so I guess I’m lucky in a way that I have found some way to believe in myself even in depression.

    Depression feels like veil in front of your eyes, a filter that doesnt let the light in. It sucks the life and joy out of one’s soul. Just dont let it change you.

  • Nadine

    I feel as if I’m lurking around in a life that I can’t quite reach. I travel in a glass bubble it seems, where voices are muffled and vision is blurred. I can’t enjoy smells, I don’t feel the wind.. I’m numb and empty. Sometimes I laugh, and I feel myself doing it but can’t quite catch up to the sensation because the anchor is too heavy. I don’t know if that makes sense.. sometimes it feels as if nothing make sense. I think I know what Zombies felt like, and empty egg shells and flowers that have wilted because they ran out of water. I watch couples walking and talking and laughing and I feel like I’m watching a foreign film with no subtitles. Why do people seem happy, why do they have beautiful beaming faces and beautiful beaming lives.. why can’t I.. why don’t I.. how did they get the rainbow over their lives.. and I got the dark clouds? I don’t want to wither or die, I can see a faint crack of light way at the end of this book of my life that I think is the beginning of a new journey. I just want whatever it is that’s anchoring me down to let go, so I can be free. I want to dance to that light and be reborn into the life I see everyone else having. God help me.

  • Ashley

    I remember someone once sying to me “Its nice falling asleep at night knowing someone cares!” and I remember saying back “yes, it is!!”- I long for that same feeling. That feeling that seems so far off in the distance and most likely will never return to me! I have lost all hope!! In my eyes- It’s over!!! Its so hard going through life pretending all the time. Pretending to laugh at the joke thats not funny, pretending to smile at the person who used to mean so much to you. Pretending to be happy. Whats the point. I want to be alone- but when I am, I hurt even more. I don’t want to waste anymore of anyone’s time and energy. I don’t want anyone to have to worry anymore. I don’t want to feel this pain anymore. I don’t want to cry anymore. I want all this pain to be overwith. The worst thing is when people say “It will get better- it always does”…. Well when??? Years and years have past and I feel worst than ever!!! They just don’t understand- noone does. Suicide isn’t a choice for me- its just my last option. Everything else failed- this won’t. How can it??? I just wanted to be loved- loved like any other person is!! At least by one person. I am crying out for help inside, but noone can hear me. I am in a world all by myself. It hurts to much when that one special person who means the world to you doesn’t care. Doesn’t care at all. Some people go through lie with everything- here I am with nothing. How can someone live their life day to day- always feeling that they aren’t good enough, nothing they do is good enough, a feeling of anxiety, a feeling of guilt. Its all too much to handle. It hurts the most when someone takes advantage of you- and your too ashamed and embarassed to do anything about it. As much as it hurts to see him free and happy- you keep quiet. Why??? You don’t want to be at fault- because everything is your fault. You don’t wnat people to think differently of you- because they will think differently of you. You don’t want people to abandon you- because they always seem to do that. One last cry for help- no one answers- Only Goodbye!!

  • Glen

    I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, the one that exists only in my head, and the one that I and I alone have dragged myself to kicking and screaming all the way. And it is here at the brink of my exhausted resolve and saniy, that I must make a choice…again.
    I have waged and fought in an endless war of the heart for nearly two years straight now; and I am so far away from caring about anything, and so utterly lost in the collapsed ruins of my own life, that I really don’t know where I am anymore, or if I will ever make it home again. Each and every day of my life in that span has been an unimaginable horror that no one on this earth should ever have to witness or endure alone, as I have. If there is, or ever was a God, then he is most certainly an absent landlord at best, and little more than a cruel tyrant at worst. I feel like a corpse inside, dead and hollowed out with no remaining trace whatsoever of the “good” guy that I so used to be. I’m standing over my own body, in prepartion of burying it.
    Well, what else is there to say? I know I’m not alone in the Godless mess; I have many “brothers and sisters” who suffer from the same affliction as I. There’s a sad comfort in the understanding that I’m not alone in this, but as most of you can probably attest to…it really makes no ultimate difference in the end.
    My life, as I once knew it, has seemingly come and gone, leaving me to stand alone in the debris of my soul, waiting for the next unwanted dawn in a life that I’m not the least bit interested in living anymore.

  • Lea

    I wake up and think what now? I am dissapointed that it has happened again. No one understands, I am in my world. No one is willing to be here with me. Everyone pisses me off cause they are so easy going. They don’t see that everything is wrong, its all bad. Why should I see them? Why should I go out to people who are not of the same kind?

  • bella

    depression to me sucks out all my energy so that i can’t be bothered to do anything. it makes me feel worthless, that i’m better dead than alive. i feel as though it’s too much of an effort to keep on living and i’ll finally be able to rest if i’m 6 feet under.
    two failed suicide attempts. third time lucky.

  • Linda

    Katherine was the second comment I read on this web page and noticed that she had posted today. As I am reading this I can relate to you. I am also at a university and I have finals next week personally I am not caring too much about classes either. My partner of three years is becoming more frustrated with me because he feels so helpless. I have contimplated suicide becasue sometime the pain is too much. I have no way of describing the pain that I feel. All I know is that I cry and feel so much hurt inside.

  • Elizabeth

    It’s an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Everything is harsh. It’s worse than walking on eggshells, it’s walking on broken, jagged pieces of glass. Nothing feels right.

  • katherine

    I haven’t been diagnosed but I feel as if I’m a failure in whatever I do as everybody has such high expectations of me. I can’t show any signs of weakness because if I do I will be seen to be weak or attention-seeking. I am failing at uni because I have no hope, no motivation and no energy. I can’t see the point of doing it as my life is worthless and the world would be better off without me. I think a lot about how I would kill myself and the effect it would have on my family. I don’t have any friends. People don’t really understand me – I know this sounds like a cliche but it’s true and I can’t find another way of putting it. I feel as if I can’t breathe because of the dead-weight inside me. I need to talk to somebody but I don’t have anybody to turn to. My partner is in the forces and soon has to go away. He’s very matter-of-fact and gets frustrated because he finds me hard to understand. I have exams in less than a week but all I can think about is ending it all. I don’t want to be here anymore. The world passes by and I remain unnoticed by everybody. I am not worth looking at or thinking about. I can’t cope.

  • Jenn S.

    JENN S. SAID
    It always hurts inside always that heavy feeling like someone is presing on my heart.
    Even with the meds it’s always there.
    I’ve been hospitalized 4 times now.
    It never helps.
    I’ve failed college twice now 2 strait semesters.
    Something always goes wrong.
    I can’t remember eanything good about my life. Except marrying my husband.
    But even he’s anxious to get rid of me.
    Send me back to my parents so they can “take care of me”
    I keep hurting and stressing.
    I know nothing i do is ever good enough. Everytime i get in my car i wanna run it of the road doing 90.
    Everyone would be better off with out me.
    No more worrying.
    No more taking care of me.
    No more stupid little 20 year old girl that’s just confused.
    No more pain, worry, nothing.
    Just strait nothing.
    I wonder if this will ever stop.
    I don’t wanna hurt or cry or fail anymore.
    I just wanna be either dead or normal.

  • Melanie

    Depression affects me in the following ways:
    I feel blank, empty and hollow.
    I can’t deal with anything out of the ordinary.
    Noises seem too loud.
    People seem pushy and rude, or cold and rejecting.
    Even the easiest task seems insurmountable and stressful.
    I feel like crying most of the time, although tears only flow when I have really ‘cracked’.
    I am snappish and irritable.
    There seems to be too much going on around me – too much stimulus, too much activity, too much everything.
    I feel drained by being around people and neglected when I am alone.
    All I really want is “to be left alone” so that I can “unwind”… but when I am alone, I feel just as bad.
    Nothing interests me – not even things I used to be madly enthusiastic about.
    Nothing holds my attentiion.
    Nothing seems worth the energy.
    Nothing helps.
    Nothing is right.
    Sometimes getting out of bed and brushing my teeth is too much to deal with.
    I can’t speak or think properly. I can’t think of the word that comes next in the sentence that I am speaking even though I knew it a moment ago. I forget my train of thought. I say one word and mean another.
    I walk and talk and smile… but it all feels false. I can’t believe that others can’t see past the “smiley mask” to the pain that I am experiencing.
    Sometimes I can’t make myself go out the door or answer the phone.
    It seems like the pain and the emptiness will never go away.

  • evanescence

    it feels hopeless, it feels fake. Pretending to smile to let everyone think you are ok then when you get home you scream at the mirror and cry and cry. A constant tension inside…like theres something inside of you that won’t leave. It’s a battle. One side of you desperately wants to die but the other side just wants the pain to stop. some moments you feel fine…you feel confident, happy etc then the next…slicing your wrists seems like the only way to try to solve the depression.

  • aimee

    its like an addiction
    you cant control it ….and the more ppl tell you you need help the worst it gets.
    it get so bad i cant eat and i cant sleep and i dont feel like doing anything cause i feel like im going to screw something up

  • Kristen

    I feel like there is a heavy weight on my shoulders. It’s not as bad as it used to be but it pushes down hard quite often and I cannot seem to overcome completely. Although I know killing myself is not a sensible option, I still seem to find some relief in knowing the option is always there.

  • Jimbo

    Not much sleep last night. Tired of taking pills to sleep. I don’t look forward to nights, because I can’t sleep. I don’t look forward to days, because they are a waste. 2 years ago, tried to pass out and not wake up. Pills and alcohol. 50% successful. don’t want ot live, don’t want to die. No place in between. Hell on earth.

  • Jimbo

    All my life, even my childhood memories are clouded. No sunshine. When it hits, just want to die, but that’s no answer. Can’t get help, could cost too much. Feels like nothing. I hope you all can find some help. I am near half century, and don’t know where to start, go, or just give up.

