What does depression look like?
I feel like people have a perception of depression that it's just crying all the time and complaining about life. That if you just "put on a happy face" it'll all magically disappear. Unfortunately, that's not really the reality of it all. Yes, depression can look exactly that, but I want to take a deeper dive...
Things that can be signs of depression:
- lack of interest (in anything or everything)
- loss of appetite OR binge eating
- physical pain (yup!)
- unexplained mood swings or outbursts of emotion
Now, this is what depression looks like for ME. For someone else it might look completely different and may even vary from episode to episode. There is no cookie-cutter depression. I usually know when I'm in a depressive state because of the above listed things or any combination of them.
For example: right now I have very little interest in anything really. I find it very hard to concentrate on any 1 thing for a long period of time. Even something as simple as watching a movie. I'm finding that I lose interest very quickly. As for my appetite, it's either there or it's not. I either don't eat or eat everything in sight (this is usually my first clue that something's up). Physical pain? Oh yeah. I typically get headaches and a lot of shoulder/back/neck pain as I'm so tense that it just holds itself there. Also smiling... when I'm depressed it actually hurts to smile. Could be because smiling doesn't feel "normal" when life is making you feel like crap.
As for the last point, that's the end all be all. When I feel like I'm on the verge of tears for days or I go from cracking up laughing to wanting to punch people in seconds flat? This is 100% a guarantee that something is up. For YEARS I would have categorized this as "being manic" when I was still living with my misdiagnosis. Now I realize that it's just how my PTSD manifests itself... in mood swings. When I'm triggered, when I'm feeling my past creeping up, when I'm just all-around feeling like a failure, it always comes forward in massive mood swings.
So how do we fix this? How do we pull ourselves out of our own heads and begin to feel better? Damn, if I knew the answer to that I would never be depressed. It could be as simple as "I need to change this ONE thing and then life will be better" or it could boil down to "let me take it one day at a time and see how things go." I tend to fluctuate back and forth between these two quite often and I still don't have a perfect answer... no one does.
The truth is, nothing can pull you out of your depression except your own will. Whether it's the will to seek treatment (medication, therapy, etc) or the will to self-care and put yourself first or simply the will to just keep trying and not give up. No matter which path you choose, only you can control where you end up.
-Danielle
Things that can be signs of depression:
- lack of interest (in anything or everything)
- loss of appetite OR binge eating
- physical pain (yup!)
- unexplained mood swings or outbursts of emotion
Now, this is what depression looks like for ME. For someone else it might look completely different and may even vary from episode to episode. There is no cookie-cutter depression. I usually know when I'm in a depressive state because of the above listed things or any combination of them.
For example: right now I have very little interest in anything really. I find it very hard to concentrate on any 1 thing for a long period of time. Even something as simple as watching a movie. I'm finding that I lose interest very quickly. As for my appetite, it's either there or it's not. I either don't eat or eat everything in sight (this is usually my first clue that something's up). Physical pain? Oh yeah. I typically get headaches and a lot of shoulder/back/neck pain as I'm so tense that it just holds itself there. Also smiling... when I'm depressed it actually hurts to smile. Could be because smiling doesn't feel "normal" when life is making you feel like crap.
As for the last point, that's the end all be all. When I feel like I'm on the verge of tears for days or I go from cracking up laughing to wanting to punch people in seconds flat? This is 100% a guarantee that something is up. For YEARS I would have categorized this as "being manic" when I was still living with my misdiagnosis. Now I realize that it's just how my PTSD manifests itself... in mood swings. When I'm triggered, when I'm feeling my past creeping up, when I'm just all-around feeling like a failure, it always comes forward in massive mood swings.
So how do we fix this? How do we pull ourselves out of our own heads and begin to feel better? Damn, if I knew the answer to that I would never be depressed. It could be as simple as "I need to change this ONE thing and then life will be better" or it could boil down to "let me take it one day at a time and see how things go." I tend to fluctuate back and forth between these two quite often and I still don't have a perfect answer... no one does.
The truth is, nothing can pull you out of your depression except your own will. Whether it's the will to seek treatment (medication, therapy, etc) or the will to self-care and put yourself first or simply the will to just keep trying and not give up. No matter which path you choose, only you can control where you end up.
-Danielle
