Hello everyone,

I'm writing this because my friend mentioned that simply posting your feelings can feel therapeutic, so I just want to take the opportunity to vent a bit. Depression has changed me, as it probably has most of the other users on this forum. I'm not the person I was last May, I believed that I could attain my dreams then. I had a purpose. I felt free, and capable too. Fast forward to today, and I feel the exact opposite. I'm struggling to attain goals in a full week that the me of last year would have been capable of accomplishing in a day or two. My dreams feel so far off, like I'm incapable of attaining them. I feel trapped by my depression, like anything that I do or practice will be unable to pierce this void that has surrounded me. One of the best descriptions for depression that I've heard is that it is not an emotion, rather it is a lack of vitality. A lack of volition and action. I can certainly relate to that. I rarely express emotion, but these days when I do express emotion, it feels artificial. I've become incapable of being genuine, of caring, of showing joy. Instead it feels like I'm wearing a mask that I can't take off. I'm becoming a shell of what I once was. Usually, people find out that they aren't who they once were long after the change has happened, and they get a "wake up call" and realize that they're deep into whatever issue it is that they've gotten in; but I see how I'm changing little by little day by day, and it terrifies me. I'm forced to sit back and watch as the person I was erode into a shell. What scares me most though, is that I still feel myself changing, and I'm worried that whatever vitality I have left will all come crashing down soon. Anyway, those are my thoughts and rants. Thank you for listening.