How It Feels When I Am Depressed
When I am depressed, I show the following signs:

1 Jun 04

It becomes harder and harder to understand the task at hand and what I should be doing next. My attention doesn't wander; I just can't figure out what is going on. It's as if my intelligence level starts falling. My ability to complete the day's work starts failing and I start thinking that I'll put of the work until tomorrow.

Decisions, from complex issues at work to simple things like whether to go to the supermarket this evening become harder to make. I tend to put off making any decisions at all.

I tend to wander around in a daze. Everything feels as if it were a bit distant or dreamlike and it is difficult to make decisions on what to do next.

At a low level this waffling is annoying, disrupts work or studying, and is not necessarily obvious to anyone else. At medium intensity, the indecision makes it very difficult to get anything done and probably annoys my family, friends and co-workers. At high intensity, it shuts down my life completely.

I forget things. Tasks may be left undone or forgotten before I take even five footsteps

I start to delay doing things. Work starts piling up in my out tray. Dishes start piling up in my sink.

I start sleeping a little longer than usual. If I sleep 7 hours a night, I start sleeping 8 hours a night. I start getting up later, or wake up feeling groggy, as if I need more sleep.

My self confidence falls drastically and emotions are dampened, especially the upbeat ones. I start losing a clear sense of who I am to the point that I do not see myself in the mirror, just a face that had no particular meaning to me.

I feel as if I am acting in public all the time, as if I am putting on "a public face" or wearing a shell which does all the chatting and smiling when all I feel like doing is going home and not talking to people. It's quite an effort to do that, but nobody seems to notice how fake my actions are. Which somehow makes me feel worse.

I get anxious and nervous dealing with people. I feel as if they are going to accuse me of some little thing I did wrong, or shout at me. I feel as every little thing I do is being judged and that I am going to be criticised for doing it stupidly. I feel as if I ask for help or a favour I will be turned down or laughed at.

Naturally, communications start to fail. I stop calling my friends, or returning phone calls. I don't answer my cell phone; I may turn it off or put it in silent mode. I don't listen to my answering machine. I don't read my e-mail.

The onset period of depression for me is very sharp. The depression episode itself usually starts on an afternoon when I return from work into the safety of my house. I would have been fighting it for a few days, but when everything becomes a burden to do, I can fight for only so long. Once home, I stop fighting, because I can't keep it up any longer, and I let the depression take over. It's a battle lost. It's a battle I always lose.

I can't call for help because by the time I realise that I won't be able to fight it anymore, my ability to communicate or reach out to others has already failed.

I become terrified to talk to or hear from people. There is no reason for this at all. I always feel that people are going to yell at me. I am afraid to meet people in public because I would have to talk to them (what horror!).

I stay in my house. I don't want to go outside for any reason. I only go out when I need food. I usually only need food when I have rummaged through the entire house and eaten everything that is in a box or bag that needs only microwaving.

I stop going to the gym or swimming because it feels too hard to exercise. And because I don't want to go anywhere there are people.

I stop talking with friends or going out with them or attending any social functions, even if I have told people I would go. I beg off at the last minute or I simply don't show up.

I tend to crave sugar. I can eat an entire box of chocolate cookies in half-hour. And then be disgusted with myself. And nauseated because I don't particularly like sugar.

I spend a lot of time trying not to think. I read the same magazines over and over again, and I read a lot of trashy sci-fi novels. Good science fiction, good literature and text books are usually beyond my ability to understand properly.

I can't study or do anything productive that requires concentrated thought .

I watch television six to ten hours a day if I get the chance. Or more. I can easily watch television from 5 pm to 4 am without even getting up for dinner.

My sleep patterns become odd. I stay up until two or three in the morning, reading. I like being up after midnight because no one will bother me and so I feel "safe." I dread that in the next few hours another day will start and people might want to talk with me.

I spend sixteen or more hours a day sleeping. I would often sleep hoping I would not wake up, or that the world would disappear before I woke up.

Everything in my house piles up to do. Clothes to be cleaned, dishes unwashed, garbage to be taken out, books strewn everywhere, bed unmade, clothes in the living room. You name it, it's not done.

The inability to do things is not just for housework. It includes studies, work, social activities, basic personal maintenance.

My entire world comes crashing down around me as I stop being able to do anything.

I don't have the desire to do anything. Even more than that, the issue never really makes it into my consciousness. I would see a set of books to put away, but there would be no true connection between the mess and the need to clean it up. I might understand in an abstract distant way that the two should be linked, but I still don't actually link them together in any concrete terms of desire or need or obligation.

When the fear becomes high enough, even my house is no longer a safe haven. I become scared that my family or friends might come looking for me. So I disappear.

I get in my car and go driving. I can drive for hours. Or go to the beach, or anywhere the people don't know me and won't talk with me. I stay out until very late, often going to a late movie so I have somewhere to be.

I return at midnight or later so I won't have to see anyone. I sneak up to my apartment to see if anyone is there. If anyone is there, I don't go inside. I get back in my car and go driving.

When I disappear, I don't relax. The purpose is escape and all I want to do is to put my body somewhere reasonably safe and comfortable so I can shut my mind down to escape the terror.

I usually spend days like this with an almost completely blank mind. Just enough of me is alive to make sure I eat and sleep and to be cunning enough so that the average person doesn't suspect what is going on.

Because my mind is so blank, I usually have a hard time remembering what went on. I can only remember if I put a bit of effort into it.

Eventually, I come out the depression. Some aspect of normal thought returns and I start settling back into a normal pattern. Since I cycle rapidly, I would go straight from being depressed into being hypomanic in a day or so and the hypomania would provide me the energy to pick up the pieces and to face people without being too ashamed.

The depression was my biggest problem as it used to bring my world to a crashing halt.

These days, thanks to my antidepressant, I slow down but don't quite stop. I miss only 1 or 2 days at work, which is a substantial improvement. I don't quite lose my ability to communicate so that I can at least call up someone and tell them I'm depressed. The amount of things I can do has increased from none to very little.

I have also made peace with the fact that not much is going to get done and I no longer get anxious about it.

This may not sound particularly ideal, but this is so much better than what it used to be. I suppose I could do better, but the cost and risk of attempting to do so is so high that I am unwilling to chance losing what I currently have.

Now that my depression episodes are so mild, it has become less of a personal problem than a social problem. Reconnecting to other people and explaining why I wasn't available for the last two weeks - that causes more headaches than the depression itself.