How would you describe depression?

Depression feels like you're drowning. Like you're constantly struggling to stay above water while the people around you seem perfectly fine. It feels like all of the life, motivation, and energy is drained from you. It makes you feel worthless, like a waste of space. It feels like you're a tree falling in the middle of a forest, and no one chooses to hear you fall, so you don't make a sound.

To me, depression is like a black hole of sadness. Once you get sucked in, it's a long and hard journey to find your way back to who you once were.

Having depression like everyone is in a swimming pool and they are having fun, swimming around and treading water easily but the pool for you is an ocean. It's really overwhelming, not fun being there and it's really hard to tread water cause of waves. And that's a normal day. The worst days are like storms have set in and the wind blows, water whips in your face, and the waves pull you under. Those days its really hard to not just give up and drown but if you don't then it's all you can do to keep your head above water long enough to take a breath before it pulls you under again. When you finally decide you've had enough suffering in silence and need help, you call out to the lifeguard aka your doctor. They are there too help you and keep an eye on you. They can prescribe a life jacket that can make treading water not so hard on normal days and a bit more bearable on the worst days. Sometimes it takes a while to find a floatie that works for you. Sometimes it's a life jacket. Sometimes all you need is a pool noodle or water wings. Sometimes it's none of those things and instead you just need someone to teach you how to swim. That's how it feels to me at least.

Being depressed feels like drowning in your own mind not being able to find the way out. It takes time to see the surface again but it's always there.

For me, depression is extreme form of hopelessness. It could be rooted in sadness, anxiety, etc. When the sadness or anxiety became too overwhelming to deal with, those feelings seemed to overflow into depression, which can feel like a "surrender" of sorts to the negativity.

Depression is this feeling of sadness that takes over your whole body. Unlike regular sadness, it makes you feel tired/lethargic and lower your feeling of self-worth, which makes it all the more unfortunate to see happen to someone.

Depression for me manifested itself in different stages; mild, moderate and severe. Mild is the constant dull headache, dampening my emotions but more bearable when distracted. Moderate was the soundless weeping, energy sucking leech. It gave me bastardized emotions back, and misplaced them to the extreme. Intrusive, self-distructive and sometimes suicidal thoughts were present during this time. Severe depression took my emotions away. At first it seemed like a relief, a freedom to be free from the emotions that plagued me so much on the journey here. I even thought faking emotions to keep interacting with the world would be enough (hint - it wasn't). The apathy became a double-edged sword, saving me from the pain but damning me from any joy. When you get past the apathy then you struggle on at intellectual level of frustration at your inability to just FEEL like other people can, to have what they have. After a while it had been so long I would even crave the anger, the sadness and the pain over joy or love or humour. Bargaining just to have a glimpse of something over the desert that was once my emotional plane of existence. This was at my darkest time with depression.

I would describe depression as a road everyone goes through at least once. For some its longer and rougher, for others its shorter and smoother. Some go through this journey more than once and the lucky ones would suffer through it only that one time. The journey would differ from one person to another. However there is an end, and we just have to be patient enough to reach it.

depression is a really hard feeling, and disease. It can make your life harder, and it can make you have other things, like anxiety, insomnia, self-harming, and more.

Depression is not always being sad. It's the constant feeling of emptiness or fear. Being lonely and tired.

I think Depression can be different for different people. Different people deal with it differently. There could be a lot of anger, guilt, extreme sadness, detachment, and maybe some anxiety. It can be scary... but eventually you will make it through. So keep on fighting.

It's something that is lying on the surface, waiting to rise and take over you. Suddenly all the light that you supposedly had in your life feels like it is being sucked out. Your mind has you and only you alone. Crying out for help but never felt like you were being noticed. It feels like you are locked inside a dark room with no keys, nor windows or doors, so there is no way to exit or enter, or even think and feel of the sunlight outside that could be hitting your face because of the loneliness you feel. It is like the void in your life that doesn't seem to want to be filled ever.

Depression is something that eats away at the soul, slowly over time it manages to change your whole perception and how you act in life. You suddenly lose interest in things you once loved, and the people you love soon get concerned about how you feel, and all you do is push them away. Your relationship struggles and you'll be suprised at how you behave. You aren't the same person, and you let it destroy you, piece by piece, until you're completely broken. Depression is the worst thing that somebody can endure, and I would hope that nobody suffers in silence, It can be beaten, and it will. Take my hand and I'll show you how to overcome it. God bless.

Depression is the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. Depression is never being happy with yourself or position in life and always thinking the grass is greener on the other side.

Depression is hard to describe but I'll try and put it into words: I suppose I always link my depression as though you're trying to run up a mud hill, every bit of progress you make you just slide right back down and every single thing you do seems to take an enormous amount of energy that you really do not have. It's like you're trapped in a cage in the middle of no where, you're scared, frightened and after so long of feeling this that worry that you once felt subsides and the pain is just something you gradually become used to. Although not nice, you're used to it.

Depression is a view of yourself , a darkness that is only hidden within you . A temporary illusion.

In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you. To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive - to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before.

Know that the emotional pain gives way to literal pain. Know that this pain -- mental and physical -- makes it hard to move.

Being surrounded in a black hole that I cant get out , that drives away all the positive things in life

Depression can be like a having your clothes drenched in water at all times, but no one can see it. It's always uncomfortable in different ways, and a great burden from when you get up in the morning until you go to bed in the evening.

Depression is like a darkness that is inside of you and as it passess through your body it takes away hope , love , joy , interest, and your left with this void of nothingness and your body just wants to sleep it off but it cant so your stuck feeling tired and miserable

Depression is like walking down a dark tunnel. others can see the light at the end of the tunnel which gives them motivation to carry on. While some can't see the light. when you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, you become hopeless and began to lose faith.

Feeling of getting trapped in a colorless zone. Surrounded by joy and laugh but can't feel them as how others feel, losing emotion and passion on most of the things in life. It's really bad

I would describe it as something that always eats away at your mind. I myself have depression, but it comes in waves. When I get hit with it from time to time, it's like a raging storm that just consumes and destroys everything. Even when I'm feeling at my best, I know it can hit me at anytime, no matter the situation.

Depression can be described in so many different ways. It all depends on the stage of depression you are in. It can go from a black cloud over you to being in a hole so deep you can't get out.

I feel depression is one's own mindset for a situation in life. Every person has different outlook for everything in life.depression is just one outlook. One person can be depressed about something and some other may not even take it seriously. It is good to have positive attitude in every situation ,then depression won't be able to effect you.

Depression is a fog that distorts how you see things. It can feel like drowning. It can feel like you're alone. But everything that depression tells you is a lie.

a feeling of not caring about anyone or anything. Not eating well. Don't want any one cone to my house, call me, or send me an email. A feeling like I want to hurt myself but don"t have the courage to do it.

I would say that it feels like you're stuck in the same place never being able to feel happy and really enjoy things

Depression isn't always sadness and despair; it's often also the feeling of emptiness, of lack of emotions. It is crushing and consuming.