  • NAT, 18

    Depression is when you get left behind.
    Omitted. Forgotten.
    It’s like you can see from behind a one-way glass wall day to day life running smoothly around you except you’re not included. you can’t take part cos you’re stuck in a different time-zone.
    I feel cheated of my time which has been stolen from me by this disease. It’s not fair- to put it childishly- the last months of my life just flew past without me. I wasn’t invovled. I feel so insignificant- how can the world carry on revolving normally without me, whilst I’m just sitting there lifeless? And the angrier i get about it, the deeper DOWN i sink once more. The cycle recommences.
    But then i comfort myself- by thinking, well, there’s nothing out there that i missed or would want to be a part of anyway. there once used to be, but now things have changed.
    And every second that passes tilts the scales EVEN more towards the Past which i long to relive. I want a chance to live it just like it should have been. Cos everyone has the right to be happy, and mine got taken away. I refuse to move on and give the future a go until i am somehow or other allowed to turn back time + change and fix the past.
    This is the first time i’ve been depressed, and so i have to admit i didn’t know much about this disorder 6 months ago.
    At first, i didn’t like being alone, i wanted someone to help me, i craved support and advice, i confided in a lot of people. i feel slightly let down actually. i told my innermost secret to some people in the hope they would give me the answer, and where are they now? Never again. Yet now i am perfectly happy to just be left undisturbed and not prodged by people. no-one would stand my ‘company’ (would you want a depressed moaney inanimate lump as a friend?). only i can deal with myself, and that’s the way it’s gonna be from now on.
    You know what, i give up trying. i tried and failed? why should i do it again? what’s the point of trying to retrieve a life like the one you once had if you now know there’s always the possibility it will just be snatched off you.

  • Deb

    Its like a blackness following me, its always behind me even on my best days, i feel its vagueness. At first it hit and i was scared to death, i felt as if i was running from something, the blackness behind me i guess. I had been loosing interest in everything previously in the past year, snappy, mean sometimes, hard to smile, hard to hear what others were saying, then i began looking in the mirror, and it was like it wasnt really me, then it started with me looking at others and feeling that way. I just started frieking out and crying and getting mad then afraid, and i felt like i was receeding. Thats when the darkness hit me one weekend out with my husband. It got so bad i couldnt eat sleep, or feel anything but fear and dread, and thinking about death, obsessing, dark thoughts,which was something i had been doing in preceeding months. Scared to live, scared to die. does that make sense? i dont know.

    I ended up in er finally a week after the darkness hit, and i was put on lexipro and ativan. It actually helped me some, its been 5 weeks. I still have the feeling the darkness is just waiting behind me to jump on me and suck me in. But i have to say its improving some at least im more functional, and i want to improve.

    Ive had this on and off since i was 13, and it takes different forms, this being the worst, and i am in my 40’s. Its like a disease that comes and goes possesing me as it feels like it, always ready to strike and posses me.

  • Phil

    Depression is like an enormous black cloud that swallows you whole. It’s in this blackness you learn what it is to be your own worst enemy. It’s living the life of a statue – unable to act, speak, think. It’s a giant, invisible demon sitting on you – slowly crushing you into nothingness. And there’s pain, but it isn’t sharp. It’s a dull, muffled kind that works it’s way all over your body, into every pore. Kind of clouds everything, numbs you. Till you wake up and realize there is no reason to move, save to relieve your swelled bladder or intense hunger pang. And when you leave your hiding place and have to face the world – you can’t help but feel everyone is mocking you with their zeal and enthusiasm for life that you cannot match.

    The worst of it comes when it eats away at your emotions and you’re left an apathetic blob. You lack passion for everything you once were passionate for. Nothing matters.

    I am currently digging myself out of “the hole”. My depression comes in waves – active in winter and spring, and gleefully dormant in summer and fall. My experience of these sessions reminds me of long tunnels. You unknowingly enter a tunnel – you’re in deep before you realize you’re in. It’s totally dark. You can’t simply WAKE UP! You walk and walk and walk. You keep on walking, steadily losing justification for doing so. You see a light. It’s way off. Really, really distant. You keep on walking and walking and walking all the while the distance travelled beating you down to nothing. You suddently realize you can’t remember ever not walking in this tunnel, and you can’t see the future being any different. You walk and walk….

    Then one day you find yourself in pure daylight. Everything tastes! Everything feels, breathes, lives! You’ve found your life. You slowly forget the tunnel – you’re full of hope.

    This is why it’s worth fighting. I try and think about this as often as I can. One day I hope to learn how to avoid these tunnels.

  • Natalie

    I guess, for me it varies in the severity of emotions from day to day but all i can say is that i would be perfectly happy to just sit on a chair for 24hrs without moving, and just think and think and ponder some more. but not happy thoughts like o.k. i need to finish this so i can go out to a party, but more, what’s the point, who cares (i certainly don’t). it’s like a see-saw: for a split-second per day i do look forward to the summer and make plans, but they all get shattered, replaced by a ‘well why? why should i do anything?’ yet i can’t afford to just wellow in my misery, i’ve got exams to sit.
    i feel like time is moving on without me, or that i just can’t keep up with the present- i’m still ‘living’ in the past. i actually have a delayed reaction to everything, and always think we’re still in March, but we’re not.
    also, i broke up with my friends cos they wanted too much from me and i felt like i had no control over anyone, so this was a way to get it, i just wanted a break and some time alone- and now things have got way out of proportion, i’ve made myself some ennemies!
    ah well, it feels so nice to be free of all responsibilities and commitments.
    i have this feeling that’s difficult to swallow (literally-there’s sth stuck at the back of my throat, an obstruction of somesort- guilt/anger/shame.)
    The power of the mind is amazing, to be able to lead me down such complex dark emotions i never knew existed. but it’s not just mentally destroying- it’s physically life + soul-sucking as well.

  • JB

    I feel like Depression has made life too complicated and difficult for me. I look at everyone around me and wish I had it as easy as them. Every aspect of my life requires so much effort that I rarely have fun. I have to force myself to go through basic routines, it’s like pulling teeth for me to go to a social gathering, people irritate me, I never feel good about myself and it seems as if life in general is just a chore. I have had depression since I was 10 or 11 and every day that passes, I wonder how I’ve managed to live for the last 15 years. It’s like I have a stone gargoyle sitting on my chest that just squeezes the soul out of me.

  • Courtney

    Depression feels like you’re watching your life on TV (all reruns), incapable of affecting anything around you. Wanting to change the channel, but the remote is dead and you can’t find the energy to get up and change it manually or to go out and buy batteries. So on the couch you sit, watching everything go by, losing your grip on reality and on your sense of self. You feel like a shell of a person wondering if you’ll ever be able to get yourself back again, but not caring enough to bother seeking help. Shocked back to reality by a ringing phone, you check the caller ID (the depressed person’s greatest enabler). It’s a dear friend. You let it go to voicemail – you’ll call them back later. Then you feel guilty for not answering the phone, so you can’t bring yourself to call them back. They call again, they e-mail, they’re worried. Now you feel guilty for worrying them. Can’t call them back. Apologizing is too hard and explaining your state of mind would be admitting you have a problem that you haven’t sought refuge from. So while you think about this and let the guilt eat at you with each passing moment that you don’t return the phone call, another friend calls and the cycle begins again. It’s too much, you can’t deal with it so you guess you’ll just watch your life go by on this TV channel that you can’t change. Maybe you’ll get off the couch tomorrow.

  • Action

    My depression feels like I have become a little old lady who can only watch life from the sidelines because she is to fragile and frail to participate anymore. I am broken. I’m boring. Other people look at me and feel sorry for me because they have no idea what depression feels like for me. That’s part of the problem. Our experiences are all different, so we can sympathize but not empathize and those who are “whole” don’t have a clue. I feel stupid. I feel like a zombie from “Night of the Living Dead” except I don’t have the energy to wander around with my arms straight in front of me.

  • Ashu

    I am posting for the second time. I did mention in my last post that it is difficult to express the complex mesh of thoughts that one experiences during a depressed period.

    One thought which always plagues me is an intense and unbridled nostalgia for the past. The feeling that the past has always been better than the current is something that slowly gnaws its way into the psyche. Every passing day seems to be worse than the previous. There is a longing for the past and since that is not achievable, you always sulk and feel weighed down. The future doesn’t seem bright because you have always perceived that the past has been brighter. There is nothing you look forward to because you keep looking back to the past.

  • Heather L

    Depresssion feels like quick sand the harder you try to get out the faster you get pulled in. It seems like theres no why out but deepper, untill someone finds you but still it takes even longer to get out cause they don’t know what your feeling they just make it worse. If only they realy know what it was like, not by just sayin it, but realy felt it. I guess some people are just better off then others.

  • Anon F

    Today I woke up crying again, blackness all around despite the sun shining through the blinds. I couldn’t make myself get up, what point is there? All i do is sit and stare all day (or cry and then stare some more). Life carries on all around me … always around, never involving me. TV is on – i never hear it though. My brain cant make sense of the sounds it hears any more – as if it has lost all idea of communication. I don’t talk to people, when I try, I just break down into sobbing tears. The rest of the time I just dont bother, no-onelistens anyway. I am alone, isolated, on my lonely capsule – my couch.
    The curtain of despair is enveloping me again. I have brief moments when I can see a way through but they are never there for long enough for me to grasp them and hold onto them. This just makes me more irritable. I, like others, got help when my partner issued an ulitmatum but I am still struggling. It feels like the tables have just turned. Before I was keeping up appearances to get through work and in front of others, and not to my partner. Now I pretend to my partner and not to them. I don’t go to work. I DO very little. Even cleansing the dishes seems enormous, typing tires me too. I get panick attacks when I go out on my own, and I shake and twitch when I sit. Where has my independent, life loving self gone? When will this torture end?
    My memory is shot, my heart is heavy, I get no pleasure from anything. Is it really worth it, if this is all there is? I got help because I thought there was more … weeks on and now Im not so sure. Years ago I thought there was. I used to be happy – I used to be the life and soul of the party. I used to yearn to learn, and get out there and just DO things. How can I have altered so radically? People say it’s just the illness taking over and it will pass … but when????

  • Kieran

    I am about to go to my doctors because before I came on to the internet to do some research I believed that I was suffering from depression for the last 8 years of my life.Now that I have done the research and looked at different peoples symptoms of the illness I am certain that I am depressed.
    I feel competely lifeless and that i’m living my life in slow motion.I am saddened that I am young and supposed to be enjoying myself but I can’t motivate myself to do anything, I feel cheated.Sometimes I wake up in the morning (sometimes really late because I can’t get to sleep early)and I have no excitement for the day ahead. I go to uni where I’m failing miserably because I can’t concentrate and I can’t motivate myself, if it’s a weekend i’ll just watch TV all day because I don’t have a circle of friends.I have 2 very good friends who i’ve known since I was 6 but I dont’ even see them anymore, I feel totally isolated.I can’t have any converstaion with my family because I get really irritated by them and then I get really annoyed with myself because they love me and I know i’m being vile and argumentative.I posess absolutely no self esteem. I feel deeply unattractive i’ve always been freakishly skinny and ugly.I’ve never had a girlfriend and don’t think I ever will, this traumatizes me because I feel like a complete loser.I can’t initiate any form of relationship because of crippling shyness and a stifling fear of rejection.I have suicidal thoughts everyday.I think about how i’d do it,what song i’d have on in the background,my suicide note and my funeral.I have no hope for the future and no joy for life.The brief random moments of happiness I do get I feel what Ashu said,I feel phoney and have to get back to the ‘reality’ of my depression. My constant analysis of the world is driving me insane!Sometimes I long to be addicted to some kind of vice like drugs or alcohol so I can experience brief,instantaneous moments of relief.
    I have suffered grief in my life.Deaths of my father,two grandmothers and a grandfather in the past 7 years have’nt helped matters but I know it runs deeper than that, I know they are not the ONLY causes for my depression.I feel weighed down and I don’t know why,I feel like a failure of a human being,I feel like my one and only life is being wasted,I feel useless,lethargic and powerless.

