- Forum
- Depression Support
- Personify Your Depression: If my depression were a person... [fill in the blank]
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?
@dworth257
It wouldn't be surpriaibg for depression to represent many things, and for that form to change over time. If this exercise helps you, please feel free to post here as often as you like. Thank you for sharing
If my depression was a person it would be like my dark monster shadow, always with me killing everything that I like, it knows how to go into my mind and blank all my happy thoughts and replace them with all my ugly memories, it knows my weakness and constanly reminds me of them, my dark shadow hates me, its like another me, a me that wants to destroy me.
@Ravenetti99
Yeah, I get you. Like a person that doesn't want you to be happy. 😔
If my depression were a person they would sit in a high backed velvet chair, smoking a pipe and laughing at me every time I tried to make a positive change in my life. They would pull out a scroll of parchment and roll it out onto my brain, putting tacks into all of my failures, recreating a map of why I simply cannot be happy. They would scoff with derision at my attempts to make connections with others. They would remind me that no one gives a damn about me or my ideas, and that it's all been done before so why bother. They would toss me into the great void, hoping I wouldn't claw my way out yet again.
if my depression were a person it would be a monster like person always hitting me and making wounds and then rehitting on those wounds constantly.
i wish one day i would be strong and confident enough to stop its stick with which it hits perpetually.
If my depression were a person, she'd be...
A teen girl, maybe around seventeen. She always knows exactly what to say to destroy me & my self-esteem. She whispers all the time "it's your fault. everything that's wrong in your life is your fault."
So that's fun?
Not really. Obviously.
if my depression were a person, it would be somebody i sincerely cared about turning into a monster.
My depression is the person who admit my abilities but still telling me how unlucky I am, how many opportunities has left me, and how many people don't love me.
If my depression be a person , it will be a shadow of me with a broken smile and crying
@wontwakewontsleep
depression is kind of a part of me
depression is my own mind ; it has two metaphotical halfs and one always yelling at the other
I am in a cage and a brown rust coloured liquid as dense as mercury is filling my heart and lungs whilst the other side of my mind tells me I am worthless and changes who I am as a person
If my depression were a person I would want to slap it really hard in the face. It stops me from doing as well as I could or really succeeding in life. I feel like I float by barely noticing all the different things in life while others are thriving. I barely survive. I'm sick of it.
Um... probably like just a person, with a blank expression. They suck all the life and joy out of everything, make getting up feel like a chore, make it so there's not really any feeling but.... blankness? They do whsiper, saying how stupid and worthless I am, but mostly they just block everything out. Kind of like blocking my view of the world and forcing me to see things through glass.
If my depression were a person, (s)he would be a newscaster, interrupting my fantasy movie where I'm a good and worthwhile person and reminding me of the reality of my failure and worthlesness .
If my depression were a person, I would cancel them out of my life and quit the contact with them.
It would be like someone who always picks up stiches to see what will happen to wound. Also someone who will tel you to shut up if you want to say something not nice, telling you to go to be somewhere alone when you feel like you will cry any second. It is happy when i cry and sad when im happy. Its a shitty human being that sits on my shoulder every day and acts as if he was me, even if it is not true, he serves me worst ideas to act on them and then makes me feel guilty for doing so, saying into my ear that im "difficult" its my fault and it would be better if i was gone. It wasnt me to dissolve myself into space, pushing and pushing until there is nothing left, telling me everyone hates me even if i wake up every day witch intention to give my all. It cant decide when pushing me is helpful and when it is madness, tells me im mad, ridiculous, werid. That i have to be perfect every secon of my life otherwise everyone will hate me, that i cant tell i have it because no one will belive me no one will help me they will just push me away. Its my enemy, that i recognize and do things to make him deafeated every day
If my depression were a person they would be a very toxic friend. Telling me rumors about not other people but me. They would constantly have me attending to them. I'm short so they would be the type of person to lean on me constantly and use me as an arm rest. Even though I realize that they're toxic they just won't leave me alone no matter how much I try to shake them. They force me to do things that I don't want to do. They whisper things in my ear that I don't want to hear. They make things less enjoyable because they're always around. They tell me to trust them no matter how much they've hurt me. If I somehow manage to get away from them for a day they get angry and come back to make my life even more miserable so I could pay for abandoning them. In the end they are just a bully disguised as a friend.
David, from The Last of Us videogame. The last part just before Ellie kills him, Ellie being the depressed person.
David: "I know you're not infected. No one that's infected fights this hard to stay alive."
"I knew you had heart. You know it's okay to give up. It ain't no shame in it. Huh. I guess not. Just not your style is it?"
"You have no idea what I'm capable of."
Ellie: "Continues fighting back and eventually kills him."
My depression would be a 16 year old girl. She's cold and mocks everything I do. She whispers a lot of hurtful things in my ear. She often tells me that everyone hates me and that everyone I love will leave me. I see her in my reflection sometimes and she follows me almost everywhere I go.
