If we want everyone on board in the fight against stigma surrounding depression, we can’t shame people who are struggling to understand what others are going through. Awareness and understanding are the basis for empathy and support. Historically the discussion surrounding depression, and numerous other mental health challenges, has not been personalised (this is beginning to change now). If you were to look up depression on the internet, you might find information pages which define depression, common causes, symptoms and cures, something like the table below, taken from the mental health charity Mind’s website.
If you’ve never experienced depression, you may read this and feel sympathetic, but it would be difficult to truly get an insight into what this means for different people. Could this description really help you to understand the day to day struggle of what living with depression meant to different people? People are more than their emotions, thoughts and behaviours, whilst this can be informative, it does not even begin to scratch the surface of what depression really feels like for an individual person. To provide insight into what living with depression is like, we have to rely on so much more than statistics, numbers and lists. It needs to be real and it needs to be personal, because ultimately this discussion is about people.
In order to contribute toward the discussion from an alternative perspective, I asked 5 unconventional questions to four people who have previously experienced/currently suffer from depression. This is an insight into their personal lives and their day to day struggles, told in the form of memories, stories and imagination.
The 5 questions are as follows:
1) If you had to explain depression using one of your memories – what would it be?
2) If you had to explain depression with a picture – what would you draw?
3) If you had to define depression in one word – what would it be?
4) If depression were an object, what would it be and why?
5) If depression were a person – what would their catchphrase be?
Contributor 1:
1) If you had to explain depression using one of your memories – what would it be?
I was on holiday in the Philippines; I was in my sister’s apartment, on the 32nd floor of an amazing building in central Manilla. She had gone to work a nightshift and I had the time and money to do whatever I wanted – to explore, to meet people, to swim in the open roof pool under the stars and drink hot chocolate! But instead I turned all the lights out in the apartment and crawled into the gap between the huge curtains and the window and I sat there in the dark. I sat for many, many, many hours, with my knees pulled into my chest and I blankly stared out to the coloured skyline. I don’t know what compelled me to crawl into the corner of the room like that and sit in complete darkness. I remembered a story one of my teachers had told me many years prior, she said that when she was in her twenties, after giving birth to her second child, she checked herself into a mental asylum and because she didn’t want to interact with anyone she crawled behind the curtain for most of the day and night and hid from the staff. I remember feeling so sorry for her but thinking she was crazy. It was so surreal, I couldn’t believe it; here I was in that exact same situation. I hadn’t eaten properly or slept peacefully in days; I weighed only 41 kg and barely had the energy to move around the room. Every single moment felt hard, living felt impossible. I remember wishing that the windows would open so I could just crawl out into the sky and fall. I was so afraid of the thoughts I was having, of a part of me that felt so unfamiliar and so hostile to myself….I didn’t do it. After many hours I got up, turned on the light and got out a notebook. I wrote this story down vowing I’d share it one day to prove to people it gets better. It did.
2) If you had to explain depression with a picture – what would you draw?
I would probably draw a girl looking in a mirror and holding a sword. Because, at its’ very core, depression is self-destruction. The girl in the mirror would be me – the girl with the sword would be depression.
3) If you had to define depression in one word– what would it be?
Despair – sometimes I feel consumed by guilt or shame about who I am, sometimes a surge of unjustifiable anger overcomes me, sometimes I feel immense grief and pain but I don’t know which memory or fear it is associated with or why it’s surfaces, and sometimes I just feel afraid and alone, often I feel many of these all at once. Underlying most emotions is no understanding about what has brought them about or why. Then there is further despair because I have no idea how to explain or process them. At times, I can’t comprehend why nothing excites me any longer, why everything I used to love seems pointless and I cannot pinpoint an event that triggered this downward spiral of hopelessness. When people ask me what is wrong, I don’t know quite what to say. What is wrong, I ask myself, but no answer comes. When people give me advice I wish it felt as straightforward and simple as they make it sound. It is relentless madness; I feel like I’m holding what’s left of my mind in my hands, it’s a ball of wool knotted in a million different ways, with no possible solution other than to cut it into a thousand pieces.
4) If depression were an object, what would it be and why?
This is hard to answer. I think it would be a paperweight. They are just so heavy; they have this exceptionally overbearing heaviness, despite their often beautiful decoration. Depression is like that – often it is concealed behind the happiest faces. Its force cannot be seen – only felt.
5) If depression were a person – what would their catchphrase be?
