I would really like everyone to contribute to this please.
Describe your depression in one word. We will be deconstructing and evaluating. This may bear a troubling similarity to enabling rumination but it isn't really. Our individual characters have been broken down into little fragments, tweaked and distorted that we may not recognize the pieces and put ourselves together. Depression is our fears and insecurities taken to an extreme nevertheless an element of our personalities. It bears meaning besides a fog of disclarity. Somehow this illness enlightens in an upside down manner. It's strange, abnormal but not always wrong but so much of a contrast to what we have been used to.
Let's figure this out, one word, one less choked breath at a time. Let it out. What does depression mean to you, what is the idea, thought or imagery you associate it with?
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Myre
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Any tremendously significant ocassion or happening you can relate to this. We connect the strings from there. One more thing, who or what can you pinpoint the anger being directed to.
My apathy is a sudden inpenetrable quiet. The cars are hooting, the birds are chirping but there isn't a single steer in me to award it any relevance. What does it feel like to you. Be abstract and metaphorical if you will. Is it calm, does the whole world settle in a moment, do you feel cold?
Glad to hear from you again. While speaking, I commonly hear the words 'you are not making sense'. I guess we begin to view things abnormally, restricted to a perspective altered from the usual but I believe there is a lot to learn, problem being we are unable to blend or reconcile this new found information with the structure and reality everyone abides to. Even then, there is a phrase from a book that never fails to warm my heart; when the madhatter expresses his concerns about being considered crazy, Alice's reply goes: " But all the best people are".
Well I've had to deal with being in some of these psyche wards where once you're there, you just want to get out!!! Along with having various really condescending psychiatrists who think I must not know much about all the drugs they've already tried me on, and some social workers who weren't very nice to me either. It will make you feel like you're going crazy trying to go through a crazy mental health system, and it's somewhat scary too.
I am sorry you were subject to that. About psychiatrists, we don't have them here. I mean they exist but I reside in a culturally particular, one track environment. Everyone tends to be persumptous. Mental health awareness is on the low and there are barely any who deign to care for it. Among those, I am sure it's prominently those select few that are directly afflicted by it. The system is flawed making us feel truly broken and isolated. It's fine, everyone is a little messed up. Join my corner, only the best are allowed here.
Deflated is used synonymous to sadness but again, there is a misconception even in spoken English where the word depression is compared and utilized in the case of common sadness. How misappropriated, I feel deflated too like a balloon soaring high and colourful in the sky to end up desolate and trampled upon laying around like common litter in the street. Forgive my imagery but this is how I imagine it to be. A condition that leaves us feeling defeated. You must remember, the race isn't done as long as we are living. Depression porports a misconception of our self image. This greatly influences the way we feel and we carry ourselves. It's a mirage, the clouds have amassed, obscuring us and creating turbulence in our ascent. We are up there still, it's up to us dispel the fog and find ourselves.
I don’t want to use this word defeated because it would mean it beat me and I’m a fighter. So that’s why I used deflated. Referring to it’s more of a temporary thing that can be filled up with air again with joy at times. Meaning I can have had days but good days too. Not all bad always. With medication if needed for sone and coping skills, therapist, support from others, etc...Those are my thoughts on a one word for depression
I once read a post on here, summarizing how many of us feel. Smothering; overwhelming, that the responsibilities, expectations and the world in total is too much for you. It is suffocating. Repeating the motions; smiles, work, social interaction. Waking everyday to the same situation. It's a compressed like feeling akin to drowning. The breath is caught up in your chest but you are unable to breath. Let go, we are not a platform where you will be judged for your fears. We stand to learn and grow one another's experiences. So let it out, speak as much as you can on whatever you want. I would love to hear more from you.
Afterthought .... I feel like I’m convenient for others when they are bored, and I typically worry about myself last as well, falling into the same pattern
Thanks for replying. I am sorry you feel that way. Sometimes or nearly always I do feel like an afterthought too. You aren't alone in this, I theorize that depression exponentially distorts our character and these thoughts wouldn't exist if not for the prevalent frame of mind and yet as much as a barrier to our innerselves as we may seem, the fears, concerns emanate from a very personal place. So I would like to ask; look back to a time when you weren't depressed, did you fear dismissal, unimportance. Or as in my case, you feel like you lead an opposite life, a startling contrast from how it used to be?
