What does depression feel like to you?

Depression physically feels like I'm in a tornado. There is a combination of actual pressure, almost like a squeezing feeling upon my body. It's hard to breathe, because of the pressure. I also feel cold, like I find myself shivering, and trying everything to be warm. Mentally, my brain is swirling around. There are random thoughts flashing around and there is no escape. I can't focus on anything, and feel sad constantly. I can't concentrate on important tasks, because I find myself only being able to think about the roots of my depression.

Sheer, utmost chronic depression leaves you depleted from anything and everything. Depression is the greates thief in taking away everything from you, your will and reason to live, your values, your good memries, taking away your smile and the spark in your eyes...it takes away hope from you, it takes away love from you, it takes away the strength to be angry or fight back...it leaves you like an emty oyster shell after it sucked out everything from you...

So you are left baffled, wandering every day, saying there it is no more that it can steal from you, yet every day it finds smth new to steal from you and take away your self esteem, your basic hygene, your minimal life routine...once I took refuge in my imagination, going in imaginary places for safety, now I am so scared it took that away from me too, no more thinking, no more imagining nice worlds or stories, took that away from me...

You can read it in our eyes, we who are plagued by depression, you can notice our down bent heavy shpulders in dispair and desolation and defeat...

Yes we are as close to walking zombies as we can be...robbed of everything but our breath and heartbeat to keep on living and suffer this void ordeal...

personally it makes me feel everything, yet nothing at once. Like if i were a paper boat on sea... it leads me anywhere and everywhere... i can't control what im doing or where im thinking. It's like a little leach on my back that keeps sucking out my good memories and feelings... or like a daily ingection of negative things... it's like that one friend our parents want us to stay away from, but even when you tell them to go away... they stay... sometimes we befriend our depression. Like when i've lost and gained and lost again over and over again... my 'friend' still stayed. Sometimes it let's me enjoy certain things, but it's other friend anxiety comes to replace it... like the thing that won't leave me alone no matter what i do.. what ever i do.. it's still there 24/7. Sometimes it's weak when i'm around my gang during the day, but at night time, it claims it's throne in it's kingdom... my mind. It's always there even if I don't see, hear, smell or feel it. It's like that one person I never knew was there, but once I realized... it came and stayed/stays... forever...

This is how I picture my depression. Depression is different for eveyone. Nobody has the same experience/mind space. Hope this made at least a bit of sense. Take care and Stay safe Goodbyes..

For me, depression feels like I'm fighting a constant battle with my own mind. My depression is an active agent, who's only goal is to tear apart the good things I know to be true, and make me doubt myself and everyone around me. It deliberately tries to make me destroy all that's good in my life, because it insists that I don't deserve any of it. It constantly tells me that I am worthless, evil, manipulative, disgusting, just any negative descriptor you can think of. It takes both my words and the words of others and twists them until they are unrecognizable, and uses them to convince me that no one loves me, and that no one should. It makes me feel completely alone, exhausted, and sometimes so low that I eventually just go numb. It's a violently horrid way to feel.

@Soarfree

You are gathering strong, precise solid material for your school assignment...everything everyone wrote is true and heavy for each one of us...do not treat it lightly or "clinically distant" but if ypu accepted this school project also try to understand us...I am glad that so many people answered you...

depression is different for everyone, and that's very important to acknowledge, as such, everyone has different levels and ways of dealing with it.

with every day comes a prospect that i'm not willing or ready to face, often my emotions vary depending on this. some days i may be fine and productive, others i may shut down and be terrified at the prospect of doing seemingly easy tasks, or perhaps i may be numb to everything around me and just zone it all out. it's just like some days i wake up and how i feel is already decided for me.

you don't want anything, don't want to get up, don't need to eat, you look at what you've done wrong and berate yourself for it, there's nothing you can do to fix it. you berate yourself even further for your own incompetence and it's a downward spiral from there.

negative thoughts are commonplace, and you look for something, anything, to perhaps distract yourself, but it's just that, a distraction, there's nothing that can get rid of it. i often try to think of something positive i've done, or am doing for anyone around me, or those relying on me, but i can never find anything of value. looking for something positive then cycles back to all the negative stuff you're doing, all the people you're letting down, everything you're failing in and there's no hope for escape.

i'm often reminded of how insignificant i truly am, and i really don't care right now. there's no real benefit for anyone else as a product of my actions, if anyone i'm letting those nearest to me down. i'm generally regarded as a calm individual but sometimes i just don't see the point, i don't recall the last time i experienced true joy or happiness, i simply emulate it as a facade to keep those around me happy. i wake up in the morning and ask myself the purpose of getting up, i am demotivated to do the easiest of activities, i don't enjoy much of anything.

unsure if this is helpful, but that's my contribution i guess.

@Soarfree

Like constant bickering and fighting with life

@Soarfree

Depression feels like when my wife cheated and my father, then my daughter commited suicide.

Depression feels like being HalfDead inside

Depression is like a landslide, a black eye

Its hard to try

A long sigh

Cant even cry

Didnt get to say goodbye

Living a lie

Wanting to ddd'die

Askin WHY

Staring at the sky

My mouth's dry

I cant rise

I cant fly

Dizzy when up to high

Can't apply

Can't deny

Depression is all these things wrapped together and tied!😲

i just feel gross. i dont want to move but i want to want to move so i feel disgusted with myself. sometimes i actually feel nauseous

when its less bad i just feel tired even if i slept, and im prone to beating myself up.

it always feels lonely, like everybody besides me is a worthwhile human participant in society, and im something else that doesnt count. like a mistake

im lucky to have friends who care about me, but when they treat me nicely it is disorienting. i know that thats just because i dont agree with how positively they see me. it doesnt jibe with my own view of things so i have trouble understanding it and sometimes i can tell myself that i should trust them and i feel sort of less gross even if i dont believe them fully, but sometimes i let myself feel like theyre totally wrong and i feel more lonely and inhuman and disgusting than i did before

Like I am underwater but cannot get up to breath..