What is depression?

What is depression? Most people seem to think that depression is extreme sadness. Just a constant state of being sad. But they don't understand. No one understands. Not unless you're the one who feels it.

Depression is knowing you are worthless. Knowing this fact to your very core. And knowing that you will always be worthless, always be pathetic. You can never be any better than what you are: a skin-covered sack filled with organs, bones, and sinew. You are nothing unique, nothing special, no defining characteristics.

Funny thing about depression: it always gets worse. Like an unchecked crack in a dam, it spreads, widens, and deepens. Every time you look into a mirror, all you can see are flaws. Superficial flaws. Psychological. All of your past mistakes begin to slowly materialize on your image, as if you are Dorian Gray and the mirror is your portrait. The flaws aren't really there, but they're all you can see, all you can think about. With time, you start to feel something other than worthlessness. With time, you start to hate yourself.

It's spreading now: you feel tired, completely drained of all energy. Everything you used to do that was fun now has no meaning. Food slowly loses all taste. You feel like you have no purpose. You are so bored, but nothing you do can entertain you. Nothing makes sense, nothing feels like it used to. Everything you do through the day is just automatic.

Wider now: all you feel is pain. Every part of you hurts, every limb, every molecule. You can't see where the pain is coming from, can't find where the injury is, but it's there. It's always there. Nothing you do stops it, nothing you do dulls it, and nothing you do can make you forget or ignore it. All you can do is learn how to cope.

Even deeper: you begin to hear the voice. Not a psychopatic, David Berkowitz "my dog is talking to me" voice. It's your voice, just you. You telling yourself you're pathetic. You telling yourself that you're absolutely worthless. You telling yourself that no one can ever love such a monster like you. You telling yourself that you don't deserve to be happy, ever. You're a disgusting creature, and that's all you can ever be. The sad thing? You know that you're slipping, that you're losing your grip. But you can't stop it, can't stop your descent. Hell, you don't even know you're already falling. After all, it's just your voice. Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself? But the more you listen to it all, the more you believe. How can you not? It's all you tell yourself, so it must be true. You trust yourself, don't you?

The first leaks are beginning to show now: you start to want it all to end. You can't handle the pain, can't manage the sheer agony. You start to wish to be in that freak accident, that random pile-up on the freeway. You pray you can catch that one stray bullet with your skull. All you want and hope for is for Death to finally take you. Anything to make it all stop, to make it all just go away.

Will you break? No one can tell, least of all you. What is depression? Depression is agony. Depression is utter hatred. Depression is hell. And the saddest part of it all? Sometimes, all it takes is one person to make one phone call, one letter, one e-mail. Just one person doing one thing to stop it from ripping you apart. Not always, but sometimes. What is depression? Depression is screaming at the top of your lungs, begging for someone to help. Anybody. But no one ever comes. It's only the lucky ones that realize that no one comes because it's all in your head. Sometimes, being alone in your own mind is the most dangerous place to be.

What is depression? Depression is believing that you are completely alone. And knowing that nothing will ever change.