…Depression?!

 

So many will never truly understand.  Those whom have never been afflicted think depression is equivocal to what they experience when they’re sad…

Depression is NOT like being sad.

Being sad is not a blanket that covers your entire being and weighs you down to the point where you can barely muster the strength the get out of bed; and if you somehow manage to do so, sadness does not still weigh on your shoulders and cloud your vision to the point where it is difficult to walk.  Sadness does not muffle the voices of others making them hard to understand, and it does not stifle your own to the point were you cannot even express your feelings enough to ask for the help you so terribly need.

Depression is NOT sadness! Depression is not just helplessness; depression is not anything that anyone unaffected by the illness can ever hope to understand.  It NEVER goes away.  It never abates, it never subsides, it never truly stops.  It’s running a marathon with a weight belt on, it’s the unexpected storm at your outdoor wedding, it’s a most unwelcome guest arriving uninvited at your party, it is a raven perched above your chamber door.

Sometimes depression is a cacophony that that deafens you, and sometimes it is a whisper that assures you that what little joy you’ve found is fleeting at best, because you don’t deserve it.  Sometimes depression is a blinding light, sometimes it is an all consuming darkness, and sometimes it is but a gentle fog hanging over the edges of an otherwise pristine landscape.  Depression is ever-present and unrelenting.  What so many cannot understand is how difficult it is to keep from feeling powerless when your depression is beyond your control; how impossible it is to not feel hopeless when even your good days are overshadowed by the knowledge of its inevitable return.

Depression is not a choice, it’s not a mood, a phase, or a mere emotion.  It is a shadow cast upon your very being, and is often darkest at the brightest moments in your life.