I'm not sure if I've depression (or BP I), but I've the following symptoms: I don't usually feel sad (sometimes I feel deep sadness for no reason), but most of the time I lack motivation and interests, and any sign of vitality in general. Like people would be happy if they had an opportunity to travel or if they won something, but not me. I also have some physical symptoms like numbness in my legs, light stomach pain, and nausea. I also feel there is a cloud in my head that prevents me from concentrating and thinking right.

How does depression manifest itself in you?

[ScientiaOmnisEst]

Mostly a frequent, random sadness or irrituability, otherwise numbness to most good things. I'm either crying daily, or my feelings are on lockdown and I need to force them out to feel alive. Fatigue and overeating used to be more serious symptoms, but not so much anymore.

I've never experience severe depression where I couldn't get out of bed, couldn't shower (well, maybe I experienced that for a little while), couldn't leave the house. I usually find I need to get out one way or another, even if it's just to pick up some food (which I'm starting to think is just a weird security or comfort thing for me). It's more a walking-depression for me. I go through the day but I typically feel either numb or terrible, like I'm just existing, barely.

[hsalmon21]

Depression hits me in waves - coming and going. When it comes, I feel mentally submerged under dark, heavy water. I'm perpetually exhausted, no motivation, hardly even any emotions. Just laying in bed is all I want to do, all I can do.
Socialization is out of the question. If it's mandatory I can save face for a little while, but then I just get exhausted again and will barely be able to even talk. Having my boyfriend around lifts me up just the slightest, but I'm extremely temperamental and if he does one thing that I don't like, like not acknowledging something I did, I just become so upset with him and just start questioning our relationship and his committment to me over like, not saying thank you for throwing his napkin away. It seems so silly to me now but when I'm in that mindset, it's just.... everything is life or death or something.
I'm positive about nothing. Every setback I encounter is like a smack in my face saying you're a giant failure. My self-talk becomes self-hate and self-criticism because I dont deserve to be nice to myself.
When my depression hits, my soul recedes into its own corner for this dark grey cloud to crash in and consume me. Not only do I feel nothing, but my presence itself feels like I am nothing. It's not me anymore - or at least not the one that every one else knows.
When it goes away, I feel joy and lightness all inside of me, like a ball of energy and sun. I can laugh heartily and smile genuinely. I can makes jokes again and sing songs in the car.
The only positive I have found from having a depression like mine is that every day it is gone, I appreciate life so much and am so grateful for everything. I soak everything in and live every moment because tomorrow might be the day that dark, heavy wave comes back to drown me once again.

[Gaar]

My depression manifests itself with most of the typical symptoms:

• Low mood or irritable mood most of the time
• Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much
• A big change in appetite, often with weight gain or loss
• Tiredness and lack of energy
• Feelings of worthlessness, self-hate, and guilt
• Difficulty concentrating
• Lack of activity and avoiding usual activities
• Feeling hopeless or helpless

During childhood, I was told I was a bad boy with hell in my future. Shame as defined by Brene Brown is a big factor in my self-talk: "... the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection."

My existence may be described as sedentary, solitary and beset with squalor.

[elevatedsoul]

is simple for me...
i just feel great pain... pain that shouldnt exist.... is like having a great medical condition... but itsnot real... doctor just look at you and say you are just depress.... you need to do these few things and try to get better... but is something i cant xplain... people cant understand how it hurts.... because its not a pain that most peoplefeel.... is something that hurts your soul....
i hate it.... it hurts so bad.... in my body.... some days i cant walk for it hurting.... dont know what people think about me because i try to hide everything.... and i do good job... but i cant hide the pain so much.... the look in my eyes when someone looks at me in the ey.... i dont look at people in the eyes anymore....
cant....

its like.... waiting to be born... but you know you were born before - you know what you are going to face... you dont want to do it - but you dont have any choice... and you know you may have to last 100 years going through it... but its every day you are being born... when you wake up you see how much suffering you have ahead....
is just something you want to stop.. never start.... why did it have to start...? is just you suffering... a child in a torturous world....

