What is it like to have clinical depression?

What does it feel like to have depression? Let's try to put ourselves in the shoes of the average depressed person.

Depression is a serious problem, and despite the great strides that have been made, there is still a strong stigma attached to those with the disorder.

Beliefs such as that they are only sad, or that they are this way because they want to become comments that patients with depression have to hear day in and day out. People who have never suffered from it do not know what it is like to have clinical depression, nor do they give it due importance.nor do they give it the importance it deserves.

In the following we will try to to put ourselves in the shoes of a person with depressionWe will then try to put ourselves in the shoes of a person with depression, going through each of the moments they have to endure in their daily life, the comments of their closest environment and situations that bring them down even further, as well as describing, in broad strokes, what clinical depression consists of.

What is it like to have clinical depression?

You wake up, but you are not able to move. Maybe you were awake before the alarm went off, maybe it was the 'peep-peep' that woke you up. Whatever it is, you are not able to get up. It's not laziness, nor is it because you woke up too early. The problem is that you don't feel like starting a new day, a day that we will see as wasted when the sun sets. when the sun goes down. There is no energy for it. The only thing you want is for the day, which has just started, to be over, so you can go back to sleep.

You've been waiting a long time for this to pass. You wish it was just a seasonal thing, a bad moment. You think time cures everything, but the longer it seems the less convinced you are of it.

You manage to get on your feet. You start up, but at a snail's pace. You have to go to class or to work, but because they are obligations. You don't feel like it at all. Your family, roommates or your partner force you out of bed. They tell you that you should put on a better face, that it's no big deal, that maybe you're making a mountain out of a molehill. There doesn't seem to be anyone who can understand you, and that doesn't help.

Other times, you are the one who makes sure that others don't understand, because you don't express it yourself.. You think: what's the point, why waste your energy over and over again explaining something you think they won't understand? In the eyes of others you are just a little down, at best a little sad because of something bad that has happened to you.

You're afraid that, when you explain it, they'll think you're crazy, broken, that you're not going to recover. You think that being like this is only for the mentally ill, people who you think are no longer like people, people who can't thrive. That is why you hide your feelings, your worries and your tremendous suffering under the facade of a smile.

Beyond sadness

In popular culture, depression is synonymous with sadness. As children we learn that laughing is synonymous with happiness and crying is synonymous with sadness.. So, based on these ideas, we hide in a forced smile. People do not pay enough attention to the nuances, to the laughter that, behind, hide a deep discomfort. If we do not cry, if we do not look worried, then we are not depressed. That's how simple people think.

We may say that we are depressed, we express our discomfort. But, in the worst cases, people are not able to put themselves in our place. If we are not crying all the time, we cannot be depressed, and if we cry, then we are dramas. Depressed men are weak, depressed women are exaggerated.

But the fact is that in most cases there is a lack of energy even to cry.. We think it serves no purpose, not even to let off steam. In our childhood, crying, although it did not solve things, it did satisfy us afterwards. We released sadness, anger, rage, tension. Now, we have to struggle to even get a tear out of our eyes, leaving us halfway through. We are left in the middle, making our situation worse.

This difference between one's own propensity to smile and laugh on the part of others and on the part of oneself makes many depressed people feel even worse, because of this emotional gap that forms and separates them from the rest of society. This situation makes it even more difficult to have incentives to socialize and, by extension, to expose oneself to stimulating situations.

Melancholy

We are a shadow of our former selves. Our day-to-day life is characterized by our absence. We may be physically in front of our friends, talking, or next to our partner in bed, but our mind is far away. We think about other things, and they are not good: will I get out of this, why am I doing everything wrong, am I a failure, how should I commit suicide?

You look at old happy pictures. When you went to the gym, when you went to parties, when you went to class and had your group of friends... The photos show you smiling, and you remember how you felt back then. Maybe some days you were sad, but other days you were also happy.

You were a normal person who, perhaps, complained about some things. The usual. Something bothered you, like everyone else. You were happy without knowing it, like everyone else. The person in the photos and the one you now see in the mirror, even though the body and the body are different.Although the body and your memories are the same, they seem to be two totally different individuals.

Personal relationships become complicated

Those who don't understand you enjoy making hurtful comments, taking advantage of your total inability to be and feel as normal as everyone else. They say, "You are this way because you want to be.". They tell you this, but you don't have the strength to answer them, in a well-argued way, how wrong they are. Nor do you have the strength to ignore them. If they felt the same way you feel... if it were as difficult for them as it is for you to see the light at the end of the tunnel...

