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?
@wontwakewontsleep
I imagine my depression as a hooded figure that just kinda sits in the corner of the room. It’s never acknowledged, mostly on purpose on my part, but it’s impact is always felt. Loneliness, inadequacy, or just a general “funk”. Some days its impact is greater than others, or becomes stronger with certain thoughts or situations, but it’s always there, lingering, waiting to turn a decent day sour for seemingly no reason.
I have used this technique (without knowing it was a thing) to explain to my cousins why I'm aloof and don't spend time with them sometimes. Since they are too little to understand what depression is, I told them that I have with me a little devil. She's not always with me, she comes and goes.
But when she visits, she is insanely possesive, she wouldn't let me talk to anyone, she wouldn't let me do the things I like to do, she wants me to be with her all the time. She even makes me so angry that sometimes I take it out on the ones around me. That's the only reason I don't spend time with them sometimes, because they don't deserve my anger.
Of course I told them it's not a literal devil, it's the way I feel but they understood what I was saying when I used this little devil as an example. They understood it's not them I have a problem with, it's just that I was trying to protect them from my bad moods.
When you are going through a depressive episode, you tend to do that. You build a wall around you so that you won't hurt others....and others can't hurt you.
In my case, the little devil is my official bricks and concrete supplier when I build the wall.
My depression is really a person who i feel like i have no competition against. Its all my insecurities into one person like. He's obsessive and makes me take bad decisions and takes the sane part of me away. He is big and i submit myself to him every now and then.
@wontwakewontsleep
So, if your depression were a person, what kind of person would it be?
it’d be an obsessive lier who constantly gaslights me and guilt trips me and make me second guess every little thing I do. And it’d be a dark loomy shadow that steals all the light and the colourful world around me so all I can see is a world in black and white.
This seems fun!
Well, I think my depression would be a lot like the sea on a foggy, cold winter day. They're somber and passive, hard to get a hold of. They're distant and contemplative. They care for others and the world but feel disconnected at the best of times, apathetic at the worst. Trying to imagine what they look like is difficult. They don't have distinguishable features, and trying to look at their face means seeing double, like staring at a fractured, fogged up mirror. The calm about them is more of them just being muted because internally things are too loud, a traffic jam with no clear start or end so all you can do is restlessly sit in place and wait for something to change. I think they would sing a lot like I do, but with less confidence. Singing on short, strained breaths with all the power for the sound coming from a strained throat instead of the diaphragm. They're solitary and enjoy doing things alone. They don't have much energy. They strive for constant perfection and tend to be incredibly self critical. They don't take well to change because they feel stuck in time.
I'd name them Hadeel. That was supposed to be my name. It means sound of the pigeon coos.
@wontwakewontsleep
kInda weird but to some extent I've always personified my depression and all the anxiety as this voice in my head. it's just so hard to pin it down. everytime I think I found the root cause there's another reason it's just doubting doubting and more doubting. I know it's multiple issues I try and narrow it down and it's something else all of a sudden and i can't trust my decisions. if it were like people or creatures it'd be a constant cycle of everyone who has hurt me. I think it's one specific person it's someone else and it refuses to stay as one thing. it's the little voice that asks are you sure you're depressed and not just justifying your actions and even now I doubt so I really need to wrap this up. <3
@wontwakewontsleep
If my depression was a person she would be like a female version of Eeyore. Tired and giving up.
@wontwakewontsleep When I take those evaluation tests suggested by 7cups, I always get the answer as 'minimal' along with the face of a therapist.
So, if I had to personify, I would imagine it to be a minimal version of that lady hahah
Many will get this reference. To me depression is like Dementors of Harry Potter. They suck out very happy thought out of you.
@wontwakewontsleep My depression is a person that would do things slowly, that relapses slowly. That would slowly cut off from social life, slowly starve, slowly dehydrate, all that kind of stuff. This person needs help, but he can't find somebody to trust and give him a push. This person feels deep emptiness in himself. This person can't think properly. This person puts others before himself. This person finds it difficult to change. This person needs somebody who he really trust to give him a push.