If it is good, it won’t last. If it’s bad, it’s forever.
Contributor 2:
1) If you had to explain depression using one of your memories – what would it be?
I'd been invited to a coworkers birthday party at a local bar/restaurant, with several hours in between finishing work and the party. Not one ounce of me wanted to go, but I kept my promise. I remember walking alone into the outdoor patio filled with all these people I knew. They were all drinking and laughing, filled with happiness, and I felt absolutely none. I could barely smile. I wanted to just give my gift and run back out, go back to my safe haven of home and crawl onto my couch. But I faked smiles, I was certain every single person could see right through them and I thought they'd gossip about what was "wrong" with me. Here I was in a room full of people celebrating and doing shots and laughing and I felt like the loneliest person in the world despite the lively atmosphere. I held back tears as people said hello and other "pleasantries". I was mainly counting down the minutes until I felt enough time had passed and I could sneak out, flee from the internal sadness, emptiness and the depression I knew everyone could see. It didn't matter how dressed up I was or my hair or makeup looked. The void inside me overtook any positive emotion I begged myself to have. It felt like they could see right through me to the darkness that engulfed all the light. I felt so vulnerable, tired and exhausted from the the effort it took to continually pretend to be happy. The voice in my head was my enemy, telling me every possible negative thing I felt certain was being thought and said about me. I'm not sure if i made it to half an hour or if three hours had passed by the time I left. All I know is that every minute was torture. I was there, but I wasn't at all present. I'd been gone for a while by then. Somehow I managed to escape back to the safety of my solitude and end the torment of a fun birthday party at a bar.
2) If you had to explain depression with a picture – what would you draw?
A shattered mirror. If I look at it I can only see the fractured vision of myself. Like a funhouse mirror, except I only see the divided parts because all of me is too much. The sharp edges remind me of the knife like pain deep in my mind, heart and soul. As well, the physical pain I have from chronic, debilitating diseases which is within those ends like daggers. The small shards of glass that fall remind me of how small I feel, how insignificant I am to most people, especially those who claim to love me but hurt me the most. In visualizing it right now I feel like I'm the one who punched the glass and broke it. Out of anger, rage, sadness, disappointment, rejection of self and by others. I can't stand the broken me, so let the mirror reflect that truth.
3) If you had to define depression in one word– what would it be?
Loyal - I'm brought immediately to the opening words of the song Sound of Silence.. "Hello darkness my old friend. I've come to talk with you again..." No matter what I've done, depression always comes back to steal my joy; reinforce my low self esteem; ensure I remain feeling fatally flawed; remind me that my pain is so profound that dying is the only way to escape it. i wish that I could just feel nothing; despite my normal and healthy appearance there is a war raging in my body and mind and nobody truly knows. if they do, most barely care; no man, friend or family member will stay and love me as I am or through bouts of immense sorrow; Depression play tricks with my mind and fills it with worry; I feel so easily abandoned, I believe I'll never be good enough.
4) If depression were an object, what would it be and why?
A black hole invisible to others, that weighs more than me, and that I carry constantly . It fatigues me, keeps me on the couch barely able to move, eat, shower, talk, sleep or stop sleeping. I disappear into its embrace. I don't recognise my own face, and can't face anyone or anything when off work. I'm in the galaxy of the deep black hole. If anyone knows, they either don't care enough, or I'm just too much. It is overwhelming, I fall deeper and deeper into the abyss, with no explanation as to why it exists.
5) If depression were a person – what would their catchphrase be?
There have been many but I feel the best yet is what I stated already, ‘Hello darkness my old friend. I've come to talk with you again.’
Contributor 3
1) If you had to explain depression using one of your memories – what would it be?
The most vivid memory I have is the loss of control over things in my life. Feeling like I failed the students I taught when the vast majority failed to achieve their coursework grades. I immediately tried to correct the situation by seeking help from colleagues on bettering the work of my students. But I could not help the silent tears and the intense churning of fear knotting my insides. I was responsible for their future and I had failed them that ghastly November evening. And as I lay in bed smothered under the covers, I could not help but rise in a wave of anguish – it wasn’t just tears, it was the utter loss of control over theirs and my own fate. That was my first ever panic attack.
2) If you had to explain depression with a picture – what would you draw?
