I had a super crap 4 days last week! Horrible, horrible depression. And I tried to figure out how to describe the feelings I was having (or, at times, the lack thereof). I couldn’t. But I started reading a book that I won’t recommend because it has a lot of the F word in it, which I’m not a fan of. It’s a hilarious book but also can be serious. It’s Jenny Lawson’s book “Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things” and you’ve been warned, it’s crass. Anyway, here’s what she says about depression for her:

“There’s something about depression that allows you (or sometimes forces you) to explore depths of emotion that most “normal” people could never conceive of. Imagine having a disease so overwhelming that your mind causes you to want to murder yourself. Imagine having a malignant disorder that no one understands. Imagine having a dangerous affliction that even you can’t control or suppress. Imagine all the people living life in peace. Imagine the estate of John Lennon not suing me for using that last line. Then imagine that same (often fatal) disease being one of the most misunderstood disorders…one that so few want to talk about and one that so many of us can never completely escape from.”

This made me wonder how others try to describe depression, so here’s what I’ve found.

From TheMighty.com:
–“Having depression is like being trapped in a really bad thunderstorm. You don’t know when it’s going to hit, you never know how long it’s going to last, and when it finally passes, you’re left to survey the damages and pick up the pieces.” — Tiffany Johnson
–“Depression is frustrating. It’s knowing there’s so much to be grateful for and happy about and to enjoy, but you just can’t get there.” — Allie Griffin
–“It’s an inability to feel anything at all.” — Miriam McCallum
–“It’s like having a bully in your head.” — Nicky Limmer

From this Huffington Post article:
–Depression is seeing no future, and no answer for any of the problems in your life.
–Depression to me is like having your mind replaced by another one that makes me feel worthless and numb to life—even to my own husband and son. It deprives me of feeling anything other than a sense of perpetual sadness, never quite knowing the source of it but knowing that feeling well. Depression has stolen my confidence and now I no longer feel I am worthy of anyone’s love. Depression calls me names and makes me have awful thoughts, and there have been times when depression has won and I’ve taken an overdose.
–Multiple emotions: fear, despair, emptiness, numbness, shame, embarrassment and an inability to recognize the fun, happy person you used to be.
— Like mourning the death of someone you once loved—you. When you look in the mirror you see only dead eyes. There is no spark. No joy. No hope. You wonder how you will manage to exist another day.

“I’ll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does.” – Henry Rollins, The Portable Henry Rollins

“I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone.” – Charles Bukowski

And then there’s this insanely great spoken poetry by Sabrina Benaim – “Explaining My Depression to My Mother”!

And this essay, called “This is What Depression Feels Like – In The Words of Sufferers.”

And now that I’ve read through all of this I feel kind of yucky. Not In-The-Mire yucky, but just feeling down because I can feel all the same things I just read about other people.

And now I’ve completely lost why I started this particular blog post in the first place. And I need a nap. Stupid depression.