Depression

 

Depression can often be confused for low mood. With low mood, you may still be able to express your feelings, to understand why you are upset and to reach out for help. One of the defining features of depression, however, is that it can be incapacitating.

 

Perhaps from one day to another, you've started to wake up in the morning with a sense of despair and hopelessness. Life may have lost its colour and vitality. Cooking, cleaning and going to work have become immensely difficult. You may feel like a shadow of your former self, feeling isolated and alienated in a room full of people and the people close to you. 

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Depression can be crippling in its lack of feeling and purpose. 

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If you are feeling depressed, you may be experiencing one or more of these feelings:

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• A sense of meaninglessness or nihilism 

• Difficulty voicing your feelings and articulating your difficulties to others

• Difficulty identifying what is actually wrong 

• Lethargy

• A feeling as though you or your life has stopped while the world and the people around you continue on

• Increased difficulty undertaking daily tasks and routine

• Feeling numb or empty

• Experiencing a sense of hopelessness or despair

• Oversleeping or not sleeping enough 

• Difficulty concentrating 

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If you are experiencing this, you are not alone. 

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The World Health Organisation have created this video below to portray the experience of living with depression, does this resonate with you?

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