Depression is smiling when you actually are breaking down, being on the verge of tears. It’s making everyone laugh and bringing joy to others while you feel like absolute shit. It’s wearing this mask of fake smiles and faked happiness during the day, and once you come home breaking down and feeling exhausted.

It’s staying awake at night, barely sleeping or excessive oversleeping. It’s wanting to lay in bed for the entire day because you’re out of work for at least another week and you’re dreading those days of not having to work. It is writing an article but rewriting it every second because it’s just not good enough. And that’s exactly what you feel like; just not good enough. It feels like a dark cloud is looming over you; like someone is pulling at your hair and holding you back. It’s like someone is whispering in your ear saying that if you watch movies all day, you will feel better, but you know it won’t make you feel better. In the end, you still do it and continue to feel like shit.

It feels like you’re in this bottomless pit and you can’t get out. It feels like no one really cares so you just isolate yourself, but only during the times when you are alone, laying in bed, curled up in a ball and crying. It’s trying to fight it, but you’re left paralysed, sinking, while someone is holding you down and preventing you from moving forward, from seeing the light. It is wishing for all the bad stuff to end, but the exact opposite happens; the good things end, and the bad only gets worse.

It’s a never-ending cycle of losing hope and constant crying, shivering and shaking. It is not being able to look at yourself in the mirror because all you see is an ugly crying mess. It’s every imperfection you have zoomed in, intensified. It is hearing every sound but amplified ten times. It is wanting to feel normal, but not even knowing what ‘being normal’ is. It’s striving for the thing you want most while not knowing what to search or look for; not knowing where to start or how to start, so you continue to feel like absolute shit. It’s having so many thoughts during the night that it’s keeping you awake. It’s contemplating life and all things around it, thinking about death. It is wanting to die but being scared to actually die.

It’s trying to make sense but, not being able to make sense at all. It’s crying for no reason. You just cry because you know you have to. It’s always hearing preconceptions; people saying that you’re just lazy… But you know it’s far from being lazy because you want to do all sorts of things but, you just cannot get yourself to do it. It’s a nightmare, a dark cloud, the black dog, that continues to follow you even outside your dreams.

“Depression is a constant battle with yourself, trying to find reasons to get out of bed in the morning and thinking of reasons to stay alive.”

Depression is the constant shifting of emotions and thoughts within the brain allowing you to experience good days and bad days. But at times, the good days seems to fade away and the bad days seem to keep haunting you. It’s a constant battle with yourself, trying to find reasons to get out of bed in the morning and thinking of reasons to stay alive because you’ve already deemed your life a hopeless case. It’s staring at the painkillers resting in the palm of your hands, thinking “is this really the best thing to do?” It’s washing the damned pills down with a few shots of whisky and feeling intoxicated and weird a few minutes afterwards.

It is thinking you will die but waking up a few hours after and damning yourself for not having succeeded, but, at the same time, being grateful that you are still alive. It’s writing this article and rereading it over and over again. It’s leaving it for hours, days, weeks or even months before coming back to it and deciding it was never good, to begin with. It is doubting yourself, a lot; thinking that you can’t do anything at all.

It is believing all the lies depression tells you because there’s just so much negativity in your life. It’s looking at your own body, pinching the skin on your arms, and staring at your belly thinking “there is too much fat there.” It’s feeling fat while other say you’re skinny. It’s excessive overeating or starving yourself. It’s skipping breakfast but overeating during the day, especially after dinner. It’s feeling guilty the next morning, so you decide not to eat at all, only eating a little bit of dinner not to make your parents worry. Depression prevents you from going out with friends, doing fun stuff, doing the things you used to enjoy. It robs you from every single thing that made your life worth it.

It makes you feel like you have nothing left but you are too scared to leave. You have this strong urge of wanting to die, but you’re terrified of dying. It’s either the hours going past way too quickly or not fast enough. It’s being tired even though you’ve slept for 12 hours or more. It’s the feeling of never making sense, of wanting to be normal but not knowing what ‘being normal’ really means. “It’s feeling too much or nothing at all. It’s feeling numb and disconnected.” Depression is the strange combination of heaviness and lightness. It feels like you’re sinking like you’re being sucked into the concrete floor but also feels like you’re floating away from your body, watching people from far away — even when they are just inches away from you.

It feels like you’re not in your own body like everything you feel isn’t real. It’s feeling too much or nothing at all. It’s feeling numb and disconnected. It’s having too many thoughts, so many that your mind cannot keep up with the racing thoughts, and you find yourself crying for no reason once again. It’s overwhelming and exhausting — consuming. It’s feeling numb; hands shaking and body shivering. It’s feeling cold and hot — feverish. It’s tensed muscles and stress combined. It’s weird, and you can’t explain it. So you just curse yourself underneath your breath as you sit in the therapist’s office.

It’s being asked questions and giving the answers they want to hear. It’s lying without a care in the world. It’s deeming yourself damned when you realise you’ve only lied to the ones trying to help you. It is the anxiety rising within your fragile body as you wait in the waiting room. It’s walking through the hallway with wonky legs. It’s sitting down, refusing to have a drink and dreading every moment and every question that she will ask you. It is sitting in the room and feeling uncomfortable. It is hearing every question, thinking about it, and then denying it.

It’s letting her read whatever you’ve written and then having to talk about it because you actually (sort of) forgot the stuff you had written months ago. It’s getting mad at yourself because she found something out that she wasn’t supposed to know. And it is feeling as though you’ve failed because your secret isn’t a secret anymore.

It’s seeing all the worry on her face and feeling sorry, but not sorry enough because you will do it again next time. Depression is denying you are ill, but knowing you are, indeed, ill; mentally ill. It’s being too scared to admit you’re sick because of all the thoughts racing through your head. The thoughts about what judgmental people will say once they’ll find out that you are carrying the label of depression.