[MtnTime2896]

I generally feel nothing or I feel like I'm drowning. Sometimes I get thoughts about how I might die. Okay, more than sometimes; it's more like every day, several times a day. Nothing really gets me out of it except sleep and then I just wake up feeling the same way. I'm also on an antidepressant cocktail and my emotions are kind of messed up until the drugs 'have time to kick in'. I was feeling depressed beforehand, too. Then, it was more of a response to not being able to control my panic attacks and flashbacks. I was also angry and I mean, really angry. I'd punch inanimate objects and yell at my fiance over the littlest things that are trivial to me. I just wanted to fight. Sometimes I still do but it quickly passes along with my lack of energy to do so because of the drugs I'm on.
Keep your chin up and keep fighting. Even if that means going to a therapist and/or taking medication. We'll see if my medication helps or if I'm going to have to find something else but I'm still going to be here and I'd like to know that you are, too. If you want to PM me, that's okay. I hope things get better for you.

[qwerty68]

I don't usually feel all that sad which I find odd, but I do feel empty and if it weren't for my anxiety issues I probably wouldn't feel anything. Even physical pain is numbed. I am not usually irritable and people perceive me as sad but easy going and paradoxically, funny. Actually, what I feel inside and what people perceive me as is often contradictory, leading me to believe I have little insight into myself.

I do feel very heavy and my head is foggy and drained of energy. From the neck down I feel generally good. I usually can stay goal-oriented but only with great effort and stubbornness. It is hard, but I try to make progress on my projects, house cleaning, etc every day, even if I can only do it for 30 minutes, which is a really big help to me. It gets me out, and keeps me out of bed.

I have massive amounts of self-hatred yet feel detached from myself. A pdoc once told me he has never met anyone with as much self-hatred as me and not have anger and violence issues, so I guess I have that going for me.

The onset of psychotic depression has brought new fun things but that stuff is hard to describe so I won't try but I will say that my lack of insight came with this.

[OneInBillions]

Lack of interest in my hobbies is usually the first sign of an oncoming episode. Suddenly I'll lose interest in the games I've been playing or the book I've been reading. Then I can't find anything else that can hold my interest so I'll just laze around browsing the internet and listening to dark music. Usually my brain gets kind of foggy, like I can't quite think clearly, and my short-term memory takes a serious hit until I'll forget even the simplest things. I'll typically respond by binging on junk food because it "comforts" me, except it really just makes things worse in the long run. When it gets particularly bad I get lots of hopelessness and apathy for everything and everyone, as well as massive feelings of insignificance. Sometimes suicidal thoughts will pop up.

I'd add insomnia and exhaustion but those symptoms persist whether I'm feeling particularly depressed or not! Sometimes I really think I might have dysthymia on top of my MDD, so I occasionally dip into "double depression."

I will get 'Atypical Depression'. In addition to melancholy, I experience:

. Sleeping too much (14hrs+ a day)
. significant Increased appetite or weight gain (5% body mass monthly)
. Having a more intense reaction or increased sensitivity to rejection, resulting in problems with social and work relationships (performance anxiety)
. Having a stron physical feeling of being weighed down, paralyzed, or "leaden"

A big difference is that an person with Atypical Depession is 'mood-reactive'. This means their mood will react accordingly to positive or negative stimuli. A person with melancholic Depression is less likely to react to positivity.

I want to sleep, but cannot. I suppose, mentally, I'm trying to not be here.

There is a lack of "want". There just isn't any, for anything.

There is definitely pain. I don't know where it resides, but it is there. And I am willing to do anything to escape that pain. Fortunately (?) I have sent out a heads up to those who care.