If my depression was a person, they would be scared and isolate themselves. They would think that everyone is against them and assume they would be declined of help or made fun of for even trying. If my depression were a person, they would think people would bully them and try to turn people against that depression. They would feel like all the work they're trying to do means nothing, for they worry of how they are perceived by other people.
I have always personified my depression. In fact, they are two people: one is stuck at the end of a corridor whose floor is littered with broken glass. It appears when the feeling of sadness and loneliness becomes unbearable.
The second is called Madam. She is sarcastic and very cold. She never fails to remind me how useless I am.
If my depression was a person she would be a lonely girl, scared of making anyone uncomfortable with her emotions. She would go around smiling and hiding everything that she's really feeling. She would defend and protect everyone's emotions but hers. She would live in a dark hole where she no longer had to carry the burden of making sure everyone is okay. She would be able to go in there and let go of the pressure to be okay. She would go in there knowing she could cry, scream, bawl, have a temper tantrum, really feel the hurt and pain. But she would find that she can no longer feel a thing. She's spent so much time looking around her that she didn't notice the coldness inside of her. She'd realise the abandoned home she's living In, the numbness inside of her and the silence of her heart. She'd panic every time like it was the first time she realised she was dead and buried in a coffin.
If they were a person they'd be someone standing at the edge of a cliff, always stepping back at the last minute thinking of turning back returning to the warmth only to go back to the edge, mind flooded with the reality of there being no warmth. No one to trust not even the one's they call family, the ones who should say "you'll be ok" say "its not really how you feel" when your are about to bare your heart out to them. Then they would clamp up anf take a step forward again.
The reality that that if they were to jump no one would call out, no one would care. That if they were gone a replacement would be easy to find. That if they could just cease to exist it would be great. Just vanish like they never existed.
Thays what my depression would be as a person. Living forever in the painful reality almost wanting to let go but deluding them selves with the "But" that has no real value.
If my depression were a person, they would be like Mother Gothel. On the outside, they would seem caring and kind but on the inside devious, unsympathetic, and greedy. They would keep me up in a high tower in the middle of an ocean where the only way out was to jump. And would not have been thought how to swim. So I would be stuck with them pretending to care about me forever.
If my depression and negative feelings were personified, they would be a girl. She is 5'5 or so, long black hair, totally black eyes, dressed in all purple. She'd be in her teens 16 or 17.
My depression would be the Devil in The Brother's Karamazov:
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-brothers-karamazov/part-4-book-11-chapter-9-the-devil-ivan-fyodorovich-s-nightmare
The Devil is a pathetic character, the embodiment of accumulated failures, and one who is thouroughly detestible in every way. The weird person who ruins a party by their mere presence and who you just can't get rid of. And like the Devil in that chapter, it's unclear whether they are real or not because maybe it's just in your imagination. You can't get rid of them but you can ignore them, however that could be unwise because however pathetic and weak as they are, there is a very real chance that they would put an axe in your head when your back was turned.
They would be sleepy and slow moving. She would be worried constantly about what others think of her, and act accordingly to please others.
@DancingGrapefruit3800 I LOVE your name❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️
If it was person..she would have bad luck and walk around alone, feeling sorry for herself. She also be invisible but only be visible again when someone wanted something from her, e.g. food, money
@wontwakewontsleep
If my depression were a person, it would look exactly like me. It would participate in the same hobbies as I do, and it would interact with the same people I do. Basically, it's a duplicate of me. There are only a few differences between us: my depression is terrified of the few in-person friends that I have, knowing that said friends are determined to separate them from me. My depression is unhealthily attached to me, and feeds off of my life energy. It is harder for it to feed on me when I am receiving love and support, so it tries to cut off the ties I have. Sometimes, it successfully masquerades as me. Other times, my friends realize it's a fake when my depression starts speaking up. When it's feeling more powerful, its eyes glow red, and it has a toothy grin like a shark.
But other than that, it looks just like me. Which makes my depression all the more dangerous.
If my depression was a person they would never leave there room and probably be shut off from everyone and be kind of a jerk
If my depression were a person, she would be cruel to herself and others. She would push everyone so far they would never come back. And hse wouldn't feel guilty, just sad for herself.
He likes to play hide & seek. He sometimes disappears and then returns the next moment or maybe, he loves me so much that he can't stay away from me
Hey there! I thought I should check in on everyone. How's everyone doing?
My person would be a dark and formidable storm cloud traveling overhead and have lightning rod staff with bolt lightning sizzling from the tip.
She's grey. She wobbles when she walk. One minute she is singing in my ear rather beautifully and in the next minute, I can hear her sob. Her heart in hollow. She always knock on my door unannouced. I've told her many times to let me know when she wants to visit, but she never listens. I want her to leave me alone, to let me be.
