Hiding under the bed

The worst part of having depression is not knowing how to explain it to someone who is completely fine and mentally healthy. How do you tell someone that there is an invisible wound inside of you that’s constantly bleeding and there isn’t much you can do about it? Each day the wound gets deeper and deeper and with every passing second you lose a part of yourself, until one day you’re completely gone. And honestly there is no coming back. There might be a new you, but that old part of you is dead.

Depression in easy terms is feeling anxious and sad all the time. There is a reason for it. There has to be, but often we get so engulfed in our day to day lives that we suppress these reasons. It’s like knowing you have a small cut on your hand, but you ignore it. Slowly that small cut turns to a gash which gets infected and slowly your entire body feels the effects. But it’s too late to undo the damage. Depression is exactly like that. We brush off that small thought, emotion, sentiment, feeling and it transforms into a monster that becomes hard to tame. Why do we do that? Maybe because it’s a human instinct to act tough, to act brave, and to show that a small cut makes no difference.

The thing about depression is that it eats you from the inside and you don’t even notice, until one day it gets hard to breathe. Literally. You suffocate even with oxygen in your lungs. You burn even when there is no fire. You drown in an endless ocean. You fall into a bottomless pit.

You lose interest in all the things that seemed fun. You feel hopeless and helpless. Some nights you can’t sleep and some days you can barely wake up. Your mind becomes so slow that processing the simplest form of information becomes hard. You lose your ability to concentrate or remember things. You feel worthless, useless and guilty. You can’t eat or you eat too much. You start having chest pains and then headaches. It effects your physical health. There are moments where you want to hide under the bed, with a blanket and not come out.

And the worst symptom of all is when you start contemplating suicide, as if that’s the solution to all your problems. As if something like that would make everything better.

Depression isn’t something that should be taken lightly. When you have a cut, you try to get to the root cause of it, and you do whatever it takes to heal. Likewise, if there is something that’s bothering you, you mentally try to do whatever it takes to understand it and heal it. Because once that cut starts to grow, it’ll get out of hand. Listen to your mind and body when they’re trying to communicate with you. Listen or else you’ll bleed and bleed until you have nothing left in you.

Ask for help if you have to. Go to a doctor, a therapist, a close friend, a family member or anyone you trust.