Depression feels grey. It is pigmented hues of black. It’s the tainted white that never goes back to its original shade once it is touched.
Depression is grey. It’s that gloomy feeling that lays above your head. It’s a storm cloud. It clears up, and then it starts to pour.
I have been depressed for a long time. I remember ever since I was young, I would always think to myself, “Am I going to feel like this my whole life?” “Does everyone else feel like this?” I honestly thought feeling awful all the time was normal.
Once I was diagnosed, I began to understand myself better, but everyone else around me started to drift. To my expense, this could have been my own fault. Depression’s best friends are a lack of motivation and loneliness. I began to not want to see friends because I didn’t feel like being “social.” I began to feel guilty every time I got close to happiness. It is bizarre.
The funny thing I’ve learned about depression is how those who experience it will at times smile the widest, the largest and the most beautiful, even though the silent meltdown inside is screaming for help. I had people say to me, “Wow, you seem so happy.” I laugh it off. In reality, I’m scared my act isn’t convincing enough.
Depression is a hoax. I never know if I’m actually feeling what I’m feeling. It’s a mind game. Am I feeling too little or am I feeling too much? Is this why I’m so down?
Depression keeps you in bed until 7 p.m. It’s when you’re so bored you don’t know what to do with yourself but you still lay there. Confined between the four walls in your room, not because you can’t move but because you’re too afraid to move. It paralyzes you.
Those terrible thoughts you have lay kisses on your whole body, and now you find yourself stuck. It’s like that stubborn kid who didn’t get his way, except you don’t know what exactly you’re protesting about. Depression is mean because it doesn’t give you the answers. It doesn’t tell you why it consumes. It just consumes.
The worst question you could ever ask someone who’s depressed is, “Why are you depressed?” It’s the antithesis to all answers. It is the one question that frustrates us the most. It is the question that makes us feel at fault because we will never know how to answer to it. It is the question that leaves us feeling crazy and incompetent. It makes us feel out of reach with our illness. Refrain from the whys.
Depression is an ongoing game of hide and seek. When you think you’ve got the most sneaky, smart and secretive hiding spot, there depression appears showing off how well it can find you again. Sometimes you hide for so long and you think you’re doing well. You become confident. You become confident enough to come out of hiding. You come out to face the world. Then, when you least expect it, there depression is around the corner, at the coffee shop or at your afternoon politics lecture. Depression finds you, and it has no regard for where and when.
Depression feels grey.
I am 20 years old. I live in Mississauga, Ontario. I have been diagnosed with Dysthymia (a form of depression), and General Anxiety for 10 years. Within those years and far beyond, I have considered myself a “self proclaimed writer” I write to say alive. Writing is how I cope and I am excited to share some of my stuff with you!
sarina-montano