A bat in a cave. Darkness envelops the depressee so much so that you are unaware that you are in a cave, caged within your own mindset, unaware that darkness is not a real world, unaware that outside is a whole world of light. When someone tries to pull you out of the cave, you are reluctant, aggressive, alarmed like a bat hidden in the shadows. It is easier to punish oneself in the shadows, to be self depreciating, to be full of sorrow than to recognise that the fullness of sorrow leaves your heart dehydrated and empty of self love. Once the light hits, and you slowly become willing to let it in day by day, the depression, or the darkness of the cave, seems less comforting and you start to recognise it for what it is: an overbearing heavy burden that was never yours to carry.
3) If you had to define depression in one word– what would it be?
Unexpected. Lively, positive, bubbly are adjectives used to describe me in the past. Depressed is not something that sits well with my personality. So to recognise the illness at different points in my life was an illuminating experience; to talk about it was a crushing realisation; to accept I wanted to change it was consciously decisive.
4) If depression were an object, what would it be and why?
The skin you wear: it seems so permanent, final and forever a part of you. Yet, daily you are shedding it and replenishing it. The recognition that you are healing daily propels you forward and helps to leave the depression behind. There will be days when it makes an appearance – just like some of the skin cells that have not yet renewed. But it is recognising that every day is a step forward, every day you are practising self care and connecting with humanity you shed the damaging layers behind.
5) If depression were a person – what would their catchphrase be?
Within you I am all-consuming; without you, I have no form
Contributor 4:
1) If you had to explain depression using one of your memories – what would it be?
Looking back I don't think I had one big breakdown but maybe that's the nature of depression for me, it changes my behaviour. At university I started walking to lectures by myself just "to think" but in reality I felt like I deserved to be alone. I used to purposefully sit alone in lectures hoping that someone I knew would sit next to me because I needed that validation that someone liked me, but didn't really get it. Being at a friends birthday, and feeling so empty. I couldn't talk to other people and was stuck in my head all night. All I wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. Silently crying on the tube or in bed. I did a lot of that. The worst moment was two days after my mum was sectioned, I flew to Canada. I cried silently for 6 out of 8 hours as I truly felt alone and had a huge amount of guilt as I felt I was abandoning her. That's just a small selection of them. Looking back, I feel like I've been mildly depressed for at least 8 years on and off. I used to be (and still am) so self critical and self punishing with a very negative mindset since school. It's only really the last year where I've become more self aware of my mind and the struggles I've faced and I've finally made some positive progress.
2) If you had to explain depression with a picture – what would you draw?
The one image that comes to mind is you looking in the mirror and in the mirror only you can see a dark monster you're carrying on your back. And depending how depressed you are, it could be bigger or smaller. But only you know it's there and only you can see it. Another image, well more of a movie scene, is where Agent Smith in the matrix takes over Neo. The darkness slowly spreads out from the centre and eventually will take over the whole mind. Depression can slowly creep up on you.
3) If you had to define depression in one word– what would it be?
Emptiness - for me depression just makes me feel hollow, empty. I become numb to all the good stuff in my life. For all the bad stuff, I eventually become desensitised and just float like a shadow. I don't feel like I belong anywhere or cannot connect with other people. I feel hollow and empty inside and all I can do is observe the world around me moving on without me. I become a shadow of my former self. I withdraw and become quiet. I am empty.
4) If depression were an object, what would it be and why?
A black hole. They suck all light in so they are hard to see firstly. It will also slowly draw you in with its immense pull. And once it latches onto you, it feels like it's impossible to escape. Eventually you feel it will consume you and there will be nothing left of you.
5) If depression were a person – what would their catchphrase be?
You don't deserve anything.
Now when you next come across a medical description of depression, I hope this exercise emphasises why a different kind of discussion surrounding mental health is imperative. Listing causes, symptoms and cures of various mental health problems is never going to be enough; it will never relay the innermost thoughts and battles of those dealing with depression. There is NO substitute for open dialogue and honest conversation. It may be hard to expose the most delicate parts of our minds to others but we are all part of a movement much larger than ourselves. For those of us who feel we can contribute, let’s share our stories - be it anonymously, in select safe spaces or even if just with a handful of close friends and family. We are on the frontline in a battle against ignorance - our truth carries immeasurable power and hope.
Thank you note: I would like to thank everybody who took the time and effort to contribute their answers for this article. I would also like to thank the artists Carola and Elaine who helped to bring the contributors answers to life. Both artists and their work can be found on Instagram @calla_pink and @nahitschilled