Depression is more than just a brief feeling of sadness. And I really want people to know that.
For me, it’s this emptiness and loneliness and sorrow. It’s seeing the beauty of life around you but never actually feeling or experiencing it. It’s crying at 2 in the afternoon because your dog is seriously just so cute and you can’t handle the really intense emotion that comes with that. And most of the time, I either feel really intense emotions and have no outlet for them or literally nothing at all.
Depression is sleeping a lot because there’s no energy to do anything else. It’s daydreaming of things you want to do with your life but being held down by your emotional and mental baggage. My head is in a constant and really thick fog. Some days the sun comes out and I feel great. Most days though, it’s hard to look around and really see who I am.
This is the biggest problem of depression, people always say just cheer up and stop being so pessimistic, but more times than not it’s more the lack of emotion that’s the hard part. Sometimes the over emotional moments are preferred because they’re better than feeling nothing at all.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of growing evidence linking deranged gut bacteria as a principal cause of depression. If not, perhaps you should check this out. As a retired psychiatrist, I’m absolutely convinced: