Walking With The Black Dog. What Clinical Depression Feels Like
If you’ve never had clinical depression or any other form of it, you’re very lucky. I’d give almost anything to be clueless. A frequent question I get in real life and on Quora is, what does depression feel like? Bloody awful. Any other questions? Just kidding. When you have depression, you have to take your fun where you can.
To help demystify how depression feels and give you an overview of how to react to friends or families with it, I’m going to describe my experience. I must stress this is just my experience, but most of the things I mention tally with what others who also suffer from depression have told me.
PLEASE NOTE: This article is not designed to be a diagnostic tool. I a not a mental health professional, so if you think you may have clinical depression or any other mental illness, please see a doctor.
Sadness
Let’s start with the obvious one, when you have depression, you feel sad. Not just watched a sad movie sad, or just argued with my partner sad. It is a deep, profound sadness that you can feel in every atom of your body. To me, it makes my body feel indescribably heavy. Any kind of movement feels like a Herculean task.
A Stone In My Chest
This symptom follows on from the last. I feel the heaviness all over, but it’s worst in my chest, over my heart. It feels like my chest is being crushed under the weight of a huge stone. Honestly, it’s a physical sensation, and it’s very unpleasant. When it’s at its heaviest, I feel like I can barely breathe. It’s awful.
Exhaustion
I’m not sure if the exhaustion is due to the sadness, or the heaviness, or the clinical depression itself but when I’m depressed all I want to do is sleep. Sometimes i sleep for 14 or 16 hours at a time. The tiredness is a physical symptom but my desire to hide from how I’m feeling is also a factor.
Brain Fog
I don’t know why this happens, maybe it’s the sadness, maybe the tiredness, or something else entirely. The easiest way I can describe it is that my brain feels like it’s wrapped in cotton wool. Everyth8ing seems fuzzy and I can’t make sense of anything. Even simple tasks, like writing a shopping list, become a challenge.
Irrational Bouts Of Anger
This doesn;t always happen but I do get incredibly frustrated at times. I want to scream and howl at the unfairness in how I feel. Sometimes I turn it inward, and sometimes I’m ashamed to admit I take it out on my family. I shout, I cry and am an irritable cow. I feel even more horrible afterwards.
Anxiety
Sometimes depression strikes on its own and sometimes it tag teams with anxiety. My heart is racing, my mind is a whirl and visions of disaster dance through my head.
What’s The Point?
Life seems utterly hopeless when you have clinical depression. I feel like I’m trapped in the deepest, blackest hole in existence and that I will never escape. Light and hope have ceased to exist.
Suicidal Thoughts
I’ve never attempted suicide or ever seriously contemplated it. The closest I’ve come is deciding to allow myself to die. I was going to stop all medication, stop eating and just allow myself to die. It only lasted a couple of days and while it’s not good it doesn’t happen often.
Crying
I don’t usually cry. My experience with clinical depression is that I go to a place beyond tears. I feeling crushing numbness. Many people do cry a lot, though.
Lack Of Interest
During these periods I lose interest in everything. There is not a single thing I want to do, or learn, nowhere i want to go, no one I want to see. It’s the numbness again, emptiness. Nothing reaches me there.
Headaches
I have no idea why, but I always get a headache when my depression is bad. It’s not focussed in any particular part of my head, it just feels like there’s a little man in my skull pounding my brain with a sledgehammer.
Tummy Issues
I wont go into too much detail but my depression also acts out on my stomach. Sometimes I feel nauseated but most often I spend a lot of time sat on the toilet.
Lack Of Sex Drive
When you feel like the world is coming to an end, sex is not high on your list of priorities. Sadly, antidepressants can kill your sex drive too.
If Someone You Know Is Depressed, DO:
- Ask them how they’re doing
- Offer them a hug, but don’t be offended if they don’t
- Listen
- Offer to mind the kids, walk the dog etc. if you;’re able to
- Check if they’ve spoken to a doctor
- Gently encourage them to shower and dress if they haven’t
DON’T:
- Tell them to cheer up (they CAN’T)
- Remind them others have it worse (We KNOW!)
- Make them feel guilty (We already feel guilty enough)
- Try to make them go out or engage with others
Clinical Depression – It Sucks
Now that you know how depression feels for me I hope you feel more confident supporting friends of loved ones with depression. If you have any other questions or want to share your experiences please pop them in the comments.