I cant pin point an exact time, which is eye opening. I guess I've just been so used to feeling like this. Honestly probably the earliest memory where I remember being mostly happy and stable emotionally was around 1st/2and grade. From 3rd grade onward many things happened in my life that I can only keep track of by who my teacher was. Lots of problems going on with my parents at home, like 3rd grade was when my mom got mad because I told someone at school that my dad would beat her up sometimes, which got us pulled into a teacher conference and then temporarilyinto a womens shelter. And then in high school, I was in band which became a huge social retreat from going home and putting up with my father since my mom passed away a couple years earlier. Then getting married and struggling with losing friends once I became pregnant. It's kind of snowballed to today, where I've been diminished to just a mom of 3 with chronic insomnia, and my husband who does his best to understand but can't identify when I'm in my dark moments. Then that makes me feel more guilty, like I'm a weight to my family because of all of my health problems, and it might be better if I were gone. If not for my mom passing away when I was in 8th grade, because I know what it's like growing up without her and I would never put my kids through that. They have saved me a few times and they have no idea at all.
Children are wonderful, I am nowhere close to being a mom but I can't get enough of my little cousins. I happen to be a kid myself and where I hold the capacity to bring great joy to my mother, I don't also fail to notice the amount of sacrifices, aspirations she had to forfeit for our sakes. My childhood was a roller coaster too and I saw how she abandoned to care to her own distress in order to put a strong front up for us. So when you use the word 'diminished'. I feel like you understand what an important impressionable role you hold as a mother yet you may feel like your existence has dwindled down to something of a poster image. You are the mom and the wife but not a lot take an effort to look a bit closer, to recognize you without the domestic labels.
It's totally understandable with everything you have been through why you would be going through depression!!! I'm so sorry you lost your mom at such a young age. 💖
Thank you for your kind words. It's been an up and down journey for sure. She had a lot going on mentally that at the time I didnt understand or notice. The sad thing is most of my extended family knew she had issues but no one really pushed to get her help. She died from a heart attack but it was really from an enlarged heart due to drinking and obesity. She honestly did the best she could, I see that so much more now. All the spur of the moment trips to the river or to a park, out to eat or taking us shopping for something special. She didn't have anyone else! My dad was busy traveling with an apprenticeship and cheating on her sometimes while he was away during the week. It was a mess and has fueled issues with trust that I regularly have to review. That's another thing I struggle with, checking myself over and over. Like, are my friends not responding because I bore or irritate them, or did I offend them, do I come off as needy?? Ughhh I hate when those thoughts just cycle over and over!!!
Curious, a tunnel. Would it be too much if I asked for a bit of an expository. Thanks for replying, this means a lot to me. I am no expert, just a girl trying to wade through the maze of my own mind. I am trying to relate to others, picking similarities from their own experiences. I can't say where this is heading to but I am hoping we all do eventually figure something out from it.
So I believe depression in it’s true form is being depressed about nothing no object or subject or sadness etc.
For if you were depressed about some one dying perhaps,then that would be sadness or misery.
You see depressed is uncompressed feelings= feelings coming to the top
Anti depressants are compression tablets to keep emotions down.
Firstly may I apologise for any upset caused as to what I think but it’s just a point of view.please take it as you will.
Yes I live with depression but also I’ve had black depression where nothing means nothing life has no sense rhyme or reason.more or less what’s the point.im sure ppl with agree with that.
The tunnel in my existence is truly feeling seeing the black tunnel.its black dirty smelly skanky muddy smells of stale air.i would possible say is the worst feeling on earth or but a few.
All I know is the therapists saying use the tools you’ve learnt use the visual pulling your self out of the hole with a rope.trouble is a tunnel a rope makes no sense.all I know and thank god I practiced meditation to its purest form for eight yrs yrs ago is that with anything you’ve to ride the storm.
So with the tunnel I just every day waded my way through the tunnel for a whole four months.all I could see what that little flicker of light at the end of the tunnel.what was it? Was it my soul? Was it my little burning flame from the deepest part of my belly,my positivity.
After 4 months I came out of the tunnel stood up shook my self of and was like omg what the hell.
Carried on as if nothing had happened.didnt look back.probably to painful and traumatic but hey.
All I know is that my meds didn’t do anything for me and my soul and heart heart so very very much.
I didn’t try to help my self I was in to deep so just went with the flow waiting for the end of the tunnel.
I’m not totally articulate at the big meaning of words.i just kinda type what comes from my heart and that makes sense enough for me so I hope this goes some way to what I persevered as my tunnel and depression
Firstly, I take no offense and I reckon no one else would. You were very descriptive, and have enlightened me on a form of depression I had no prior idea about. Thanks for replying. Others stand to benefit from this too.
