6 Symptoms That Might Indicate You Have Depression

We never know how much pain other people endure. Sometimes we sit beside a stranger with scars deeper than the ocean, and we literally have no idea how much pain they live with. These survivors keep fighting regardless of their desire to raise a white flag to the well-known Grim Reaper. If the voices of their hearts aren’t heard, if the right strings are pulled, it can lead to suicide. So, here are six symptoms that might indicate you or someone else has depression:

1. You always think you are a failure.

“You are a failure, and will always be a failure.” That is what you say to yourself every time you fail. Sometimes you say that to yourself without any reason. You end up losing focus because these words keep repeating in your mind. You fail to remember things. You’re always afraid of making decisions. You end up playing safe, thus making worse decisions.

2. You are always tired.

You feel the same all the time, every breath you take. Every move you make, you feel numb. You feel like you are carrying the entire world and when you lose balance, you stab yourself with a knife of words nobody can ever hear. You torture yourself with words that seem to be meaningless yet so meaningful. Your mind never stops running, and nor do your thoughts. No matter how much you try to hide it, it will reveal itself.

3. You feel guilty.

You feel guilty over your parents fighting, You feel guilty about laughing and smiling while others starve to death. You feel guilty about the world in chaos even before you were born, telling yourself it was all your fault. It will always be your fault. Even for an incident wherein you are not directly involved, you feel guilty for not being efficient enough, for not fulfilling your purpose as a human being.

4. You can’t sleep or you sleep all day.

And there is nothing in-between. You cannot sleep, thinking of all the things you failed to do and the things you’ve done, or you sleep all day to escape these thoughts. You close your eyes right before your mind starts thinking about your mistakes all over again — mistakes which are not really your fault, and sometimes mistakes which are. You either keep hoping this day will be better or you lose hope, using sleep as an alternative escape, as a temporary death.

5. You either eat a lot or eat nothing at all.

You eat everything you see, because that’s what you think you are good at. You eat right after you ate your breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Nothing can ever satisfy your craving stomach. You eat to ventilate the stress coming from nowhere. You either empty your fridge or empty your stomach. You lack appetite because you feel you do not even deserve to do something “normal” as a person.

6. You’ve lost interest in everything, whether you had passion in it or not.

You loved to paint, then you didn’t want to paint at all. You loved to dance, then you lay on your bed all day. You lost interest in flying, because you thought all you could do was crawl, more likely stay still. You lost interest in dreaming, because you feel it can never be a reality and when it is, it is something you never deserved to have. You’ve lost interest in living.

Whether you are a mental health advocate or not, you should learn to be more compassionate to others, regardless of their age, religion, race, or any other characteristic that drives us apart. Depression is not the absence of happiness but lack of vitality. Learn to be more empathetic towards others. Each one of us has a problem or problems to endure, regardless if you had worse than them. That does not mean you have the right to invalidate someone else’s pain. You should learn to be kind to others, no matter how unfair your life is. Spread the love. Promote #1in4.

We want to hear your story. Become a Mighty contributor here.

Thinkstock photo via Maria Kuznetsova