In depression, you go through the motions of every day life. You wake up, feed your pets, have a shower, and get ready for the day, You make breakfast, get your lunch ready, and go to school. You participate in classes, do your homework, and laugh or make jokes with people. No one can quite tell you're depressed. If you've been depressed for a long time, you know how to mask it, because you're tired of telling people who See you, that you're just 'fine'.
You're fine, because you know there isn't anything they can do to help you.
If you're fine like me, then you're too stubborn to let them try to help you.
In depression, you struggle to get out of bed, and struggle to go to sleep. You struggle not to burst into tears at random moments of the day. At other times, you struggle to care about anything other than laying in bed, looking up at the ceiling, or out the window.
When you're depressed, you see others smile at you, and they hug you, or laugh with you, and you struggle to feel it. When you're depressed, your emotions, the true ones, the empathy and the passion is locked away behind a sheet of transparent plastic. When you reach for your emotions, your fingers hit the plastic.
When your partner kisses you, or holds you, you clutch at them, to better try to feel the love you know is there, but it doesn't feel the way it should. The way you know you feel about them.
In depression, there comes a moment when you can no longer see the sheet covering you. You no longer know the emotions are there. The good emotions, the happy ones, they don't come anymore. You forget how they feel.
It becomes harder and harder to believe others like you or love you or care for you at all.
You begin to drop things. You're late to meet friends, you can't remember why it's so important to go to work or class. Work is left undone, or sloppily done. You stare into the distance a lot. Your appetite has either diminished or escalated. You no longer remember what makes you happy, because you can't quite remember how it feels to be happy.
When you know you're in trouble, even the rising panic feels muted, not there. Even the adrenaline rush from terror is numbed. You know you should tell someone, anyone. Look for someone to talk to, your partner, even a therapist, or your roommates or parent, or even that person you don't really know.
Trying to think of someone to talk to is disorienting, until all you can do is cry, and think only of how you're dropping everything, but you can't remember why it's important.
The worst part about depression is when someone tells you to get over it, or to just stop moping or sulking. The worst part is if you finally reach out for help, you are downplayed. What you are going through is downplayed.
Depression is laying on the floor in the corner of the room, wrapped in a blanket, no longer able to cry.
For Fredericton student counselling call: 506-453-4820
For Fredericton community members counselling call: 506-458-8211
