Everyone's Depression Is Different - Here's What Mine Is

[Wait]

My depression is the beer bottle in my stepfather's hand.

The bottle more important to him than I've ever been.

 

My depression is the tear down my mothers face.

Their "love you" is now "**** you".

I'm the referee.

 

My depression envies the atheist.

The non-believer has never been let down by God.

They have no faith to be tested.

 

My depression is the steam from the shower that clouds the mirror.

I can only hope it's cloudy enough that I can't see my body.

 

My depression is the milk shake I just drank.

Food seems like the best painkiller.

I can always just throw it up later.

 

My depression is the relationship I stay in for comfort.

Happiness I'll sacrifice.

At least I have someone, right?

 

My depression is the money I don't have.

I just lost it all at blackjack.

The loan shark has my back though.

 

My depression is my grandmother's loneliness.

I'm the only one who visits.

Who else is going to pay my mortgage?

 

My depression is the doubt that others have.

It's just a phase they say.

 

My depression is the tree on the drive home from work.

Maybe I'll lose control on black ice.

Seatbelt off just incase.

 

My depression is not the desire for self harm.

Rather, it's the "welcome" mat on death's doorstep.

 

My depression in fact envies the suicidal.

At least they have an answer.

However drastic.

[Otter2569]

Ill be the first to admit that I, and a lot of people, do not understand depression.

My life has been far from easy but i am a "pick yourself up from the bootstraps" and a "life is not fair" kind of guy. I find pleasure in simple things and am happy with myself. Lucky me!

 

My GF however has bouts of depression and its challenging to understand. She has so many positive things in her life but, at times, all she sees are the negative ones.

 

Get help, talk to someone, see a professional, do something to help yourself, find a hobby that you enjoy. There are a lot of resources out there but YOU have to look for them.

 

Your depression will alienate you if you let it. Your friends and family will stay away because they think you are so negative all the time...they dont understand your struggle so you have step up and help them help you.

 

I know its not that easy but you can do it!

[Wait]

Ill be the first to admit that I, and a lot of people, do not understand depression.

My life has been far from easy but i am a "pick yourself up from the bootstraps" and a "life is not fair" kind of guy. I find pleasure in simple things and am happy with myself. Lucky me!

 

My GF however has bouts of depression and its challenging to understand. She has so many positive things in her life but, at times, all she sees are the negative ones.

 

Get help, talk to someone, see a professional, do something to help yourself, find a hobby that you enjoy. There are a lot of resources out there but YOU have to look for them.

 

Your depression will alienate you if you let it. Your friends and family will stay away because they think you are so negative all the time...they dont understand your struggle so you have step up and help them help you.

 

I know its not that easy but you can do it!

 

I think a lot of people with depression, myself included, place the things in our lives, both tangible and otherwise, on a scale. We give different things different values.

 

For example, I genuinely do value the simple things in life down to the view I have on my drive home from work; however, what I value more is my financial situation as it affects so many other aspects of my life.

 

IMO depression is more about the values you place on the things you do or don't have rather than what you actually do or don't have.

 

I have a great support system, a loving and giving mother, I'm in good health, and I've traveled to every corner of the world. Unfortunately, none of that pays my mortgage, helps me lose weight, or finds me true love. And you may say "oh you have a a great support system and a giving mother - why don't you ask her for help?". That's actually the most depressing thing, as an adult, having to rely on someone else to help pay your bills.

[Otter2569]

A support system is huge. My now exGF has few if any close friends and is not close to her family. The feeling of being alone is sometimes overwhelming for her.

 

Honestly, her over the top emotional state, I feel, pushed them away. She (or anyone with this disease) has the extra burden of trying to make their friends and family aware and understand what is going on with them. Most people do not understand depression and nobody wants to be around someone they think is a downer or overly emotional.

[truncated]

For my daughter, the pain was very intense, but what was worse for her ws the emptiness. When the medication, therapy and other treatments didn't work, I think she thought she would always feel that emptiness.

[Hawaii51]

****, I got about half way through it and started feeling depressed. Methinks that writing about depression only exacerbates the depression. I'm sorry you can't find the positivity and love in the world due to your where your experiences have left your perspective, but I promise you that you need only look for the positive to find it.

 

Otherwise, excellent writing. You made me feel what you feel, and that's why I only read half.

[LostBoy.]

My depression is the beer bottle in my stepfather's hand.

The bottle more important to him than I've ever been.

 

I worked for a guy once as a farm hand in peak season, his son was depressed. Full of reasons: he'd of been happier if he had more friends, happier if he looked different, happier if his old man didn't spend more time with me than him.

 

And maybe he would of been, but I don't buy for a second any of that 'made him' depressed.

There would always of been something, that's why depression is an illness, for some people the trigger isn't this bad luck, or that wrong move, the trigger for depression is simply the depression itself.

 

My dad definitely loved the bottle more than me, but that's more than I can say for a mother who left for a life of riches and wouldn't know her own son if she past him on the street. For a long time stuff got worse, I walked into trouble at every turn and when I was finally settled and in love, she died and I was left on my own with 2 kids in my twenties..

But I've never ever been depressed. Dejected, down, devastated, I've been all those things but never depressed.

 

I'm thankful for that. I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on anyone. Its totally all consuming.

 

This lad had everything in my eyes! And in the worlds eyes tbh, simply he did have everything. Money, a dad, a mum, a sister, a business, a shiny new car. But you'd think it was the end of the world cause his dad took me hunting and bought me a hunting knife, yet this lad was a vegetarian.

But it wasn't really his fault as such I guess, he couldn't see the world logically, only through his own eyes.

[preraph]

I think your depression may be situational and not that long-term because you still have your creativity. I used to write and when I went into long-term depression, I shut down and couldn't write at all. I'd written in my journal and also poetry all the time until then. I wrote more poetry when I got depressed over, for example, a failed relationship. I shut down for 10 years and wrote the first thing after my very close gay friend died and I was asked to speak. I felt I had no resources to pull from to write something for the service, so I got in bed and just closed my eyes and did automatic writing and a poem came out of the ether. Not long after it, for an unrelated reason, I read my journals looking for something and remembered who I was and began coming back.

 

Don't give up on trying different meds and therapy to alleviate your depression. Depression is nothing more than a big waste of time. There are many different options and some work on some people and some on others. Don't give up trying, because it would be a gift to get yourself back.