How would you describe your depression?

My depression feels like a black mass coming up from my spine and gripping the back of my skull like a hand. Sometimes it flares up and threatens to take over. It never goes away. Its always there, in the back of my mind.

Bane of anyones life. Wanting to sleep scared of waking up.

Everything is so trivial and meaningless...I want to sleep.

I describe mine as a bubble. I can see the better things at times but I just cant push myself out. When I try to see me getting better I just get severely confused.

It is also kind of like that rain cloud that wont piss off x) oh the joys.

It literally makes me feel like I've been punched in the stomach. It makes my stomach hurt and often times gives me a headache.

*********trigger warning****************

Sometimes, I am the "snail crawling on the razors' edge".

It’s like drowning except you can see everyone around you breathing

Its like being physically sick with the flu!!!!!!

Its like a shade has come down over my eyes and I see nothing very clearly and then sometimes the shade goes up and the world is again bright

EXACTLY this.

Feels like being alone in a crowded room, or that you're moving in slow motion when everyone else is going normal speed, sort of like that scene in Garden State if you've seen it. It feels like something horrible is going to happen and there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it, only it feels that way 100% of the time.

total darkness, huge weight on my chest, paralyzed, i'm in a black hole-no bottom, no top, no sides, nothingness

Disconnected. While I objectively see all the things I should be doing to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly, subjectivelly I just don't care. I can't make myself leave the mind prison. I lack feelings. While on meds, I at least have the energy to go through the motions, even though everything seems pointless. But that's just about it. I should find a new job but I feel so terrified and certain that they will laugh at my application, that everyone will dismiss me that I don't send anything in. I know I have emotions but I don't feel them (apart from anxiety). I'm simply counting the days 'till I die (a natural death).

Not my words, but I've felt this way my entire life:

"Suicide, I've already died
You're just the funeral I've been waiting for
Cyanide, living dead inside
Break this empty shell forevermore

Wait, wait patiently
Your death black wings
Unfolding sleep
Spreading o'er me"

Also:

"Life it seems will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters, no one else

I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free

Things not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this can't be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel"

and I know they've been used many times.

And comment to LostMom3:
There is a reason you cry. There is a reason for everything even though we may not know what it is.

You can't appreciate anything.

If people are smiling and happy, you don't feel their joy. Instead you notice what they have that you don't. It becomes real to you, as well. It is SUCH an in the present mentality. A girl and her beautiful daughter pass you. You instantly think "I will never have children."

You could eat an apple for breakfast or your favorite breakfast food, and it wouldn't matter because you cannot enjoy your favorite breakfast food. It feels like you are incapable of enjoying anything, and it feels very physically draining, burning, pain - to varying degrees.

You believe everything is going to have a negative outcome, you want to be alone because you are not able to laugh at anything, have nothing to talk about, and have nothing to contribute - apart from your physical presence.

Reality is replaced by the most irrational thoughts about the things or people you care the most about. "I am a horrible example for my nephew, therefore it would be best if I just disappeared." Additionally, you see how self-centered you have become in that where you used to be caring, compassionate, and driven to help others - you now can only sit and ponder why you feel so terrible.

When there is a "dip" down, it's like a physical sensation in that you feel like you are literally being pushed down. Therefore, you lay down. You feel the mental anguish and physical pain of just being told that the person you love the most in the entire world has died. It actually hurts. And it makes no sense, because nothing happened to warrant this bottomless pit of...nothing. Sometimes going to sleep relieves this, but typically you feel worse when you wake up. Sometimes forcing yourself to sit up, or get out of bed and walk around, you tell yourself "don't let this break you" - you can rise back up a bit and the pain eases with time.

empty. grey. hopelessness. anguish. nothingness. apathy. isolation.

Feelings of worthlessness, like as if nothing fun or positive that I do is fun or positive. More like a robot, forced to smile assimilate a human gesture (other wise people would take note I'm depress), watching my kid enjoy his moments of life at park and not being able to feel the same joy of watching him feel happy. The feeling of laugher; gone, the feeling of joy; gone; the feeling of hope; gone and much more.

This is how depression feels in my case. No matter how difficult it is, I try everyday to fight off the symptoms of depression because I have more hopes of living and watching my kid grow, than to just give up and surrender to depression.

I have had depression since I was 13 years old, I have struggled with it all my life. I get in these moods where I push people away, expecially the people who love me the most. I just dont know how to let anyone in when I get this sad, I feel like giving up most of the time, because I dont feel like I have accomplished much since I have become an adult and its very frustrating. My mom has clinical depression, and she has been on meds, and been in a mental hospital before, maybe all of that has something to do with why I am the way I am. She is not the greatest mom in the world, I can't talk to her about how I feel because she will just say I am feeling sorry for my self and just make me feel even worse then I already do. I dont really know who to go to , because no one ever listens or understands me, or they say they understand and then say we will see what we can do to help you , but it never happens. This isn't for attention, and I know thats probably what they think, but its really not. I am seriously depressed, I think of ways to escape this, and the only ways that I can cope with this since I am not on my medication anymore and haven't been for a long time , is I self medicate my self with perscription pills or alcohol, sometimes mixing them together. I dont know who to talk to, so thats why I signed up for this support group. I can't afford to be back on my medication, and I also can't afford a therapist currently. I just need someone to talk to, someone who understands what I am going through.

This time it started with a feeling like I was always running blindly through a tight maze of dank urban alleys.

Now, months later, it's settled into what I call hurricane brain - a continuous fierce howling wind whipping around debris. When it's bad, it's a firestorm.

Of course, the stereotypical demons are in there going at me with pointy sticks, jagged glass, etc. On good days, they sit down and play cards.

Today's a good day so far.

I always thought of it like drowning
- you get your head above the water sometimes, but it's a struggle to stay there (and sometimes people can't even see you struggling). Other times your head goes under and you're struggling to even breathe as you slowly disappear

My depression has become chronic and it is constant, although sometimes it is a little less severe than other times. I'm exhausted from trying to cope, and tormented by an untenable work situation. When I am not at work I am expected to be a hundred places at once, giddily doing this that and the other. It's all I can do to get out of bed.

i forgot already what ...oh how would i describe this depression?

Well i do not have a color, or situation. My best description is nylon thread strangling me. Others cannot see the thread choking me, and cannot understand my lack of action or desire.

Hmm...for me it's similar to the feeling you get when your boyfriend/ girlfriend that you adored breaks up with you unexpectedly...then you see them with someone new a week later with someone prettier and more successful than you. The anxiety that comes along with that depression is like the initial feeling of someone holding a gun to my head.

A nothingness that has no end...........

I know exactly how you feel because I'm right there with you right now. I think that part of depression is having that contradiction inside of you. I feel as if that contradiction creates a barrier between me and the outside world. For me I can't concentrate I can't focus I can't seem to make my mind work the way I want to.

i created a new photo album today called "my depression" if anyone feels like looking at it

A Beast.

Total numbness. No feelings not even sadness. Motivationally lacking. Weak. Tired. Void of emotion yet hating living like this. Helpless. Pathetic. Worthless. Spiritless. Unable to reach out for help hence have lived in my bed literally all year. Hopeless.