    I can’t see a future.

  • Samm

    Living with depression is being a non-swimmer forever trapped in cold, dark water, unable to swim to shore. You’re so far from everybody else- all they are is a light in the distance, unreachable. You’ll never make your way back. Your instinct to live is what keeps you kicking and struggling, but you’re so so tired. You have to make a decision- do I let go and experience the pain of immediate death? Or do I keep on going in the hope that I will someday stumble to shore?
    I have felt this way for most of my life, I can’t imagine life being any different. So, depression is also feeling so hopeless that you don’t even wish for life to get better. You know in your gut that to live is be in pain… so why live?

  • Cazman

    I struggle with chronic depression, Post Trauma Stress Disorder(PTSD), and Post Concussion Syndrome. There is so very little I feel good about. I feel as if I have cement blocks fastened to my entire being. I recognize what I need to do, but simply can’t do it. I am virtually homeless, separated from my wife, have no money. When I’m ‘well’, I’m dynamic, quick witted, productive. Haven’t been that way in 2 years, the post concussion syndrome has complicated and worsened the depression and PTSD.
    I see my life sliding away, I know I need to do something but I don’t have the energy, motivation, or resources. I suffer severe PCS headaches daily. I feel as if i’m free falling into a black abyss. Suicide thoughts are prevalent but I’m not going that route. I profess to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, used to be a dynamic teacher of His word. My faith and prayers seem empty and the anguish I feel over my contradictory behavior and thoughts consumes me. I feel like I’m in prison, waiting to die.

  • Eli

    At 18, Ive had depression for most of my life. I was taken to a psychatric hosipital due to a suicide attempt. That just added to feeling of being Trapped, but I decided that there are people out there who care enough to see that I live and I wanted to try to live again. But now I realize I have become too heavy of a burden to those who once said they wouldnt let me drown. Now the pain is alot worse and I want to relive myself and others of my pain. Depression for me is knowing that I have to do something to move. I have to put some effort. But I cant. I cant move. So I get angry with myself and the cycle continues. Depression is feeling yourself die very slowly and painfully and wanting to rid yourself of that pain with a sudden action. My fear is that when I do have enough strength to do something, to finally move, That something will be a shot to the head. Life sucks and I feel I have earned this perspective through so much analyzation of the world and myself. I feel I deserve to die. It is my right to choice whether I live or die, It is my right to end this Cancer that haunts my soul to where I dont even sleep anymore. Im drowning and even those few who havent given up on me, cant help me anymore.

  • Gregor

    I’ve reached the conclusion that my depression is a mild case so I can’t even begin to imagine what most of you are going through. I’ve got a great job, but lately, I’ve found it hard to enjoy it. I just go through the motions and can’t give it everything I have. I’m always looking at the darker side of things. It’s like a haze is hanging around me, preventing me from seeing truth. I keep feeling that my future is bleak and the easiest thing would be to end it all. That thought keeps wandering through my mind. I know that I’m in a great position in life. One that many people would kill to get. But at the same time, I just feel sorry for myself that I can’t enjoy it. I always thought life would be a better place to live, but for the last few years it doesn’t seem that way.

  • Jess

    I know what depression feels like cuz I wen’t through it. It feels like you don’t belong. Everything goes wrong. It feels like you are accomplishing nothing! It feels horrible!

  • Linda

    Depression is ongoing, never ending, feeling bad. Itis wanting to die; having the reasons you want to live get fewer and fewer; not having anything in your life that matters; not caring about anyone; and knowing that these feeling will never change because you have had them for most or all of your life. The only relief you have ever known is when you were able to bury them…but they never stay buried, and each time they come back there are more, they are more intense, and they last longer. Depression is not wanting to seek help because you already have tried every resource you think of including self help. positive motivational stuff, religion, friends, family, four different antidepressants, and therapy, with no relief. Depression sucks.

  • Gunner

    In response to Heather, suicide is not something a person chooses, it happens when pain exceeds the resources for coping with pain. I’ve suffered terribly for 10 years with clinical depression and if i ever ended my life i certainly wouldn’t be selfish, i’d feel guilty about hurting the people i know, but i would commit because i can’t cope with life anymore. I already can’t but i’m trying to make sure i get better, which isn’t easy when i’ve been trying for over 6 years and still haven’t found an answer to this brain disorder.

  • Joe

    i don’t take any medication or anything, in fact i’ve never been diagnosed. however, i am fairly certain that i know that depresswion feels like. my skin crawls as the first wave hits. it’s like an argument about whether or not i am a worth-while human takes place in my head. initially, there is one voice attempting to justify my existence and one voice arguing just the opposite. but quickly, scores of voices come from the recesses of my brain, shouting everything i have ever failed at or not liked about myself (which is quite a lot). they gang up against the one solitary voice arguing my case, and it doesn’t take long at all for the voice to be drowned out completely. the next step after that is an overpowering urge to kill myself. i can’t tell you how many times this has played out in my mind, and yet i haven’t once attempted suicide. because the next step in the process is to think of my parents; their unconditional love and all they done for me over the years. this brings me to the final stage: wishing with all my being that i had never been concieved. so their i am, wretched weakling sitting in the dark, unable to do anything to end the way i feel; reduced to wishing on a star for a god i don’t even believe exists to change time so that i will never be born.

  • Heather

    Depression feels like you’re in a dark house looking out the window into a world filled with darkness. There is no light only hopelessness, sorrow, anger (because you can’t get passed it) and pity. No matter what I tried I couldn’t move passed the depression. I fell farther and farther into hell and the rope to pull me out got shorter and shorter. But eventually I reached that rope and I pulled myself to happiness. It was the hardest thing I had ever or will ever go through. My sympathies go out to all those that still haven’t reached their rope. It will come when you’re ready. Good luck and don’t give up! And I can say from personal experience that suicide is NOT the answer. It is the most selfish act one can commit. And no matter what today is like, tomorrow can be different, it can be better.

  • luvvirgin

    John Donne (1572-1631), from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII.

    “All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated…As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness….No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

  • nick

    Depression is the worst. It feels like everything is just crowding around you. im a personal trainer but at the moment i dont even feel like exercising myself let alone help other people. it’s too hard to go and speak to my family. Their view is ” just snap out of it ”
    i haven’t cryed so much in the past 5-6 months than in my whole life. i often have thoughts of suicide cause its the easy way out. i think and think and think about the negatives in my life. i thought i was alone but after thourough research i learned im not. anyone who thinks they are trust me… get help and get it sooner rather than later.

  • luvvirgin

    Depression is where all the good in me has gone to die. Depression is marketable in Hollywood and at a drugstore near you. Depression made it impossible for me to know anyone or be known by anyone ,in a world where real communication is already considered a miracle. It is said that in the beginning god created light, and although I am sure that big bright star of the day has it’s undeniable purposes, my existence has none. you can not cry depression away, cause you’ll never run out of tears. You can’t laugh it away cause thats even sadder than crying. In the beginning god said … wait , if god said let there be light… then there had to be darkness to bring light to in the first place. So in the beginning, there was darkness.Depression has returned me to this darkness and held me there captive, away from God and away from the light. I could die now and there will be no difference. I could live and there will be no difference.

  • Scotto

    I don’t know what depression feels like. I only know how I feel and that I have been diagnosed with major depression. I have no energy, no motivation, no passion, no cares, nothing to live for. I feel hopeless. There are too many things wrong for me to fix. Actually, some things cannot be fixed. Suicide is my best hope. I think of it every day. I have nobody to count on for help. I don’t want anybody to count on for help. I want nothing to do with my family and I have no real friends, nor do I want any.

  • Sal

    John, those of us affected by depression understand exactly how you feel. I have a good career, a wonderful boyfriend, a lovely house and home, with friends who care about me, but it doesn’t stop depression hitting you hard.
    I have to admit I didn’t realise how much people cared until I forced myself to go for help. After going to my GP, who was amazing, she urged me to tell at least my partner. I did,(through email though – i found it easier to find the words) and it felt like an enormous weight had been lifted.
    I feel like Nece says, every day is a struggle, just my partner coming home can send me off into a terrible mood. I bite his head off, I am critical, I am a monster to be around. Sleep was (and is) always difficult, I cry for no reason and I can’t rationalise any of it. Why for pity’s sake am I crying when life should be good? Why am not coping? This board helped me realise though that I am not alone, and that it isn’t “me”, but the illness. That reaslisation was the first step in me getting help, so thank you to all who have posted here previously.
    I can’t say that there is a miracle cure – there isn’t but I’ve taken the first steps in getting better – I have taken time off work and have acknowledged the problem. It’s a struggle, and even worse when I see people but at least now I can drop the pretence … I have since told my parents, some close friends, and my boss at work.
    Please don’t struggle on alone. The waves washing over you can seem so all-consuming, but believe me friends and family knowing, and being there to support, can act like that all important float. I too was keeping up the act in front of all and sundry, and it was only my partner who saw the extent of my illness. Sometimes admitting that we are only human is the hardest thing to do , but sometimes also the most important.

  • Kimber Muldoon

    Depression is a hole you try to dig yuor way out of.
    For those who have not been depressed, it sorta feels like being really really hungry. The deeper the depression, the longer the hunger, the worse to symptoms. Starve yourself for a few days… you will start to forget what you are doing, have a hard time concentrating, have a hard time listening when others are talking. You will liely become very irritatble, and of course be very low on energy.
    You will also feel strangely clear headed at intervals during your fast, and you may become very imaginative or creatively inspired when very hungry or sleep deprived – depression causes this for many people too.
    Now, if you haven’t eaten in a while, its best to start slow – if you eat too much too quickly on an empty stomach, you get sick. Similarily, if you are happy suddnely in the middle of a depression, it is disturbing and you almost want to get bakc to the depression. If you go too long without eating or being depressed, you will probably die.
    most people don’t need a doctor to them they are hungry, and most people who have depression figure this out before being diagnosed.

