Depression – That ‘Extreme’ Feeling

Depression isn’t a disease. It’s a feeling. It’s an emotion.

It’s much more than just feeling sad. It’s a feeling of extreme and elongated sadness.

That sadness can take any form. People express their sadness differently, some people cry, some people shout, some people just shut themselves up, some people do all of these things.

It’s different for different people.

Neither you can say depression is a disease nor just sadness can be termed as depression.

Depression is something different. Maybe you can understand it if I call it a kind of long-term sadness. But it’s even more than that.

In depression, a person experiences extreme emotions.

Either you don’t want to eat anything or want to just keep eating.

Either you can’t sleep all day and night or all you do is just sleep.

There’s no inbetween.

Depression is like a war going on in one’s own mind, brain, heart and body.

It’s a feeling of tiredness. You always feel tired. You want to do nothing. You just want to lay down without moving.

But the worst part is that you can’t even lay down properly. You feel irritated. You feel irritated by everything. You can’t even sit properly, you can’t even lay down properly. You feel restless.

You want to do nothing.

Not just the big things like university work or your job or something like that, but it’s also about not wanting to do anything, even the small things or the daily tasks.

It’s not wanting to take a bath,

Not wanting to wash your face,

Not wanting to change your clothes,

Not wanting to brush your teeth,

Not wanting to comb your hair.

It’s feeling sleepy all day but not being able to sleep at night.

It’s when you aren’t able to fall asleep or when you aren’t able to wake up if you do fall asleep, you just want to get away from everything and sleep makes you get away. So you just want to sleep all day long.

It’s when you feel that things are not gonna be alright.

It’s when you have this feeling that things are never going to be okay.

It’s when you are stuck in a circle of negative thoughts. All you have are negative thoughts. You can’t think of anything positive.

It’s when you can’t even cry when you want to and when you can’t stop crying once you start to cry.

It’s when a lot of stuff is going in your head and it’s all tangled and you just can’t untangle it. You can’t even find one string to start untangling. And when you try to do so, you end up making it even more tangled.

It’s when you stay awake all day and night.

It’s also when you keep sleeping all day and night.

That’s what I meant by extreme.

It’s when you feel scared that everything will fall apart.

It’s when you don’t want to talk to anyone but still want someone to be there.

It’s when you want someone to understand you.

But no one understands you.

Depression is a feeling of loneliness. Not a temporary feeling of loneliness but a permanent feeling of loneliness.

And by permanent, I don’t mean forever, I mean for a long long and a very long time.

Depression is feeling alone, like you have no one beside you.

Even though you have people around you, even when you have your family and maybe some friends, but by lonely, I mean emotionally and mentally lonely, not physically.

Lonely because your thoughts are different and others can’t understand your thoughts. It’s like not even a single person understands what’s on your mind or what you’re thinking.

Depression is feeling alienated. It’s like you’re the only person who thinks this way and maybe there’s something wrong with you. It’s like no one understands what you’re going through and maybe no one does.

Sometimes people don’t understand you. They don’t know what you’re going through and what you’re feeling.

Let’s put it like this. You went through a heartbreak and one of your friend went through a heartbreak too. But both of you have different mindsets. You went through different things in a heartbreak. The emotions of both of you in your respective relationships were different.

Suppose you both had a 2 month relationship but you got more emotionally involved and in that same period of time, your friend didn’t got at all emotionally involved. You didn’t have anything physical with the guy and you got emotionally involved and on the other hand, your friend was physical with that guy but she didn’t get emotionally attached.

So, if that guy breaks your heart, you will feel sad and it can lead to depression and suicidal tendencies too but your friend may think you’re overreacting, just because she thinks she went though the same but in reality, she didn’t. She will call you crazy for reacting like this.

But you’re not overreacting. It’s who you are. Your feelings are different than others but they aren’t fake.

*PS. I’m NOT saying that it’s okay to break someone’s heart. Even if you think that they are strong enough to handle that heartbreak. Maybe they just pretend to be strong but deep down they are very sensitive and they break down. Maybe you see them broken to a certain level but you never know that how deeply they’re broken from the inside. People don’t show their complete sadness. And you don’t know what they behave like when they’re all alone.

NEVER BREAK SOMEONE’S HEART*

Somethings may not affect you that much but the same thing may cause someone to commit suicide.

Don’t judge people. Don’t make them feel wrong for feeling what they’re feeling. You can’t tell whether a person is depressed by just seeing them or even by talking to them. Maybe someone you know who laughs with you, cries themselves to sleep. You never know.

It’s not that depressed people will always be found in a hospital, or within their house, not doing anything. It’s not that depressed people will keep crying all day long. There may be people whom you will find cracking jokes, but deep down they are depressed. Depression is different for everyone. You can’t tell whether a person is depressed or not. You can’t. All you can do is be kind. It doesn’t cost anything to be kind. But it can save someone’s life.

– Abhivyakti Jain