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Who the hell isn't depressed in this fucked up world?

Not having the desire to go anywhere or do anything. An overwhelming crushing feeling of hopelessness and despair, physically painful and emotionally draining. Not being able to connect with the humanity around you. Endless, inescapable futility. It feels like drowning. Being anchored down, suffocation, and unable to escape, because the anchor is inside you. Powerless, helpless, impotent. Weak, pathetic, self loathing, self mutilating. It feels like you are all alone in the dark with a cold icy wind burning your naked body.

A downward pressure on your heart and soul, a feeling of emptiness. Lack of passion for life, a need to disconnect from others, sadness mixed with self pity. A constant and intense sense of guilt over your personal failures. Spending everyday reciting a mantra of how stupid you are and how everything is your fault. Tired all the time but can’t sleep. Stop going out with friends cause it’s hard to pretend to be happy. Feeling like no hope for the future. Slowly isolated yourself from all family and friends. You hate it when someone says "Just pick yourself up and get over it." They have no clue. You can’t really understand someone who feels pain if you have never experienced it yourself. You can probably imagine it to some extent, but that’s not the same thing at all.

Regret. Like clouds in your brain. Like a storm of confusion. Like a hand holding you down any time you try to get up. Like a bad person whispering all the things you hate about you into your ear, all the time. Like complete darkness. Compulsive sad thoughts, lack of motivation, lack of energy, lack of will to live, tired, obsessive thoughts and much more. A list of why you are depressed goes round and round in your head and you don’t remember anything good ever happening to you. Violent anger outbursts and moments of total despair. It goes from paranoia to self-destructiveness to complete apathy with ourselves. It feels like drowning into your own body into a million hells.

Like death while you are breathing. Complete apathy. Inability to enjoy anything. The constant incredibly burdensome take all the emotions, even the most insignificant ones when being forced to interact with people around you. Utter, irreversible certitude that you will never be happy, even if you have the whole life ahead of you. It hurts…to feel at that moment that you can’t do anything to get better. But there is always a feeling if not knowing how long it will last or if it will always be there. It makes the loneliness feel overwhelming … like you’re losing.

Life is crumbling all around me and I can’t stop it. All of the rubble is falling on top of me, crushing my lungs and heart slowly. All the while the only thought going through my mind is "This is my own fault, because I am worthless and a failure I cant save my own life." Then feelings tears running down my face without being able to say what has caused them, because no one can understand the pain I am in. My body hurts, it’s as though someone has beaten me and left me to die. My heart aches and I am sure it would be better if it just stopped beating. At times it feels as though my body is being ripped apart. The only "escape" I can find is isolation in my bed with the blankets wrapped around my body and head as an attempt to find security and safety from myself, a way to hide from all the pain. Then comes the numbness. A numbness unlike anything I can describe. A feeling of complete emptiness, so intense I don’t know whether to enjoy the absence of pain or fear the fact that I feel dead. Slowly the numbness subsides and anger boils to the surface. Anger from the inability to be normal. Anger from having no control. Anger so horrible that it pushes people away. Then it seems the cycle begins again, starting with the loneliness that I so dread. It is a carousel that I long to get off, but it refuses to stop and it appears I am stuck here forever. Over and over again I will endure the cycle of loneliness, fear, guilt, pain, shame, isolation, numbness, and anger. Around and around I will go watching my life pass by, watching others live as I reach out only to fade away once more. And that is my life has been since depression has pulled me into its hell-go-round.

Having a hard time smiling, laughing, getting up in the morning, almost anything. And death seems almost welcome, like a nice long nap after a very long and tiring day. Nothing makes sense … and everything leads up to the conclusion that existence in itself is pointless, because its trace will eventually be completely gone, being such a small part of anything. A constant thinking that nothing makes sense, even if it does, perpetual tiredness and staring into the void. An inconsolable dark place where the heavy weight of guilt presses you in on all sides, where there is no one that would care if you were gone, you are worthless and you just want to out of this existence. No sign of new life.

