May is Mental Illness Awareness Month. I am going to start the month by sharing some things I wish people knew about living with depression. Knowing what it is like to live with depression is one of the first steps towards understanding what we live with, creating support systems, and hopefully build empathy.
The first thing I want others to know about what it is like to live with depression is that it is a real illness. Depression is real. It is not something I can just snap out of. I feel a darkness wrap around me. The world around me fades into shadows. This is a real experience. I am not imaging it or making it up. Because it is real I cannot just “snap out of it.” I cannot just think positive and have the depression disappear. Depression is real. It is an illness, and no amount of positive thinking will make me feel better on its own.
Depression is not just sadness. I often feel numb. The numbness dulls my emotions. It takes away my ability to experience life. When I feel numb it is more than just the absence of feelings. There is a sense of nothingness. I feel empty inside. I am not sure that I can fully explain the numbness. How do I explain how I can hurt and be numb at the same time? I am aware that the depression is causing painful thoughts. At the same time a blanket of nothingness envelops me. It feels like being trapped. I want to experience positive emotions, but the numbness encapsulates me. This is one of the paradoxes of depression. We experience painful emotions while at the same time we are numb, unable to feel.
Another way I experience depression is it dulls everything. This is similar to the numbness. Except when things are dulled, I still feel them to some degree. For example, my reaction to things that should make me happy is muted. I cannot get excited about things. I may smile, but inside there is still a dullness attached to my emotion. I rarely get excited. I have difficulty experiencing joy. I may want to enjoy an activity or interaction, but my depression holds me back.
My motivation is impacted by depression. Just as it is difficult for me to get excited about something, it is difficult for me find the motivation to engage in things. Even simple things like washing the dishes or laundry require me to push myself into action. Sometimes self-care requires great effort. Depression tells me I cannot do things. It tells me it requires to much effort. Depression tells me to not get up from my recliner or to not get out of my bed. It is tough to push through these thoughts. Depression often wins. Its voice is loud. As a result, I often find myself sitting in my recliner or lying in my bed doing absolutely nothing.
Depression also causes a persistent low mood. I feel down. You may be wondering what I mean by feeling down. It is difficult to describe. When my mood is low, I have no mental or physical energy. Everything in. my life seems wrong. At times my low mood reaches a point where life does not seem worth living. That is when the suicidal ideation slithers in. Suicidal ideation is difficult because I never know when it will move beyond fleeting thoughts and become something that I want to act on.
Part of living with depression means being able to know when I need to reach out for help. That requires understanding that depression is an illness and there are times when mental healthcare professionals need to intervene. It is not always easy to reach out for help. Sometimes my depression tells me I am not worthy of help. Other times it is pushing the suicidal ideation into a frenzy of thoughts that are difficult to interrupt long enough to ask for help. I have learned that I need to ask for help when the depression is weighing on me to the point of considering harming myself. Underneath the depression I know I want to live. The problem is how smothering and persistent depression can be. Often, I find that is best if I reach out for when I am on the edge of hurting myself. When the thoughts start, I know I need to let someone know. I might allow a single fleeting thought to pass and try to cope on my own, but when the thoughts start to gain traction, I know I need to ask for support.
I am one of the lucky ones who has support. There are many people living with depression and other mental illnesses who do not have support. I have been in that position. Life is extremely hard when you live with a mental illness and do not have support. This is why mental illness awareness is so important. If more people are aware of what we are living with then more people can learn how to offer support.
Sometimes when my depression is getting heavier, I stop communicating with others. It is as if I go silent. During these times I often feel like no one will understand or as if I would be a burden to others if shared how I was feeling. Isolating myself seems like the right thing to do because then I do not burden anyone else. While I am isolating myself, I tend to feel worse, but it as if I cannot get myself to comprehend that I need to reach out. Depression tells me I deserve to be alone. It tells me that my that the darkness I feel surrounded by is a barrier that cannot be penetrated. The problem is that as I isolated my depression grows worse. I feel the pain of isolation, but I cannot get myself to reach out for support. Depression blocks any attempts on my part pushback.
Depression can also be physical. Sometimes I have unexplained pains when I am trapped in a bout of depression. It might be aches and pains. These are annoying especially when I know there is no physical cause for them. Because I also have an anxiety disorder, the two illness join to cause chest pain. For a long time, this pain would push me into a panic attack because I would believe I was having a heart attack. I had to learn that pain was different from the pain of a heart attack. Unfortunately, it took a few emergency room trips and visits to the cardiologist to learn that. Another physical manifestation I experience is pressure. Usually, I feel that pressure in my chest, but sometimes it is my head. I feel as if a heavy weight is pressing down on me. It is the weight of depression. That weight is painful. I feel as if I cannot get out from under it. That feeling of being trapped leads to a worsening of my depression and sometimes suicidal ideation.
Other physical manifestations of depression include fatigue and brain fog. Depression is tiring. I find myself wanting to sleep away the day. I hide under blankets as if they will protect me from the depression. I do not have the energy to get up. Even simple self-care activities require more energy than I can summon. I have learned that sometimes I need to allow myself to rest and other times I need to push through the fatigue and force myself to engage in self-care. Brian fog is another aspect of depression that does not receive a lot of attention. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. I cannot focus on tasks. One of the ways brain fog manifests for me is my inability to read, an activity that when I am feeling well, I love. Brain fog leaves my brain too overwhelmed to do anything. Brain fog can make simple conversations difficult because I forget things or have trouble processing what someone else is saying.
As you can see depression is not just sadness. It is collection of symptoms that make life very difficult. I have struggled with depression for almost 40 years. I guess that makes depression a chronic illness. There are ways to treat depression. I am lucky that with the help of my psychologist and psychiatrist I found treatments that help me. Through those treatments I have found additional mental healthcare providers who understand me and provide support. Together all these providers create a team that helps me through my depression. Everyone deserves the kind of help I have found. That is why it is so important that we raise awareness about mental illness. May is a month dedicated to raising awareness about mental illness, but we cannot just limit our efforts to one month. We need to work year-round to raise awareness and to ensure that all who need support and care are receiving it.