The way you felt is not something I can pretend to relate to, I can't say I have felt down (understatement) to that level and I am so glad for you that you were able to shake it off. I wish you loads of serenity and hope the condition never ails you again.
I agree with you that depression has no basis. A lot of us can't pinpoint the why but it's all encompassing, overbearing. Layers of heavy smothering blankets engulfing and suffocating us. Depression is a what, a nearly feasible entity holding us captive. Sometimes we are only able to characterize it as a word from which we build structure and then hopefully escape our depression which in your case, you likened to a tunnel.
Did not anticipate that. Massive as in colossal, overpowering, overwhelming?. If you don't mind, could you broaden it out a bit. I would really like to know more, let it out.
We repress our words and feelings in fear of seeming narcissistic, pessimistic or self absorbed. I appreciate a good rant. Myself, I find it to be quite relieving.
Has life proved to be the cage, limiting, inescapable. Or have you built a fortress for yourself within your mind to hide from the outside world but the walls are too thick, too tight on you that you find yourself unable to breathe.
I feel as if I am stuck in the same place in life-never able to move forward and I am unable to break free. Prisoner of my mind that keeps me so unhappy but also keeps me too weak to do anything about it.
I wrote a little something about this; ' I am exposed to a variety of realities within a span of a second, one too many possibilities. I am the one bearing numerous personalities, suiting myself to endless scenarios, enacting boundless roles yet in a second it all settles and I am reduced to a spot, immobile'. It happens to be that we depressives are dreamers, some would say of which I beg to differ; I tell myself we rather contemplate that we really are avid thinkers ( not always by choice) but we usually are understanding, philosophical, perceptive and intellectual. They are not dreams if not musings of our reality but there is so much we see and process that most the world cannot begin to imagine. Inveritably, this makes us feel isolated, stuck within a foreign perspective, manderined on an island of thought, removed from the world. Not only are we exposed to the wide capacity of our minds, aware of our individual capabilities but also the fact that we are unable to do anything about them. It's a horribly stagnant feeling of being stunted, realizing that there are heights we could reach yet we find ourselves limited to one position. Sadly, I haven't figured how to maneuver myself out of the prison bars but I am in the opposite cell to you, singing silly songs and reminiscing over outrageous chicklit movies. I've realized that everything feels lighter when you've got company. Tell me more, lay on your fears, I would always be there to listen. We can work through and walk out of this together. Much love❤️. Goodnight.
angst - a deep disorientation fluctuating between. my past and present - my anger is directed towards those who kept medical information from me specific to my brain function
Flunctuating between past and present. Essentially you may feel like you are travelling the same directions but inevitably end up in the same place. I am sorry that you are burdened by this. Hopefully we will be able to walk one another through this.
Withholding medical information? Sounds scary. Hope that didn't prove to be too detrimental to you.
In reality, Myre, I feel as though I am at a standstill, suspended as it were and it is the past and present flashing back and forth in front of me sometimes at a speed that makes me dizzy.
The medical information withheld from me impacted me to such a degree leaving me with a decreased processing speed and severe memory issues that affect me, daily, to this day.
My gosh, I replied to this now I can't find it. It's a suprising reply but can't say I haven't felt the same. Feeling two faced, pretentious insincere. Feeling one way but expressing another... Forgive me, I am making an effort to be forthcoming but I can't help but think of the previous well detailed reply that by some fluke, seems to have dissapeared. Least I can say is that to point out that you feel diabolical means you identify as an original, staying true to your feelings and intents. This condition may make you feel ingenuine, acting contrary to your principles, personality and donning on a facade to engage in social relations. Hope I am not utterly inaccurate and this helps in some way though I can't imagine how. It's sleep time at my place right now. Thanks for the reply.
I don't feel nor act Diabolical, it's this heinous anxiety that is diabolical in nature. A relentless, persistent feeling of gloom and doom that permeates my thoughts, and leaves me unable to enjoy life the way I used to...
Feels like the world is crashing down. Grief like you may have lost something unimaginably precious. A black hole where positivity and satisfaction used to be. In this case I would say you are grieving the loss of yourself or the part you dominantly relate with.