    I think there is a world or difference between people who have been depressed once in their life and those who hardly ever been ‘un-depressed’. Those who have only been depressed for say ‘when I was in college’ can relate to those with more constant depression, but ten to be far more likely to believe that help is possible, and are probbaly more likely to respond to treatment.
    Using the hunger analogy, this is the difference between someone who has been starving exactly once (which is very serious) and someone who has been malnurished or starving most of their life.

    People who have been down for a few days once in a while have been ‘hungry’, but not ‘starving’. Depression feels like starving, not just hungry. It is not self-indulgent to think of nothing but your stomach and food when starving, though maybe ineffective. It is only natural to think about your problems/depression all the time when depressed.

  • Scott

    Its a big black hole, eating me up inside. The days seem to run together, the nights never end. My thoughts never seem to make sense, and my actions never seem to happen. I walk. I cry. I write. I HURT!!! 30 plus years of feeling this, no one to turn to. A failure. A looser. Someday I hope all these feelings will go away.

  • John

    In the last year of my life, I’ve watched close many friends dissapear or become distant. People I work with and go to college with think I’m a really happy, confident, “sorted” kind of person. They’re so wrong, I wish I could show them what I really feel like, but then again, many of my relationships are built on lies and deceipt. And I hate myself so much because of that. A year or so ago, I was always happy – I used to look on people with depression as weak minded, pathetic, incompetents. And now here am I, writing to a website because there’s nobody else to talk to. I feel so distanced from the world. I’m 19, have a place at a top university next year, any ‘normal’ person would think I’d be raring to go, spirited, happy…. But I’m far from that. Even my closest friend I can’t tell absolutely everything to. And it frustrates me so much, the constant dispair and anxiety, that I simply can’t get rid of. I want to go and seek help, but I’m too scared that my family would find out.
    Having read most of the comments on this page, I empathise with so much of what is said – particularly what Farren said about punching the bedsheet- I have reccuring dreams about somthing very similar to this. My life is in a real mess, theres so so many problems that nobody in my life is aware of, but if you met me in the street, you’d think completely the opposite – my family have absolutely no idea that I have any problems whatsoever. I’m ashamed, I sicken myself, I feel as though it’s all my fault, I’ve not got the balls to do anything about it because I think the roots of the problems are way way too deep.
    I hope I can be “normal” again, but at the moment I see no light.

    I feel for you all.

  • Jen, 20

    It’s like half-drowned – I’m too weak to pull myself out of the water to breath, but I’ve enough to not be dead yet.

  • Nece

    Depression comes on like waves in the ocean. Each wave dragging me deeper and deeper into despair. Everything can appear to be going well in my life, then this overwhelming boredom comes across me. After a day or so, I am irritated just by someone else coming into my room. Talking to others, I have to put on another face and don’t want anyone close to me. I never feel like anyone sees the real me. When I get home, I just go to bed and watch television, or rather the television is on, but I don’t know what’s going on. If someone comes into my room, I am completely irritated. And the tears keep flowing.
    Sleep isn’t an escape. My mind drifts to every failure or misstake I’ve made in my life.
    I always feel alone. And just when I get back on top for a week or so, here depression comes again and brings me back down.

  • Dustin

    Depression is having all your emotional boundaries closing in on you, but your too tired to do anything about it. I take Prozac now, but i enjoy going off of it sometimes when i need artistic inspiration. Sensitivity towards feelings increase, its hard to concentrate, but being alone in my head can clear my vision. The outlook on life is terrible, suicide tendencies, ODs, whatever to make it feel better. I thought it was just like ADD at first when my highschool grades were going down, but the paranoia, pain and not being able to talk to others made it apparent what had happened. Even a fake smile is impossible to show. I kept feeling as though i was going to break out of the painfull shell, but it never happened so i chose to take a pill, now i can fake smile anytime i want. E-mail me if you know about anti-depressants

  • Michelle

    The following is a journal entry when I was in the depths of depression, as I so often am:

    The depression is here again. It feel so familar, yet so foreign. I know that God didn’t intend for people to have this. Or does he? It’s scary. I want to cut myself right now to feel something. To feel physical pain, and not the pain in my head and my heart. Hope is fleeing, and death is looking like an answer. An escape and an end to this vicious cycle. I keep thinking that maybe it’s gone for good, but it always seems to return unexpectedly and stealthily. It is death which creeps into my mind and grabs hold of me. I am a prisoner in my own mind and body. I am not the only one, but I am alone, because I feel alone. It has found me again. I thought I had everything under control. I guess I was wrong. In me, death is dwelling, waiting to consume me from the inside out. A final resting place for me, away from the hurt and sadness, nothingness and numbness. A cut to feel pain which needs to exist. A horrible reality to live this way. Not knowing if tomorrow will bring hope or maybe thoughts of death. No guarantee. No certainty. No ability or control of brain chemistry or genetics. My fault or my creator’s? No answers. False hope. Short-lived hope. Glimpses of hope. Never seeing enough in the distance. ECT. Medication. Words of kindness. Prayer. Family. Friends. Love. Nothing sustains me. Comfort. Nothing. Nothingness in me. I am nothing and should not be. Death is not my foe, but like a friend. A hero to rescue me from this world full of cruelty and misunderstanding. I cannot feel its warth because the depression consumes me and fills me with cold and numbness. A loss of feeling and excitement for life. No reason to continue on. Feels heavy like a cross. I am not Jesus. I am so far from him and his kind heart.

  • Michelle

    The following is a journal entry I’d written when in the depths of depression, as I so often am:

    The depression is here again. It feels so familar, yet so foreign. I know that God didn’t intend for people to have this. Or does he? It’s scary. I want to cut myself right now to feel something. To feel physical pain and not the pain in my head and my heart. Hope is fleeing and death is looking like an answer. An escape and an end to this vicious cycle. I keep thinking that maybe it’s gone for good, but it always seems to return unexpectedly and stealthily. It is death which creeps into my mind and grabs a hold of me. I am a prisoner in my own mind and body. I am not the only one, but I am alone because I feel alone. It has found me again. I thought I had everything under control. I guess I was wrong. It me, death is dwelling, waiting to consume me from the inside out. A final resting place for me, away from the hurt and sadness, and nothingness and numbness. A cut to feel pain which needs to exist. A horrible reality to live this way. Not knowing if tomorrow will bring hope or maybe thoughts of death. No guarantee. No certainty. No ability or control of brain chemistry or genetics. My fault or my creator’s? No answers. False hope. Short-lived hope. Glimpses of hope. Never seeing enough in the distance. ECT. Medication. Words of kindness. Prayer. Family. Friends. Love. Nothing sustains me, nothing comforts me. Nothing. Nothingness in me. I am nothing and should not be. Death is not my foe, but like a friend. A hero to rescue me from this world full or cruelty and misunderstanding. I cannot feel its warmth because the depression consumes me and fills me with cold and numbness. A loss of feeling and excitement for life. No reason to continue on. Feels heavy, like a cross. I am not Jesus. I am so far from him and his kind heart.

  • Dan

    Just a few thoughts,

    Do you ever get up (from your seat) and go to do something.. and realise you have no idea what it was you intended to go and do… ?

    What does that make you feel like?

    Constantly feeling like you need to do “something” lingers in the back of your mind. It’s indiscriminate. Very soon I will have forgotten what that “something” is. But forgetting doesn’t remove the feeling that’s left in its place. The feeling becomes constant background hiss. This hiss is wearing me down.

    When can I stop? I wait for a time when I can rest.

    Hope turns to frustration turns to hate turns to despair. Don’t we all love despair.

    Hoping one day I will wake up. Will I recognise when I have woken up? Is THIS being awake?

    Trying not to judge from external points of view. Hate works in spirals. If you hate yourself that means one part of yourself must recognise what is good and actually itself be good. I think I’m the worst person in the world. But to think like that means that I am actually the opposite.

    Knowing I have something to do in the future keeps me from going to bed. Stops me resting and sabotages my daylight efforts time and time again. What can I do? Reduce everything that I need to do in the future? Is that a way of living? Or is that a way of avoiding living? Time vanishes when you’re avoiding it. I wish I could stop time.

    Anxiety that things will always remain like this forever, is tiring. Everything is tiring.

    Can we rest now?

  • Mark

    It feels like a large weight on you shouldrs and in your heart, everything and nothing makes me cry. I feel separated fom those I love and care about. I don’t want to live my life like this. I don’t want to live my life at all.

  • bob

    I’m 25, have a physical disability, have never had a girlfroend, and have suffered from major depression for at least the last 10 years; probably longer if I really thought about it. to me, it feels like someone is constantly punching me in the stomach. There is such a feeling of emptiness amd lonliness that it’s absolutely sickening. I can be in a room full of people who I know full-well love me, and feel totally alone. It creates such a hollow empty feeling that the only release comes when I cry myself to sleep due to exhaustion. I want to throw up every time I look in the mirror, there aren’t words to describe how much I hate myself.
    I feel guilty because my family and friends are all supportive, but it never seems to be enough. I’m so tired of pretending that I’m happy and that everything is ok. I don’t even want to know where I’ll be a year from now, hopefully dead, but I’m too scared to try to kill myself. I literally feel like I’ll never be good enough to be loved, and that scares me. I’ve pushed away people i care about because of an intense fear of rejection and even the few times I’ve tried to have relationships, they haven’t worked because I can’t trust the other person enough to believe that they actually want to be with me, and aren’t doing it out of pitty, or because they “feel bad for me”.
    Depression has ruined so many aspects of my life, I have no idea why I’m even still here, it’s the most intense pain I have ever felt in my life….I can’t describe it, it hurts so bad.

  • neelam Mistry

    i am depressing for many years, i am profoundly deaf. i cant feel any excting or push any intesting as i am most dont want any thing, i am narrow mind not freedom. please help me, i am not condifence.

    help me pls

  • Ashu

    I haven’t been diagnosed as yet but reading others’ description, I am certain that I have a depressive illness. Its gets hold of me periodically and doesn’t let go for periods lasting upto a week or two. Its very difficult to actually express all the complex currents of thoughts that move through one’s mind during a period of depression. I have made an attempt here but it would at best be a partial description. Immediately after posting, I would feel that I missed mentioning many of my feelings.

