[timentimeagain]

what does it mean.
My T. mentioned it once some time back..i didnt pay attention to it..while reading HONY post...someone commented existing rather than living...(FYI:HONY post from yesterday...woman who works at furniture store )

what does it mean exactly?

[Leah123]

I think of existing as focused on survival, not being mindful, not having abundance, not having a meaningful, purposeful, pleasurable life.

Living I would think refers to being involved in life, empowered, engaged, aware.

[AllHeart]

For me, living means enjoying a meaningful life. Existing means just going through the motions of the usual lackluster day-to-day activities.

[PinkFlamingo99]

Surviving to me is trying to stay alive and that's it. That's how I feel now. I have no enjoyment and I don't care about anything. I don't do anything "fun" or "social" and I fear for my life a lot because of how I feel. I don't think about the future or really engage with anything. I think "living" involves a lot more interaction with the world, often social but also actively making plans, goals, thinking about the future.

Right now for me even therapy seems really survival-based, talking about safety and self-care like eating and basic cleaning. Before it got so bad I would talk more about things like social anxiety and obsessing.

I think they can cross over at times

[emptyspace]

Originally Posted by Leah123

I think of existing as focused on survival, not being mindful, not having abundance, not having a meaningful, purposeful, pleasurable life.

Living I would think refers to being involved in life, empowered, engaged, aware.

I agree with this.
Surviving is forcing yourself out of bed in the morning, but dreading another day.
Doing things that you have to with no pleasure, etc. Not finding the beauty in life.
Living is getting out of bed with excitement for the day ahead. Being able to find pleasure and enjoyment in the day. Being glad you are alive.

[gayleggg]

I think I just survive. I don't do things to really make me feel alive. I don't do fun things to keep me invite you with life. I just sit and watch it gets by. I don't have cool stories to tell. My life is boring and only I can change than but my anxiety gets in the way.

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[hopeful171]

I just think that I survive too..I long for a day with something exciting to look forward to.

[hopeful171]

I think that I am just surviving too...I long for a day filled with excitement and something to really look forward to.

[iheartjacques]

For me, living is the moments of joy or peace between limping from crisis to crisis.

[Suraya]

Living is when you feel passion and purpose in life and the desire to see what the future holds because you have goals and things you look forward to. Existing is merely trying to survive another day and putting one foot in front of the other and waiting for bedtime so you can go to sleep and hope that the next day might be better. I'm so tired of simply existing.

[timentimeagain]

Would you say ppl who exist are depressed?

Ask your T what s/he meant. All these definitions are always so personal, and all any of us can do is guess what your T might have meant.

For me, the concepts are pretty much the same. Living is no more or less than existing. It is possible to enjoy existence - life - or not, but for me the two terms in themselves have no connotation of more or less enjoyment.

Depression is a very wide umbrella term, and it's not possible to say that somebody who does or feels x is depressed or not. It depends on a lot of different things.