Had to look this word up. Stygian: relating to the river Styx. Metaphorical deduction being; dark, gloomy, moody etc. It's a lovely word, now a part of my vocabulary. Thanks for replying. I can imagine myself right now, the sky hanging dangerously over my head in an oppressive grey. The land around me withered and decaying. A blackened river slashing across the barren waste land, a toxic fog rising from it's poisoned depths. The souls of the restless appearing in it's sullen waves as the river Styx somberly flows away, having washed away my life force. Depression is such; drowning, despair, decay. Making us feel hollow and bleak within our own skins. I've got you, we ride the tides together, prove to the universe that there is an escape. Transform this blackened waters to gold and honey and have a fun time playing Nicki and twerking on the beach.
Decaying is another excellent adjective. I still look like me apparently but my depression has stolen the past year from me and I feel like a broken old hag although I'm only in my thirties. I can easily imagine that the exhausted, frightened, heartbroken and therefore misshapen form that I feel inside has broken through my skin and become physically apparent to all. I'm grateful that a few lines and weakened hair aside I look basically the same despite my inability to groom regularly.
But the facade of a person of flesh, of health, seems so flimsy and weak. I feel skeletal at times, freakish at others but not the human form. Depression, anxiety, body dismorphia, personality disorders, mourning, and society itself has stolen any sense of equilibrium within me. Of course medication helps normality to actually feel normal but things are so bleak and society seems so casually indifferent to that, I feel I cannot trust the world.
Thanks for the detailed reply, PinkLady and I am terribly sorry depression has got you feeling this way. Allow me to point out that your words are beautiful. They may be indicative of pain, loss and discomfort but they are self expressive, something a lot of us struggle with; to explain how we feel. I find myself skeptic to the idea of medication. I feel like where it may restore the feeling of control, it omits the loop holes from which depression has dug in deep. Creating a fragile sense of normality rather than serving as a cure. All the while having us know that we are only holding on at all because of this pills. Society ails me. There are too many norms, too many social cues and within it all, there's no accommodation or tolerance for my condition. Trust is not something I feel like I can't afford either, not at the moment but I am working towards a time when things feel a lot less hollow. To create a world of shimmering galaxes in my mind, make a celestial out of my soul. To learn to trust in ourselves being the aim before we extend that previledge to the outside world. There is a beautiful, vibrant and hopeful person under all of that pain, Pink. Let's work towards rediscovering ourselves together. Let it out, your fears and concerns. Let's dig out the treasure obscured by the ruins, restore trust and belief in ourselves.
Hi mrmonk, is it strange that your input caused me to remember a scene from the three musketeers; the newer production. Cheeky prideful thieves yet strategic and effective in their execution.
Parents remind me of the KFC dude when I worry about lost time but I don't see any of them sitting comfortably when life gets slow. Regardless, time or should I say, the act of living in itself is rather invaluable. Every second accounts for something. But living is progressive in nature, founded on continuity and perceverence. Wish you the best of every moment there is. I don't believe in making up for lost time, I believe that every moment is entirely precious in it's own right. I bid you even greater sweetness of joy and achievement, fulfilling even more now in light of the trials you have faced. Besides, who can tell, perhaps you may be on to something like the KFC dude.
Familiar/comforting - I know it, it’s not new. It’s been there a long time.
I took a hike cos I realized I am genuinely terrible at this. Eight days later, couldn't be much use right now, right? All I've got is kisses, offer of cuddling sessions and a whole lot of love. Wish you a brilliant day today and everyday for the rest of your very long, fruitful life. Hope, happiness, mornings as glorious as Chris Hemsworth smiles and smiles as soft and serene as Justin Bieber's voice☺️. ❤️ And😗💋💋.
Hi Lilly40. I feel that way too. You know every motivational video and article of self susteinance always says to rid ourselves of the sadness and negativity but no matter how far I push, I always return back to the same point, asking the same question; 'where do I begin?'
These days I find myself in one of those. Your activities and words of inspiration are awesome by the way, they had me feeling a bit better today. Taking that time out for everyone else; thank you.
Good morning kimmunicator though it's nearly afternoon in my place. It's the weekend and I spend majority of the time sleeping in. How are you today?, hope you had a good night's sleep. I can feel the chill creeping in through the window, it's harmattan; my favourite time of the month. It reminds me of numbness, dullness, grey all of which constitute the backdrop of a perspective I desperately try to escape on the daily but for some reason I find it perfect. I always have, I can't explain the feelings to this season that has me feeling so comforted but it's wonderful. What is your favorite season of the year?
Cheers🥂❤️. Here's to the struggle and another toast to defeating this devious opressive force known as depression. You are not in this alone, this condition is a misdirect not a lack of purpose. Having our unique distinguishable traits hidden from us but as long as we keep trying to find ourselves; there is always hope.
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