    During this time, the whole world seems like a cage where I feel trapped. As if some higher being is mocking at my helplessness and enjoying just as ancient Rome watched gladiators with the lions. Nothing at all seems worth doing and even the most basic effort seems to require a lot of effort. I feel as if by putting in effort, I am submitting to the demands of that higher being who initially put me in this wretched world. A sense of hopelessness and despair grips your mind and torrents of negative thoughts keep racing, thus putting immense pressure on your productivity.

    As zionxin put it rightly, the more you think about it, the more you realize that there is no reason for your despair and this floods your mind with a guilty feeling, depressing you further. Your motivation dries up completely since you do not feel life is worth living ayway. Once this happens, even the most basic tasks appear to require a lot of effort. You always feel drained out and tired.

    Suicidal thoughts cross your mind and if this appears extreme, sleep seems to be the only escape route. You just wish that the next morning never arrives. When it does arrive, you feel as if you have once again been thrown into the arena with the lions and just keep waiting for the day to end. You withdraw from friends and seem more comfortable being alone in a dark room with a blanket over your head. Your mind constantly reminds you that life is a punishment and that you would be cooperating with the punisher if you carry on existing. Every recreational activity seems to be like a lolliop held in front of a child, a ruse to make you forget the truth that life is actually a punishment.

    Although you long to be happy once again, paradoxically you also feel a sense of security in your depressed state because you start feeling that you alone seem to have realized the true dark and ugly face of life while others still are somehow masked and oblivious to the reality.

    As a solution, I have tried jotting down my thoughts and opinion of life during my normal days and then use them when depression strikes again to convince myself of the brighter side. This doesn’t seem to really work. I only end up convincing myself that I was somehow deluded or blind to the reality (like everyone else) when I wrote those positive thoughts.

  • Anya

    I have experienced depression in the past(during college) and it is a horrid thing to have to go through. I have read your above statements and I feel for each and everyone of you. I offer HOPE. There is hope out there. Seek help. Go to a doctor explain how you are feeling. Go talk to someone, repeatedly. There are ways out of depression and you WILL be a stronger but happy and healthy person. The woods are dark and deep but there is an end to it. The sun will shine again!

    I am currently going through a period of depression with my husband. After 14 months I have finally nearly dragged him to the doctor and he has put on medication which he is taking. But he has decided that he no longer loves me and wants out. He left last week. We have a 14 month old son and the last few months have been very hard. He doesn’t see what he is doing to the life we have built together. I have hope that the medication will begin to work and then perhaps I can convince him to see a counselor. I have now been the one depressed and the one that a depressed person is lashing out against. It is emotionally draining for both of us and we have no idea what the future holds.

    I send out hopes and thoughts to all of those that are hurting. Get help, it works and you will be happy once again! I promise!

  • Anya

    I have experienced depression in the past(during college) and it is a horrid thing to have to go through. I have read your above statements and I feel for each and everyone of you. I offer HOPE. There is hope out there. Seek help. Go to a doctor explain how you are feeling. Go talk to someone, repeatedly. There are ways out of depression and you WILL be a stronger but happy and healhy person. The woods are dark and deep but there is an end to it. The sun will shine again!

    I am currently going through a period of depression with my husband. After 14 months I have finally nearly dragged him to the doctor and he has put on medication which he is taking. But he has decided that he no longer loves me and wants out. We have a 14 month old son and the last few months have been very hard. He doesn’t see what he is doing to the life we have built together. I have hope that the medication will begin to work and then perhaps I can convince him to see a counselor. I have now been the one depressed and the one that is a depressed person is lashing out against. It is emotionally draining for both of us and we have no idea what the future holds.

    I send out hopes and thoughts to all of those that are hurting. Get help, it works and you will be happy once again!

  • wasted time

    time just comes to a stand still. The whole world could be falling apart outside and you just won’t care.and no, time is not on your side, it wants you, it consumes you but you can’t do anything about it.and so apathy turns to anger turns to sadness, but you’d rather be mad than sad, at least not crying anymore,and when will it ever end. you just don’t care what happens. you want to change but just can’t start. where do you even begin to put your life into perspective, that’s just depressive in itself, and then to get overwhelmed by emotions, they are not supperessed, they are just coming out of nowhere, they are real, they exist for a reason,but who knows why, why do they have to be sad emotions?
    make it go away is the only thing you can think, but you can’t and don’t see really when they ever will.

  • Mike

    It’s as if I am standing and looking out to the horizon and its gray, flat, featurless. I know that somewhere out there it ends, but where it ends makes no difference at all. It could be now, or it could be a long way off, it just doesn’t matter.

    I know that there are people that love me, but from where I am, I can’t feel it, it might as well not exist for all the difference it makes. I am a failure at everything I have ever tried. Every friend or person who has depended on me, I have let down. They would have been better off had they never know me.

  • Mira

    to everyone who has posted messages on this page, I really know exactly what it feels like. I have even seen my sister going through this. I am 20 yrs old and I know I am supposed to be a livewire going for parties and being asked out by boys and the like. But I feel so isolated. Everybody seems to just want me out of the mess that I am in. A year back I was a healthy happy person with no problems. I had hope for the future. Now I am just walking in this black tunnel and there is just no light at the end. Yes, even I think zionxin was absolutely right. At rare times I feel a glimmer of hope but I just cannot understand why I have to go through this. I just want to escape so badly. Forever. I feel so alone and I cant make any decisions for myself. I cry all the time. I have heard the phrase that if u r able to stop thinking abt happiness it might just happen. But I cant think of anything but that. In a way, I myself am just waiting for myself to get better. I just hope I helped you in realizing that u r really not the only chaotic disturbed one going through all these emotions.

  • Rachal

    Depression makes me feel one of two ways:

    1)I feel completely numb, useless, empty, dead
    2)I feel an unjustifiable sadness, an absolute hopelessness

    It’s frustrating. Picture this: I feel like I am completely submerged under water, and I can see the glow of the sun on the surface. I want to get there. I want to breathe, I am struggling to swim towards the light, which cannot reach me through the depths. But, I can never get very far because I have weights attached to my ankles that keep bringing me back down, that require for overexertion to even lift them.

  • Anne A.

    It feels like …a hole inside. You can’t fill it.It feels so good to cry, so you do it a LOT. Sometimes, for no reason. You don’t really know why, you’re just…crying, all of a sudden. I’m so sad right now, that I can’t even cry, and I wish I could. 2 nights ago, I stayed up really late, and I was crying so hard that my kitties came over to me to see what was wrong. I just want to feel normal again. There WAS a time when I didn’t feel like this…why can’t I get back to it?

  • christine sixteen

    I really can’t say when I started feeling like this. I just knew something was wrong when all I would do is cry. (Can you believe that Sex & the City made me cry?) I would cry when I got to work at 7:30, at lunch, basically all the time. I couldn’t concentrate at work and finally started to have anxiety attacks. It was the hardest to go to work and try to not have your co-workers or boss think you were like “losing it” or a “weakling”. You feel alone in the world and no matter how close you are to your loved ones, (boyfriend, husband, friends, etc.) noone can help or understand what you are going through unless they have been through it. You slowly start to isolate yourself from friends and family. You don’t really recognize that you are depressed until it affects everything you do. Nothing satisfies you. I almost feel like a there was an old me and now the “new” depressed me. I try to remember how all this came about or when it all actually did; but I can’t. I guess the worst part is waiting to see when I will feel better. Hopefully soon! I pray that everyone who is in the same boat will get help. It is the worst feeling in the world. I don’t want to get up each morning; then when I do, I just want to lay there as the world passes me up.

  • Farren

    For those who don’t have it but want to know what it’s like, the best analogy I can come up with at the moment is trying to punch a hanging bedsheet. You hit it as hard as you can, but it barely moves, and it feels like you’re not really punching at all. Go ahead and try it. Make sure you get frustrated with yourself in the process, resulting in furious punches that do nothing but make you feel more and more worthless with every punch.

    Far too many math lessons for my own good, but here it is: the graph. Plot it out and see what I mean:
    everyone = sin(x), 0<x<360
    me = (sin(x/2)-1)/2, 0<x<720

  • christine grace

    The worse thing is that you feel like your the only one feeling this pain and that you must have done something to deserve it,and how did you get so weak in the first place!
    It must be one of the worse feelings in the world,and all you want do is get back to who you where,but how!

  • Amy

    What I wrote sums up just a few points about it but there is so much that is impossible to explain.

    Heres simple explanation:

    Its like being close to death….but not close enough.

  • Amy

    You feel empty. Yet overflowing with emotions. At the same time.

    You hate yourself. You hate living. You hate everything. Everything you do seems wrong. You feel jinxed. Like you can never do right. But you should. You have to be perfect. But there is no chance of that ever happening.

    You dont care about anything yet everything matters so much. So much it hurts.

    You feel pathetic and guilty because really there is nothing to be upset over.

    You feel like youre going insane.

    You feel so alone even with millions of people all around you.

    You feel sad all the time. You have to hide it though. You cant show anyone how weak you are.

    You cry all the time. Sometimes for no reason. Break down everytime you are alone. Then wipe the tears and put on the smile again.

    You feel so tired all the time. Not just tired. Totally drained of all energy. Typing this is tiring me out.

    You get headaches and stomachaches all the time.

    You feel cut off from the world.

    You feel so hopeless. Like you will always be like this. Your life will always be this constant struggle for happiness.

    You want to be happy more then anything yet you just cant. But theres another part of you. That feels secure being sad. Because when youre sad you cant be hurt.

    You basically feel like hell.

    And it builds up till you feel like you cant cope anymore. The pain is too much and there is no real reason to go on. You want to give in. But you cant because thats selfish. So you carry on. Carry on falling apart.

