Relate Let’s Talk: What depression feels like to me

What does my depression feels like?

My depression threw me down a rabbit hole where time is irrelevant. I would lock my door and suddenly, four days had gone by! Three days without a proper shower. Four days of eating cereal, biscuits and tidbits. Four days of piling things up in my room and four days worth of mess accumulated.

And when this happens, it also means four days went by without looking at my messages and not picking up calls. My depression made me feel so lifeless that I began to resent how I see people LIVE through social media.

Then, depression brought anxiety over. After depression rendered me useless as I lay down on the floor on my makeshift bed, anxiety kicked me and made me feel so afraid of what I had been doing.

I feel terrified to glance at my phone because I felt guilty for not replying to my friends and my family’s message. Days passed as I chickened out of my original plan involving the “sorry-for-the-late-replies” and the “oh-i-just-missed-your-calls”.

By this point, depression and its friend, anxiety, had successfully secured myself in a corner; they locked me in. They made me drive my friends away. They made me so sensitive and vulnerable that my parents cried for me across the ocean. They made me so insecure that I stumbled over my own words, shaking and unable to swallow my saliva that moment when I was dismissed as a simple girl by a professor during a medicine presentation. They ate away at all of my confidence, leaving nothing as I couldn’t join in a conversation due to fear of suddenly breaking down in public.

I couldn’t sleep at night because I would worry too much about tomorrow. I couldn’t shake off all the worries that I have from the past. And I would be too afraid to wake up and enter a brand new day. What’s the point of  starting a new day but at the same time to still not resolve the previous days’ conflict?

Most important of all these, they made me doubt my faith. No, I don’t abandon my duties and deny my faith to Islam but my depression made me ask myself “Is it because my Iman is not as strong? Is it not enough?”

I ran out of words as I pray and kept on begging for an answer, any kind of enlightenment, but my shrouded vision filtered almost all the good things that I am supposed to see.

Depression feels like I don’t remember How To Simply Be.

When finding old notes, pictures and posts, I would always wondered “where did this girl go?”. It feels like I am slowly drained of life and I couldn’t snap out of it. Like being drowsy under a sedating agent and as you fall under, you are helpless to what is happening. Like a thick blanket separating you from the rest of the world and when they reach out and try to speak to you, their words are muffled.

Depression made me hate myself because I have to admit that my mind is not normal. I don’t mind labelling myself as crazy but depression showed how I couldn’t take care of myself properly. It made me feel so ashamed for being irresponsible and it made me feel weak because I have to rely on others to help me stand up and make my way over to wherever I have to be.

But in all this, I am thankful for at least one important thing. I am thankful that my depression hits me deep, but not too hard and I have never considered any suicidal thoughts.

Experiencing my depression makes me feel that I should live my life and not give up. I want to go out and see the world and learn more and to never stop doing so.

I have depression. And honestly, I am okay with that. I just had a slight hiccup, that’s all. Depression brought me down to the lowest of lows and it made me crave for the best…after an episode of self-wallowing and despair, of course. 😉

RAR

#RelateLetsTalk

Depression is a common mental health condition that affects 1 in 10 Malaysians. Fortunately there are also many effective treatments for depression available. Click here to find out more about depression, its causes and common treatments.