Death. However, you are still alive to watch life pass you by and feel the feelings associated with it. You are so emotionally overwhelmed that you become numb. Your energy level drops significantly and your muscles weaken at an alarming rate. You cease to have the will to care about anything. You become irritable. You become disconnected to the world around you and feel the overwhelming urge to isolate yourself. To do the simplest tasks become a monumental effort. It feels like you have a soul sucking parasite living inside your mind. Kiss your self control and your self esteem goodbye as you feel it changing the person you once were. It is seldom for the better. It’s as if your spirit is frozen deep within your subconscious. Yes, you get to watch and experience yourself falling apart piece by piece. For whatever reason, you are overwhelmed with guilt and shame. Your moral compass also becomes distorted. It is truly a scary thing to have to go through.

Even a moral compass remaining intact is like cruel irony when you do all things you know are right, all the things you preached before and then, only what begins to happen is anything you do results in such fatigue that you are not able to complete even the most basic tasks within a day; and pushing yourself the extra only results in errors from fatigue. After a few years of thinking it gets better and it don’t, it sinks in that you are screwed.

Long term depression makes you forget who you are and all the good that you have done. It pre-selects bad memories, and makes things up. Depression is when you can’t play the damn stupid games anymore. Your brain just start kicking stuff out. The human animal that you really are wants to get out and play. You’re smart enough to understand how stupid it is but you keep on doing it anyway. Day after day wasting your life. I’ve only done it once. I hit bottom on a bad mushroom trip. I found total nothingness. Meaninglessness. I’ll never have to do that again. I changed. Maybe it wasn't such a bad trip.

I find it takes away your option of choice. You can hear the voices arguing, bickering about what you know you should do and the other telling you it isn’t important enough to bother doing right now. A constant self deception. I find with me the deception was my excuse to trick myself into excusing my ways. Depression to me is something I understand, mine at least. You still get those awkward moments of insecurity but you know the reason why and learn to ignore it. One day it will ignore itself. Depression is something that only fixable by the sufferer. Depression is fixed by self acceptance and realistic expectations. Self respect is paramount in beginning to feel better. Realize that the world is yours also, get outside and be boring … or exciting. Whatever, just get out and enjoy being you.

The first step is self love, self forgiveness, and the development of self worth. It is not an easy thing to do but part of my life’s goals is to continue personal growth. I have to be my biggest fan.

Here is a question to all those that have experienced depression. What, if anything, could give you the strength to keep living? Keep sticking your focus to those things. Depression has been a daily tightrope to be walked, crawled up and challenged. The choice not to be on that rope isn’t an option to me, it is the only choice other than death.

The best way to escape depression is a self cure. Denial is a huge part of the problem. Think positive, consistently positive, even when the going gets too tough, will make you better. It is wrong that the cure is complete overnight, but every positive thought, every day that you at least try to make yourself feel better … you are winning the fight. That is what I understand to be saying. If you keep thinking you have a problem and it’s such a big problem that you cant beat it…you wont beat it.

If I could give you everything on your wish list, solved all family issues, plus give you a hundred million pocket cash, that you will cure from depressed? No. Life is not that simple. The rich can be depressed too. Depression knows no boundaries. Sometimes it can even be the lack of something that is missing in a persons life, like love for themselves or the love from others. Really, I believe depression is a symptom of what has or hasn't been going on. Lets use an example of abused person, any person who is abused by someone or physically or sexually assaulted. They are often told things that are degrading to their emotional and mental well being, which causes depression. Being told how bad a person is who is in a vulnerable position, physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally will affect you no matter how stone cold you think you are.

Convincing someone that their life has meaning and that they aren't really as horrible as they think they are can be as difficult as converting someone to another religion. They truly believe all these terrible things about themselves and life as if they were fact. Sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from crying. I do that a lot, so most people don’t see my depression, unless they look closely and see how I isolate myself. I laugh a lot, doesn't keep me from being depressed, but I don’t cry when I’m in really, really bad condition. God knows what I've been through.

Do you know how many ways a person can kill themselves these days--pain free, with no mess? I do. If you don’t succeed it is because you really didn't want to die…you were crying for help. I hope you never have to endure this pathetic whiny state that some of us have lived with most of our lives. Best regards to you and the fantastic journey.