  • Linda Perry

    Depression to me is like a blanket of death. You feel you are just existing. Most of the time wondering why.You know what you want to do, such as clean your house or a room or do this or that and you picture what it would look like when you are done and how proud you would be. But you just dont have the energy to get up and do so you sit all day on the couch just sulking. You dont like it and you watch the clock all day. Ok you say I still have a couple of hours and before you know it its night you dont even have the energy or the want to to get up and eat. Or to cook for a husband whose been at work all day and you pass out. You wake up the next day shaking and feeling tense and have your coffee and immediatly take a pill to calm your nerves. Sometimes it works most times it doesnt. You want to stop it so bad. I keep saying to myself stop it. I want me back. Where did I go. Now I wonder if I’ll ever come back I egnore the phone 90% of the time. You just dont want to be botherd and when you are it angers you. You just want to crawl somewhere and be alone. You lose interest in everything. You tend to be mean to those who love you. In my case its my husband, he was a bad alcoholic for yrs and I cant get over that so now when he comes home I engnore him. I have nothing to say even if he comes in with flowers or something for me to cheer me up I am mean to him. I tell him just leave me alone. Even when you should be on top of the world your at the bottom of the totum pole. You just plain dont want to be bothered. Your house goes to pot. You dont want to clean. You dont want to go anywhere just sit on the couch all day with the TV on and most of the time its on mute and you stare and wonder, what the heck is going on. What do I have to do to get rid of this? Ive tried so many anti-depressants to no avail, Where do you turn? Theres no one who really understands, they all think your just being lazy. Anyone else like this please let me know Im not alone. Email me. Lenda788@aol.com. I am open to any suggestions. I have been clinically depressed for a lot of yrs now. Things have happened as they do in life and have just added to it. Something as got to be done Im almost at my wits end. My husband comes home for work and I just want him to go away. My kids will stop by and most of the time I just want them to go away. The house is a disaster so I dont want them seeing it anyway. What do you do? People dont understand its not like an on and off switch you can cut on and off otherwise there would be no such illness. Everyone would keep it off. I know I would. My husband says when I tell him I start shaking when I wake up or when he comes home and he just says well dont do that. I try to explain you cant just turn it off. Lord I wish I could. Im so tired of it. Its a dark cloud over you constantly its like a demon trying to take you to the dark side. Its like feeling you dont want to be alive anymore, why be here if you are going to be this way, but not being here would hurt the kids. Its like a tidal wave that just swoops you away and just when you think you may come up for air it comes again and again and again. You start to take medicine, then you find yourself taking more and more and more just to try and make it through the day or to make you feel better for just a little while. But it doesnt work. Its reaching out for help, getting it and getting discouraged because it does not do no good. All you want is life back. You wonder will it ever be the same. It hurts to smile. I have anxiety or panic attacks all the time. I cant be around my grandkids to long at a time because of it. I dont want to rely on xanax the rest of my life but what do you do. And the Celexa is not working anymore. I have a new 6 week old grandson to ad to the other 3 I already have, I should be on top of the world and Im looking for a new better place to live. But none of it really matters. Im so depressed that I cant enjoy the things I should. Please someone tell me what do I do? Im lost, Im confused, most of all Im depressed and paniced out. Im afraid to fall alsleep at night wondering what the next day will bring.

  • char

    They say we can get well IF we hang in there? I’m not too sure about that! Depression..wandering in chaos and not understanding why. Confusion and empty feelings and yet so uncontrollable. No one seems to understand or they don’t ‘want’ to. It’s self hatred that one has been robbed of a ‘normal’ life IF there is one. Feelings of desperation to the point that one just wants to die and I want to die now. I hate myself.. No one understands….everyone looks at me like I’m odd or not human and no one wants to get close to me…worse than any physical illness! I hate depression..I hate life! I hate myself. I don’t fit in anywhere and they say I ‘can’ get better? I don’t think so…I do need an escape.

  • Debbie

    I am wondering why all of us do not understand that we are important to someone out there. We ALL have someone who loves us dearly and would miss us if we were gone. The world today gives us the message that “things” are disposable. That message haunts us all.

    “You” are not a “thing” that is disposable. You are valuable and loved. Never, never, never give up!! Fight for yourself, you are worth it. YOU make a difference in someones life.

  • cj

    I don’t really know if I have depression, but it sure as hell feels like it. I have no desire to do anything,I just want to sleep forever or just a little while.
    I feel as if no one would understand, I don’t even know how to explain it. I feel as if something is just not right, one minute i am raging mad, next minute I am wondering why I was mad, then I am sad because I can’t understand why I was even mad. I am constantly snapping at my husband, and the littlest things make me cry.

  • Chris

    Depression is an insidious vacuum that crawls into your brain and pushes your mind out of the way. It is the total absence of rational thought. You are left with a dangerous, horrifying, terrifying fog wafting throughout whatever is left of your mind.

  • Helen

    I’m still not sure if what I feel is depression. Every so often I feel like someone comes and puts a big heavy blanket on me. I do feel really bad at times but is it depression?

    I’ve self harmed for about a year and not been able to talk to people much in person for over 3 years now. For a lot of the time I have wanted to kill myself and end this pain I feel.

    I do have happy moments but even when I’m trying to improve I fall right back again.

    My parents ask why I am doing this to them then forget me and focus back on my sister.

    At the moment I can barely even make myself go to school. It’s 4 days back after the Easter holiday and I’ve had to have a day off so I can continue and hopefully get through my exams.

    There are lots of people I talk to over the internet and have deep respect for – but I feel inadequate next to them.

    People tell me I’m clever and I’ll be okay but I just knew deep inside it could be the next lesson or the next exam that I’m going to burst out and cry and scream.

    My school know about my self harming and didn’t take it seriously. When I was taken out a lesson crying before they took me away and told me how emotionally strong I am usually.

    I’m sorry. Does this make any sense?

  • chrissy

    i have been depreesed for 14 yrs im now 28 ,i cry all the time and hate my life ,although i have a beautiful 5 yr old boy ,i much wonder if he would be better without me ,but that thought makes me cry i never had parents and i dont want the same for him,meds are nice but they never work ,i wish they would ,i cant remeber ever being awake ,happy,or even a bit excited i hate it i wish i could change it all,especially for my son !

  • audra

    I guess that zionxin said it best. that is exactly how I’ve been feeling for a long time now, only I didn’t know how to describe it. The bad thing is…everything is getting worse. I cut myself for the first time yesterday. All I want to do is sleep. I think about suicide, but I’m too scared to actually kill myself. So I sleep. I dropped out of college 2 days ago, now I feel like a worthless lump of person…no, not person…I’m too numb to feel like a person today…my parents don’t understand. They say that I am only upset because god is punishing me for living a life of sin. The only relationship that I have ever had is falling to pieces. He has been patient with me for 2 and a half years, but he is starting to get burned out. I don’t think he wants to deal with me anymore…with all of my crying fits and irrational jealousy and crazy emotions. If I lose him I don’t know what I’ll do…yes I do. I’ll do it this time, I won’t chicken out. I’m not saying this to get pity from people…don’t get me wrong. It just feels good to say these things out loud (kindof). humph…this is the first thing that’s felt good in a long time.

  • onemillionzeros

    “a million zeros, unfortunately, do not add up to one.” -carl jung

    one word: void. it is a total lack, an obliterating nothingness, it is less than zero, it is numbness and cold. i thought maybe ‘vacuum’ could describe it, but the word vacuum implies the sucking in and dispelling of, a vacuum implies that substance exists. the void knows nothing of substance, it knows nothing of color, texture, or shape. this void doesn’t merely exist within, it encompasses all, it changes the fabric and nature of all matter, cells, and DNA around it.

    those who have never experienced this, who look at you aghast that you could even suggest suicide, have never visited hell.

  • Andrew

    Its hard.. but i keep going cuz i know it’ll end soon.. it does for everyone, except the people who commit suicide, if they’d would have held on longer they’d be fine.. Work with me everyone, and never give up.. never surrender, to depression.

  • zionxin

    i feel nothing, you try to objectify why you feel this way, what in your life is so wrong and when you come up with nothing whatso ever you feel horrible. you feel guilty for having what many would think is a privillidged life and being unable to appreciate that because all you can think about is how much of huge stinking load your life has become. you are your own worst enemy, trapped in a prison of flesh you long for release in any way.nothing feels right, i cant even go to university most days coz im terriffied of life. i feel so isolated, no one will talk to me. i wait for the day i can smile again but it will never come. i cant fix this.

  • rc

    to anonymous who wrote on April 17 @12:20 am if you are reading this I want you to know that I am going through the same thing. Everything that you are discribing, I am and was going through. But I could not seem to describe anything so I give you alot of credit for that. My days are getting better. A month ago I changed my medication and things are becoming brighter. Just hold on and things will get better for you. I am 23 years old and have been depressed for 2 years. It has almost ruined my relationship and my life. I hope that you will be strong!!!!!!!!

  • moon shadow

    I would also like to say, now that I’m done rambling on about myself, that if you logged on to this site, you need help. I know, myself, that’s it’s hard to find help. No one to talk to, no insurance for professional help, whatever. It’s not easy. Look. I cope by, unfortuneately, crying and alcohol every damn night. Don’t like it but if I didn’t do it, I definitely would not be here as of two years ago. Logging on and venting DOES help. That’s why I did it. It DOES help to just get out what you feel. Even if you don’t get a response. I keep on trucking because of a very loving wife and two step kids who love me. Without me, they got nothing. My advice to you? Find someone who finds you necessary and cling on to them. It just might be your ticket to hanging on a little while longer until you get the help you need. What I just said is not the miracle thing. It’s just what’s keeping me from folding my hands and ending the game.

  • moon shadow

    What does it feel like? It feels like a shot of Novacaine straight to your brain. Numb. Things that normally make you happy are nothing all of a sudden. You don’t want to smile. You don’t want to wake up. You see no NEED to wake up. Every single day is like the day before. Like that movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. Nothing makes you happy. You cry every day for no damn reason. You just want it all to end. You find yourself thinking of the most painless way of ending it all. Bunch of pills? Maybe. Razor? Hey, it’ll only hurt five or seven minutes and then you just go to sleep. Big deal. A few minutes of discomfort and it’s all over with. It feels like you have been forgotten by GOD. The Almighty Most Merciful God has just been too busy with other crap that He’s just forgotten about ya’. You wake up, do what you HAVE to do, go to sleep and do it all over again. It sucks. What the hell is the sense of waking up? Hey, if I do myself in, at least someone who needs a job more than I do will get one because I won’t be there. Therefore, I’ll be serving a purpose. I’m trying and crying.

  • Alicia

    I make an extreme effort not to fill, but I can’t. I fill helpness, I fill alone, I worry about everything, I am ashamed of myself. Why nobody sees how much I suffer? Why nobody take care of myself?
    I want to die. It is so pathetic, I write this letter because I fill so lonely that I seek for help in my computer.
    It is hard for me to wake up in the morning. I look at the clock hoping that the day will end, and another day comes on and on. And every day the same. I would like to sleep for the rest of my life.
    I don’t want to fill anymore. It is extremely painfull.