Originally Posted by Só leigheas

I generally feel nothing or I feel like I'm drowning. Sometimes I get thoughts about how I might die. Okay, more than sometimes; it's more like every day, several times a day. Nothing really gets me out of it except sleep and then I just wake up feeling the same way. I'm also on an antidepressant cocktail and my emotions are kind of messed up until the drugs 'have time to kick in'. I was feeling depressed beforehand, too. Then, it was more of a response to not being able to control my panic attacks and flashbacks. I was also angry and I mean, really angry. I'd punch inanimate objects and yell at my fiance over the littlest things that are trivial to me. I just wanted to fight. Sometimes I still do but it quickly passes along with my lack of energy to do so because of the drugs I'm on.
Keep your chin up and keep fighting. Even if that means going to a therapist and/or taking medication. We'll see if my medication helps or if I'm going to have to find something else but I'm still going to be here and I'd like to know that you are, too. If you want to PM me, that's okay. I hope things get better for you.

Thanks, I appreciate that. I hope you'll get better, too.

Thank you all guys. I hope you all will feel better soon. I thought I would share the following: Time passed midnight, so, yesterday was the first day I went out of my apartment in 5 entire days. Literally, I didn't step one step outside my apartment, and I live alone. I had enough food and water. I was depressed and basically spending my time lying down on bed or here on PC. But yesterday, I forced myself to go out of bed (which was very hard), and to go to work (my job can be done from home as well as from a special place for it). I'm glad I did go out. Even though I didn't do much at work, at the end of the day I felt my mood was elevated. So, I guess the moral of the story is that challenging our feelings and thoughts can be helpful at the end of the day. Difficult but helpful. I know it may sound like something you hear all the time, but I hope telling this will help, because even me I didn't believe this could happen to me.

[SlayGuy138]

Please forgive me if I'm making this about myself or if it seems that I'm veering off topic.

In all honesty, I don't even think I feel depressed that often anymore. I've learned to harden my sadness into hatred against those who've hurt me. Either way, these emotions dominate every day of my life. Not a single day goes by that isn't absolutely ruined by something that reminds me of a past traumatic event. My own mind holds my soul at gunpoint and forces it to watch all those torturous memories on repeat. All I do is sit there catatonic, eyes glazed over, all the tears I had in me spent long ago. I have no desire or motivation to even start on any of my responsibilities or stay on task. Misery is what I've come to expect from this life. The very thought of my abusers even continuing to breathe makes me want to

Possible trigger:

rip my own entrails out and scream until my throat ruptures.

But it doesn't make a damn bit of difference because no one's ever come along to heal me and give me reason to feel better, and I'm powerless in perpetrating vengeance against my abusers, and any effort that I've ever made on my end toward a better life has proven completely fruitless.

[Ocean Swimmer]

Depression manifests itself in not wanting to leave my house or even my bed. Isolating on purpose.
But I don't have the worst depression on my current cocktail just no energy. Low desire. Feeling complacent.

I have pangs of depression once, suicidal at the most. Then euphoric for the rest, it's like a cycle. During depression, you get a feeling that your chest goes hollow, as if it's draining your life. Loss of appetite, then I isolate myself in my room. I don't usually come out for like 2 days as such because every human face hurts. You get a feeling as if you are addicted to your emotion of sadness. When euphoric, You always feel you miss something vital.

[starryprince]

I have trouble sleeping, my anxiety could be better. I have a lot of trouble focusing or concentrating on one thing in particular. It's like I have to do a million things at once. I isolate myself, but then again I just feel lonely all the time. There is this feeling of disconnect. I can't connect with people. I lose hope in the future. I can't remember the last time I felt pure happiness (although I do feel happy when I am with my mom). Everything feels like too much work. I lack motivation. I've lost pleasure in the things that gave me joy, like drawing or playing my piano. I feel lost in life, like I don't know where to go. I constantly feel sad and detached and numb all at once. I've been feeling like this for over 10 years now, since I was 13.

I am 100% sure that if I did not have my mother I wouldn't be here now. She keeps me going. <3