Personify Your Depression: If my depression were a person... [fill in the blank]
Personify Your Depression: I learned about this coping technique today. Imagine that your depression is a person separate from you. The idea is that personifying our depression helps remind us that depression doesn't define who we are ourselves, and that invasive self-critical thoughts we experience often come from our depression and not our healthy minds. Some things to think about are: what kind of person would it be, what kind of hobbies would it have, what would it look like, what would its name be?
So, if your depression were a person, what kind of person would it be?
It would be waiting behind me at all times, sneaking up on me when I am most exhausted and vulnerable.
If my depression were a person, it would be a person you see every day in your life, but never get more than a glimpse of. Its a person that disappears when others are around, because no one else can know. If anything, my depression is the mirage of a person you loved. You search for them, but they evade you and it leaves you feeling more hollow than before.
If my depression was a person she would come off as loving and kind, but most of all safe. She would keep me clear-headed and let me know when I did something wrong, which according to her is all the time. She is a she because to me I view my depression as a maternal figure. A manipulative, toxic mother who wants nothing more than to keep me grounded or rather in a ditch by the road. Her arms would always be open for a hug to shield and save me from situations in which she created. If I could meet her I have no idea what I would do. I would want to kill her and see her suffer, but I'm 90% sure I would apologize for whatever I'd done wrong this time and cower as I do in the presence of all manipulative characters.
If my depression were a person it would be a dementor. A ghostly black figure that sucks all the life and happiness out leaving me a hollowed out shell of my former self.
I'd probably threaten his life unless he left me alone in self defense as he threatened mine once.
If my depression were a person, it would be a (dark) green slow moving zombie, who needed to be knocked on its head and back to reality. It would need to be tied up and put in a bed, given medication to detoxify its malfunctioning body, until it can both see clearly, hear clearly, and move and interact in a healthy manner. Then it would be 'put down', back to its natural clay/mud position, to allow the human whose soul it was sharing, to have back their full life, and maybe their spark back in their eyes.
Devious in one breath - vulnerable in the next, always desperate, always cringeworthy - mine would be Gollum-Sméagol.
The human form of my depression would look like my mother but also wouldn't. She sucks the life out of me and everything I do every time she says some nasty side comment about my life, or work, or relationships and I wish she would not exist at all and then I feel bad for thinking something like this because she is my mother.
If my depression were a person, she'd look exactly like me, she'd be me. I would try to talk to her and find out a way we could work things out. I'd make sure she is aware of what she's doing to me and how she's slowly eating away at me, turning my own body against me. Because my depression doesn't define who I am but it's apart of me, and if she's anything like me, she's probably just lost and confused and needs someone to help her figure things out. Even though she hurts me, not all people who do bad things are bad people.
If my depression were a person, she'd be a master. Sometimes, she'd leave me to my own thing and rarely intervene. And in other moments, she'd be looming over my back, examining every move I make, casting me into shadowy pool of darkness. She's always there, no matter the circumstance... just less present at times. She's the reason why I'd plunge myself into work and physical exhaustion just to stop feeling for a bit. She's the reason why I want to feel pain, the reason why I can't feel much happiness. She's like a net preventing the light from coming in, and only letting the dark come in. And the worst thing is no matter what I try to do to escape, she's always there in the end.