  • Dee

    A series of life’s tragedies set me in this very dark state of mind. Two divorces, two to three jobs at once, working single Mom, business that I owned burned to the ground, Dad dies unexpectedly and on and on. I have always been the strong one in the family but now I realize that I am no longer strong. Thoughts of death and ending the misery are a constant companion and a daily struggle to deal with. What is a good nights sleep? What is a happy dream instead of nightmares? What is enjoying life and activities when all I feel is the need to work (which I now hate with a passion) or things would not be any good at all? Depression robs you of life. Plain and simple.

  • ms. margaret

    Depression feels like always walking through thigh-high mud. It feels like being lost alone in the dark hallways of my mind and having only a little window through which I can see the sunshine and the lives of other people. Colors loose their intensity, joy is always muted. I want to hide away in my house from all the people, because it is so much trouble acting normal in public; no slow slumping walk or crying allowed there. Depression feels like none of my talents, skills, and accomplishments matter. Somehow I am not as good as other people. I want to sleep and sleep and sleep, even though I know what beautiful things I might be missing during those hours of blessed oblivion.

    Right now I have a situational depression on top of major depressive disorder. If it weren’t for medication and an unassuming, pleasant, and caring doctor (and how very rare those are!!) I would be dead.

  • Niloofar

    “If a woman is to write fiction “, said Virginia Wolf, “she must have money and a room of her own”.
    I was composing one of my gloomiest poems when I was diagnosed to have a Severe Major Depression illness. I called it “a hell of my own”. At my early days of depression, I had no idea of how far it can take me and somehow in the tip of my heart I liked that hell. I would rather to sit at the darkest corner of the hell and grieve over my lost years. Some times I used to enjoy whispering parts of my dead poem over and over:

    Tonight a cold breeze,
    which smells like camphor,
    will chill my bones.
    And I will wash my sad songs in its humidity.
    And will leave my homeless dandelions to its frozen fingers.
    Then, I will lie down beyond the winter
    So calm
    So peaceful
    Hey! All the owls of cemeteries on the earth!
    Sing to me your lullabies.

    And hey you!
    The Cold Breeze!
    I will turn to a petunia
    Whiter than petunias in a hospital
    With my eyes: wide open,
    Surprised by the glory of winter
    Waiting for you in a wooden box
    Take me!
    Take me to the land of impossible plants
    Sow me there
    Where pain is just a legend
    And grieve is just a tale
    I will bud
    I will grow leaves
    I will blossom:
    “A blue lily
    In Never Land!”

    I knew nothing about the complexity of humans mind. How sophisticated is our perception of the world. Swirling through a dark tunnel, surrounded by a shadow of confusion and anxiety, I went and went. I was almost hospitalized when I realized I could not go on like that any more. It was dreadful. I remember those terrifying hours in which any moment was a burden, staying at bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking of a way to suicide.
    Becoming social withdrawal is a common symptom of people with depression. For the social passive person I have always been; it was more noticeable. I used to be a passionate person for literature. I used to love reading poetry books, listening to music. During my blue days I could not stand listening to a song. I wanted to stay in the silent darkness where I was forgotten by every body: no song, no human being. My attitude toward people was so distorted: “those ridiculous people who hate me!” In fact, before my depressive illness I had few friends and after that I had no friend. I was angry at people, at the whole world and at myself, the weak person who I was. Furthermore, people around me kept saying “do not be so week and emotional. You are the one who can save yourself. Just say to yourself that you do not want to be depressed any more. Snap out of it. Go and have fun.”
    I was so tired all the time, had no appetite and I hardly could manage to sleep for a horrible nightmare I had: I was standing lonely in a deserted area where was filled with dead birds; icy wind was blowing on my face. The cloudy dark sky was too close to the earth. It was like end of the world. I hated to put my feet on the birds but I had no choice.
    Given so many terrible feelings, I had to work on my PhD thesis what is tough even for a person in normal condition of mind. I had lost my concentration ability, my ability to think and infer clearly and also my memory.

  • Lisa

    Depression feels like walking naked down a narrow hallway that has shards of glass sticking out that cut your skin as you make your way through. It is gut-wrenching pain and loneliness where even when a best friend is attempting to console you, you feel nothing.

  • Erica

    Depression…is like not being able to feel anything or think of anything, except for the present…and how much it sucks because it seems nothing will rid of the sadness in the future. Nothing feels like it’s happening, everyone around you seems like they’re ignoring you. You lose everything that made you happy…things that you can still do don’t make you happy anymore, even the things that helped you escape the reality that already felt like torture everyday. Sometimes, I wish that the world would just…blow up, or at least take a break, to stop everything for a while. It feels like the small problems just get bigger…and all you feel like is staying in your room and crying forever.

  • LittleKnife

    Its like everything is on top of you all the time but when you try to reach up and do something it slides away, and you can’t touch anyone or feel anyone like you know you should. The worst part is knowing you shouldn’t feel like this, knowing it could be better, that actually the world is great, but all you can feel is the bleakness and the fear.
    And so tired, so damn tired of everything, its all so hard, every movement take a lifetime, every though goes in circles, but you can’t sleep because you do go in circles ad you are afraid, of what might come, of waking in the morning and finding the world still there, of having to talk to people of just being.

  • stephanie

    Depression seems to be getting worse as I get older. I’ve been seeing doctors for over 16 years and have tried a lot of medication. I’m hopeful that I will find the medication that will finally help me.
    I really feel that depression has held me back from all of my dreams. Who am I? It seems that I get that figured out and then for no reason, I must keep asking that question.

  • sunset

    hi,

    death it all leads to you. Life lived in awe or maybe spent in torment. Either way it all leads to you, DEATH. Noone knows how i feel and about how lonely it is to be all alone, my youth was stolen by guilt, my adulthood taken by coweredness. Life seems so simple as the wathcer. But as the years drifed by as I quickly became an adult, Life didn’t seem any longer so simple. Words hurt you. No matter where you go they will always remain. You may try to hide how much words really hurt you, but i guess others are just better at hiding. A failure in everyones eyes and they are not afraid to say so. The words that escape their lips tear through your heart as if it were made of tissue paper. Noone knows how it feels to be numb because you haven’t given the chance for anyone to unlease emotion. Noone sees the painful tears that hide behind these eyes. Noone sees the unpleasent frown of a lonely hurt person. Noone sees me i am invisable. So life will you spear me and uncleance me from this suffering.

  • Dave

    Depression confuses me.
    I feel worthless,unmotivated, and less valuable -ever moving is a pool of thick sadness. I’ve lost interest in work, wife, and friends. I don’t know if my depression is a just reaction to my laziness, insensitivity and worthlessness or the other way around. And this confusion depresses me further.

  • lydia

    Depression is like living in a glass cage that only you can see. You scream and scream but no one reaches out to help, because they can’t see that you’re all alone. You pray every night that God will take you painlessly away. But you hate him…because you know he won’t. So you plan to end it all, knowing that this pain will never leave. And all along, all you want is to be held and know that there will be a happy ending to your screams. How will it end? I still don’t know…

  • Brian

    Depression is like a dark cloud hanging over my head. It’s like an impending doom that i KNOW is coming, and i can feel it coming closer each time i smile… and then, when it hits, it hurts to smile… it hurts to laugh… all the things i care about become burdens, and i just wanna give up… i would love to just sleep all the time, but the guilt and embarrassment of it gets me out of bed each day. It takes all i have when im down just to take my meds before bed, and to say i love you to my girlfriend when i get to talk to her… when im down it is as if the bright future i have is unattainable, and no matter HOW i try to think of it, my mind convinces me im lying to myself and that i’d be better off dead… depression is being a zombie. Depression is having your soul taken out and becoming a tool… when im depressed i curse God… why don’t i run to Him? because im weak, and i feel like He doesnt want to bother with a weakling like me… although i know i cannot pull myself out… depression is waking up every day knowing im already dead. but, i know i can AND WILL beat depression… and im working hard to do so…

  • Kathryn

    i feel as though i have been running from this “thing” and somehow i always end up having to face it again. Like i am running down a one way road in the wrong direction. i confine myself in my room at home and rarely ever feel like going out. i have been fighting depression for about 7 years now. it has been a long battle and most of the time i feel as though i am fighting it alone. It has affected my schooling and at a point, I actually had to withdraw from school. things like this shouldn’t have to happen to anyone, much less a teenager whom is supposed to have their whole life ahead of them. there is no point in it. i feel like screaming just so everyone can know how i feel. people tell me just to “snap-out” of it but its not something you can just get over. i get so frustrated with my mother and then i always feel so bad because she has been the only one that has supported me through all of this. i honestly dont know what i would have done without her in my life.

  • Christie

    It’s like living in a blender. Everything is so mixed up and looks the same. It’s like swimming against the tide and you know you can’t win it.

  • Anonymous

    I have been battling depression on and off for some time, and things were going well for the better part of a few years. One year ago, I unexpectedly lost my Mother. She had Liver Serosis and kept her illness silent from all family and friends right up until her death. Shortly after her death, I experienced a horrific end to a 2 year relationship I was in. Since then, my mental health has continued to decline and at only 20 years old, I have hit rock bottom.

    Im unable to experience the same feelings I used to. Nothing motivates me or puts enthusiasm into my soul anymore, not even music (which has been my passion since 10 years old). Every day is the same. I constantly feel lonely and hopeless longing to be the compassionate and genuinely happy person that the world once knew.

    I have become a very different person over the past year. I think far too much, and always negative. I constantly worry about every little thing in my life. I am often unable to carry on a conversation for longer than half a minute without feeling or thinking awkward. People often tell me Im not the person they once knew.

    I remember when I used to light up the room I was in. People would enjoy my company, invite me to be their company, think highly of me. Now, Im very irritable and feel as though I annoy alot of people. I have definitley become someone else and the change has been drastic and very noticeable.

    I dont even know what Im doing any more. I am so confused even just typing this stuff. I dont know why Im saying this. I cant even find the right words to say.

    I constantly re-think what Im doing before I even take action against something. For example, if Im writing poetry, I’ll scrap the entire poem before it’s even half way done.

    I must sound like the biggest idiot in the world. Im just going to go before I make myself look any worst. I really hope one day I see the sun again. I know I cant just wait for it and I have to do something, but Im not sure where to start. And if I do decide to start and take action to make progress, I fear I will only be let down because I will fail miserably and sink even lower.

