Dear Support Person,

Thank you! The person who is having you read this is super grateful you are in their life [even when we don’t know how to show that gratitude from our depressed state]. It is a blessing to have someone in our lives that wants to try and understand. My hope is the following metaphors give a peek into the world of depression. Your loved one may experience all of these, some of them, some more than others, or some I did not mention. This is intended as the beginning of a bigger conversation that is just so hard to get started. It can be terribly hard to describe how it feels in our minds. Thank you for wanting to know how we feel. 

Sincerely, 

Someone Struggling

The Feeling of Being Stuck:

It feels like you wake up with a weighted blanket on top of you, and you are getting increasingly claustrophobic with the fact that you cannot seem to find a way out. This whole “seeing the light at the end of the tunnel” thing sounds crazy to us. The weighted blanket might as well be an industrial black out curtain. No light is getting in.

Heaviness:

Your limbs are made of lead. It’s much easier to have them drop to your sides than to imagine moving them. It can feel like your arms and legs still think they are asleep. The muscles take so much more energy to move. It is kinda like the first second the elevator starts moving upwards, and you would swear you felt double the gravity weighing on you. We wish this would only last for one second, but depression says no.

Environmental Factors:

There is a great irony here. A clean environment [free of trash and clutter] would make your mind feel clearer. However, your unclear mind makes it a near impossible task to take the first step towards this, let alone have the mental capacity to think about doing it. Image is representative of how it mentally would feel if the environment was cleaner not an expectation of cleanliness. No one’s house looks like this.

Cannot See The Good:

As an all included package, your depression comes with a personal rain cloud. What a good deal! This rain cloud follows you everywhere and only seems to rain on you. When someone else says, “Try gratitude” or “try finding the silver lining.” You can’t see the sun or feel it. That darn cloud is in the way. Unfortunately it is invisible to everyone else. And, I can assure you there are no precious metals in this cloud.

Racing and/or Repetitive Thoughts:

To anyone who has not had these before, it sounds like it would make sense to say, “Just think about something else.” However, that is so much harder than it sounds like it would be. Try imagining a person jump roping with the rope going in front of them and then coming back up behind them. Do this for a few seconds, then mentally switch the direction the rope travels to back then front. Or, try imagining a ball going clockwise around a circle. Do this for a few seconds, then visualize the ball switching counterclockwise. At least when I try this, the motion is difficult to imagine switching. In fact, I will get the thought of a switch in my mind and yet the jump rope or ball continue going the way they did before even though I decided they would go the other way. It is like you know your brain is capable of doing it, but your brain won’t let you. It freakin overrides.

Isolation:

You may begin to worry you are taking up too much of the energy of others, so you isolate yourself. In your mind this is your way of helping them because surely your depression must be wearing off on them. Others would say they have energy to share, but your cup is empty. From the perspective of the bottom of your cup, imagining a cup so full they have overflow to share feels like a crazy borderline insane idea.

Getting Stuck in the Downward Spiral of a Thought [Rumination]:

The thoughts float through your head. These are my intrusive thoughts or automatic negative thoughts, but it does not feel like they just pop in. It feels like each one brings a wave or a current that you can be swept up into. It is like being in a lazy river with each thought. It is a whole lot easier to go with the flow rather than pushing against it. You already have a floaty on, so you might as well hop in or maybe you fell in. Either way, it’s going to be hard to get out.

Empty Feeling and a Lack of Interest in What Used to Bring Us Joy [Anhedonia]:

There is this lasting “bleh” feeling or maybe it is a “meh” feeling. I relate it to the gross aftertaste you get on your tongue after drinking soda. It tastes stale, bland, and quite unappetizing. Nothing sounds interesting to do just like nothing sounds like it would taste good. It is hard to imagine the foods we usually like tasting [hobbies] working to get rid of this yucky taste [feeling].

Dissociation [Depersonalization]:

It feels like you know you have a body. You know you put your body in a room, maybe on a chair. Yet, you are not in your body. Your mind glazes over and you zoom out. You can see yourself in the room, but the body you see does not feel like it is you. I imagine it like I am playing a game of Sims. I give my character a  task, and I see them doing that task. It doesn’t feel like it is me.