When you get home you remember these mean-spirited comments, replaying over and over in your head. They make you spend long hours thinking about how to tell them how things are, that this is not a decision.

Depression is unlike any other experience that can be lived by those who do not have a diagnosable psychological disorder, and this contributes to the fact that depressed people also have to face the fact that others do not understand them.

Mismanagement of emotions

You can't just decide one day to stop being depressed, I wish! You ruminate all day long on arguments you would tell him to convince him and seek some of his empathy, instead of just ignoring them and letting the day flow in a healthier way.

Instead, you start hurting yourself, physically. You clench your fists and punch yourself in the back of the head, or you pick up a box cutter and start cutting yourself. You don't know exactly why you do this: Are you punishing yourself for not knowing how to deal with the problem, or is it that whatever is making you feel this way lives in you, possesses you, and you want it to go away?

In any case, this surge of energy, that instead of using it for something useful you have used it to hurt yourself, goes down, and the lack of desire to do anything, the inability to feel pleasure from the things of life returns. You go to the mirror and think, why did I do this to myself? You convince yourself that they are right, that you are the problem and that you don't want to stop hitting rock bottom. These ideas become a dangerous vicious circle.

Depression is serious

All this described here serves to understand what it is like to have clinical depression. It is the daily life of thousands of people around the world who, for whatever reason, have not received appropriate treatment.. Family support can help, or it can bring us down even further. The days begin as they end: with the desire to go back to sleep and not wake up.

Despite the great progress that has been made to destigmatize people with mental disorders, there are many who face the ignorance of people who, mixing myths and lack of empathy as ingredients, blame them or belittle them, blame them or belittle their state of mind.. They believe that it is just having a bad time, that there is no reason to make a big deal out of it, and that if you don't get better, it is because you don't want to.

To put it bluntly, depression is a mental disorder and, as such, should be treated as the disabling and detrimental condition that it is. Depression, as the mental disorder that it is, is as serious as medical conditions, such as cancer, and disabilities such as quadriplegia or intellectual diversity. The patient is unable to enjoy a full life, relate to others or go to work.

The sadness, hopelessness and general discomfort become so severe that they affect not only the psychological integrity psychological integrity, but also their physical health. He notices body aches, dizziness, nausea, loss of strength... How can this not be taken seriously?

In addition, the person may suffer from changes in sleep patterns and eating behavior. She may sleep less, waking up too early but being unable to go back to sleep, or she may sleep more, getting up to twelve hours of sleep in a row. As for eating, she may lose her appetite completely, which will cause her to lose weight and become malnourished or, if not, binge eat, with consequent weight gain and body dissatisfaction, worsening the course of the depression.

You lose pleasure in things you used to enjoy.. It can be banal things, such as listening to music, playing video games or going for a walk, or more complex things, such as studying, participating in sports tournaments, restoring a car... The person no longer feels pleasure in things that used to be a source of joy, that kept him alive.

Studying and going to work become titanic tasks, because the person loses concentration very easily. He cannot study because he does not understand what he is reading, and at work he may be more prone to mistakes and accidents. He loses the thread of the conversations, which can seriously damage his social sphere, making that with whom he was speaking they think that he simply does not want to listen to them.

Your self-esteem is at an all-time low.. He cannot see himself in the mirror and think that he is a failure as a person. He does not believe that he is going to improve, he does not see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is one of the main causes that depressed people end up committing suicide, believing that no matter how hard they try they will never feel good again. He believes that he has reached the bottom, that he will not go down any further because there is no further down, but it is impossible for him to rise to the surface. He only sees the bad, being a victim of the negativity bias with himself.

Bibliographical references:

• American Psychiatric Association (APA). (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
• Belloch, A.; Sandín, B. y Ramos, F. (2010). Manual de Psicopatología. Volumen I y II. Madrid: McGraw-Hill.
• National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health. Depression. (2009). The treatment and management of depression in adults (updated edition). National Clinical Practice Guideline Number 90. London: British Psychological Society and Royal College of Psychiatrists.
• Perestelo Pérez, L.; González Lorenzo, M.; Rivero Santana, A.J.; Pérez Ramos, J. (2007). Herramientas de ayuda para la toma de decisiones de los pacientes con depresión. Plan de Calidad para el SNS del MSPS. SESCS; 2010. Informes de ETS.
• Smith, M., Robinson, L., y Segal, J.,(2019). Coping with depression. Estados Unidos: HelpGuide.org. Extraído de: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/coping-with-depression.htm