  • PaulJordan

    To me my depression has been a constant battle to maintain productivity in my life. I am 32 yrs old now and once had so many friends I couldn’t decide who to see. Now I am alone, I hide away , so noone sees my pain. I feel like a loser and I tell myself everyday. People think I have it all. Inside , I pray for my death. Everyday , I ask God to take me from this earth. I am distant and can no longer love. My family misses the old me, who always smiled. My life is over, I feel useless. I can never think clearly, so learning is a chore. I feel noone likes me, and I don’t blame them. I am awful, full of jealousy. I wish for a clear mind and the bounce out of bed to start my day. I am in Sales and I am fading out to nothing. I can’t make money because, I hide from everyone. I am ashamed of what I have become.

  • Jus

    Neither extreme just slight emotions. Just wait for the good morning/day if you’re lucky week to come along. Waiting. Dreams seem so distant. Snap back to reality then, off you go again…

  • Amy

    Like I’m blank. I feel nothing for the things I used to like and the people I used to love. I just want to run away and hide somewhere but I know that it will still be with me, following me everywhere. I can’t get away from it.

  • Walton

    I suffered for 25 years with repeat bouts of major depression until my wife gave me an ultimatum: get help of I go. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done…It saved my life. It has been over ten years since I started seeing a therapist and getting medical help. It hasn’t always been easy. My life is leaps and bounds better now than it was before. I feel a whole new sense of purpose and life. I feel a will within me I didn’t know existed. I know all of you can feel good, just keep fighting and it will happen.

  • jaime pereira

    I want to be back to what and who I was; yet I don’t even remember what or who I used to be anymore, much less the way to get there. Confusion about everything in my life. There is nothing clear, just darkness. Making a simple decision can be overwhelming and feels like failure is always knocking at my door! Sleep, sleep, sleep. Can’t work, can’t think. Am I just lazy? Am I using depression as an excuse, when all I am is a lazy bum? I am such a dumb person! Embarrassment. Do I love my wife, do i love anyone in my life anymore? If I do? Why do I not even want to sustain a conversation with any of them? So many questions, so many doubts, so many fears…..I am slowly dying!!!!!!

  • Melissa

    Total hopelessness even if there is no reasoning.
    Icouldnt funtion normaly.stop eating, total sadness, feeling know one will know why or understand you or what your going trough because of the no reasoning.a silincnt crying, senivtive heart rate, worthless, didnt mater if I died.
    most of the time this pain gose and comes back in your live. BUT, there is hope …….really.
    Even if you dont belive it there is light after the darkness.JESUS as save me life .And has help me undertand the reasoning of things of life .
    I hope I can reach out to people and help them unlike no human has not done for me.

    P.S.”somethimes you have to remind your self life is hard for a reason beacuse youre important, the point is that it is the “Evil”‘s job is to attack you to get you off the right track.”

    This is what is ture to me. if you what to ask me anything I will be glad to help. write me at:melissa963@bellsouth.net.

  • Lee

    I am a ghost trapped in my own body that refuses to die. For over ten years now i have felt so empty inside except for the pain that lets me know im still alive. My throat feels as if a hand is clinched around it. My stomach is always in knots. My thoughts are often cloudy and it clears only to become crushing anxiety. My suppossed friends try to help me with very empty advice. They mean well, but in their ignorance it seems they do more harm than good. If I didn’t know better I’d think they were out to destroy me. Ten years without counciling, fearing the Ministry and Head Shrinkers (turn me into helpless sheep or use me like a guinnee pig)….. don’t trust anyone in my weakened state. After all, ain’t I supposed to be handle this on my own? And if I can’t… so what. The world will go on with out me……. it has for over ten years now.

  • kim

    hello

    I have lived with depression for many years.
    somtimes I have racing thoughts and I can not get them out of my head. I feel as though I can’t sleep, and I stay up all night. I feel as though I cannot move and so any thing. I feellike a loser, that every thing I worked for is not good, and that I am a faluier. But I pray and know that God will save me when I am in my right mind.
    But there is other times when I am made at God.
    I shouldnt be though. He is the savior and he will save us.

  • Milisa

    I feel nothing good… only emptiness, pain and guilt. It seems as though I am merely existing not living. I question everything I say and do…like I am not sure how I should be. I am constantly letting those I care about down…does that mean I don’t care for them. Depression makes me feel so self-involved and yet I don’t even want to think about myself. I don’t like who I am.

  • MX

    I use to be excited, but now Im not. Now I just dont care about those things that use to drive me.

    Then there are those moments when I really think I am going mad. My mind wont stop spinning. And the pain….in my head…shouting.

    Sometimes the pain in my head is so great I just want to smash my head into the wall. Im tired…just so darn tired. I could sleep for weeks.

    I see everyone around me who are trying their hardest to make me feel better. I know Im suppose to love them, but Im numb to any emotions.

    Add to this all the guilt I feel inside for being this self-absorbed person. I think the fatigue comes from faking happiness to everyone around me.

  • Jeran

    Depression feels like a circle of guilt, worthlessness, inability, weakness, and fear. All wrapped up in silence and fog. You don’t function like you used to, you can’t think like you used to, you can’t participate like you used to and you let down those depending on you like they used to. You live in a circle of fear and guilt and your brain constantly reminds you that you no longer measure up and there’s no point in trying anymore. An endless circle of failure.

  • key

    I get so tired everyday trying to figure out what my real feelings are!!! Who am I? Am I still in love with my boyfriend of six years? Is this what my life is supposed to feel like? I get different feelings all through out the day. I don’t know where to turn. My therapist tells me stop trying to figure things out. I try not to read into things. But sometimes I can’t help it. I don’t knowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

  • Shannon

    Depression is like getting lost in the wood with no way to find your way out. You walk and walk and everything looks the same. All you feel is dispair.

  • Danielle

    Depression is like everyone else in the world has disappeared and you are left all alone..and their is nothing you can do to change things…their is no one to listen and no one to care.

  • sycamore

    Deppression is like being on the edge of despair….
    It is as the snapping of twigs…thin, brittle, crisp with intent.
    A slightness of pressure, brief hesitation, then sharp crackling bits are pummeled, wedging slivers deep into the emptiness.

  • anne

    depression feels like being trapped underwater, and trying to grow gills by sheer force of will. and at the same time being painfully conscious of the fact that it’s damn near impossible. and we’re supposed to ‘think’ our way better, to think positive. but if thinking is my disease, and my brain is sick and can’t be trusted then… how? i just chase my tail until i’m so tired i want to throw up. depression feels like a death sentence; once you’ve gone through all the medications and therapies, all there is to do is wait to die.

  • Paul

    It surrounds me and consumes me, smothering my will to live with the urge to destroy myself. There have been times in my life when I’ve felt better, but I’ve always lived in fear that it will return… and each time it gets worse. I feel like it has become a miserable, inseparable part of who I am.

  • David

    Depression is like a cold darkness descending upon you. You feel scared and lonely. You have thoughts, that people do not care about you. It rob me this year from my teaching job. Depression is like total darkness robbing your energy.

  • Kevin

    Depression is hell. I used to enjoy life immensely and I was a very talkative person. Now, I sometimes wish that I would not wake up in the morning. It would be one way to end the pain. Something just feels off or wrong but it is difficult to describe exactly what that is. I have become socially isolated and just feel empty. Nothing I do gives me any joy and I almost feel helpless. I feel slowed down mentally.

  • james

    Hell…pure hell. All you want to do is die and stop the pain. blow your head off, hang yourself, etc etc. anything to stop hurting

  • sara

    Depression is the feeling of hopelessness, feeling useless and worthless…and when you’re depressed all you want is for it to just go away, no matter how. I would do anything and everything to end my depression…and that is the scariest part of it.
    It’s when I can’t get myself out of bed in the mornings, when I can’t eat or sometimes I even overeat, it’s when I don’t enjoy the things I used to and it’s when every day I struggle with myself just to survive the day until it’s night and then the whole thing starts all over again, it’s when I can’t concentrate or have no control over my thoughts, it’s when I start thinking irrationally, when I start blaming myself or feeling endless guilt for no reason at all…that is how I feel when I am depressed.

  • Lutchi

    It feels like being close to madness but never being able to make sure which side of “the sanity line” you are standing on. Giving consent to insanity seems like a solution but it also feels like weakness. Depresion (or, Melancholia) is a constant situation of “in-betweenness”.

  • Anna

    It feels as if I am drowning, constantly struggling for air, struggling to come up to the surface and have just another breath of fresh air. And when I do, it comes as a relief – my brain and body receive the needed oxygen. But this relief is so ephemeral because soon that breath of air is not enough, and I have to keep struggling to get another one. And with each time I am growing more and more tired and I am afraid that soon I will have to give up. It’s not that I don’t want to live – I do; it’s just that my strength capacity is very limited.

  • Mahalia

    Depression feels like everything else in the world is right, and you are wrong. There is a constant feeling of uselessness, like there is no purpose for you in the world, other than any thing negative.

  • Steve

    I feel like I am just “going through the motions” of an empty and devoid life. I am falling in a bottomless hole without the knowledge or power to escape the relentless gravitational pull. And the darkness …. man …. I can’t “see” a thing.

  • RedMan

    Depression is like being in a dark curved tunnel, there is just a hint of light ahead but no matter how far you move forward you never seem to fully see the light.

  • Jim

    depression is a feeling that i want to get rid of, but right now, i dont know how.
    its like a dense fog and persistantly cold and rainy weather that feels like there no hope of lifting.

    i feel like i’m at the bottom of the world’s largest mountain and i somehow have to get to the other side. but i have lead boots and i’ve been awake for days

    its like knowing there’s a giant tidal wave approaching as i trduge along a grey beach and i’m going to get swept out to the bottom of the black sea.

    its like trying to walk through waist high cement

    its frustrating and overwhelming. i feel incapicitated by simple chores like laundry and dishes that dont get done for weeks on end. like i’m some sort of invalid.

    its a daily battle to get a shower, put on clothes and get to work and school. i feel like i deserve an award just for the herculean effort it took to show up to class. then i feel awful when i haven’t done my homework again. i am frightened by the university and i want to hide from the buildings and the professors who i feel have to despise me by now. no one wants to hear the excuses. they’ve heard them all before. crack the whip.
    i dont like myself much these days
    i want this feeling to go away.

  • Karen

    Depression to me is like being lost in the forrest. It is dark, cold, lonely, scary and menacing. The fog that settles over it in the dark is smothering as a wet wool blanket. The edge of night is as close as your hand but yet as far away as the farthest star, and then it breaks. Peace settles overhead for a while and gives us a break but then we stumble back into the depth again and quickly and easily lose our way.

  • Amy

    Depression is like an angry sea, as large as the waves are, they still can’t seem to get over that mountainous dune…

Leave a Reply to anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.