Being alive is a beautiful experience. Being grateful for this opportunity to express ourselves, and learn from our experiences is something to be treasured. Depression is just a sickness.It looks like you are completely normal on the outside, but that’s only because you try very hard to. Dealing with depression can be harder than working with satan but it is not impossible.
“Depression isn’t always at 3am when you’re alone with only the thoughts in your head. Sometimes it’s at 3pm, when you’re surrounded by friends in the middle of laughing.”
That sense of wondering about being included , that ’itch’ like you need to leave any social situation quickly.
What’s worse is at larger gatherings, when everyone sitting around the table having a good time and you just sit in a chair away from everyone, keeping a smile on your face and praying nobody tries to talk to you. Just counting the minutes until you can leave but secretly wondering if that’s worse than the times where nobody acknowledged that you’re even there.
All these thoughts and anxiety hiding behind the smile and laughter which sometimes nobody understands. There is no way you can express how depression feels to any normal person, usually you run out of words and then you just give up.
Here is a story of an anonymous person who beautifully gives a face to depression and describes how she feels.
” The Blank Canvas : Representing my depression “
Up until yesterday, I had no way of describing or visualizing my depression. I was hit by a brainstorm. I do draw a lot, so I figured it was only a matter of time until my feelings poured themselves out onto the canvas. (Which is really relevant to the piece in question.)
So this is the drawing that I drew yesterday which perfectly describes my feelings: I call it Blank Canvas!
It has a description to go along with it. “The painter ponders the colors on the palette.. I look at her, hoping that just this one time, she’d see me, before she strokes over me with colors.
With even the bright, beautiful autumn landscape that she has painted over me, it saddens me that even the artist cannot see the bigger picture.”
The ‘painter’ represents me, and the colors are the emotions that I put on so everything seems fine. The ‘blank canvas’ represents my depression, and how I constantly ignore it and gloss over it with my fake emotions. And even if the person I pretend to be is beautiful and vibrant (the autumn landscape) no one can see how I really feel. Underneath all of my emotions, I am a blank canvas.
Depression sucks deeply and in such a big way, but I believe everyone has the power to tell the illness that you refuse to be pushed around by it. Tell the illness that you are stronger and bigger, and that you are in charge, not it.
– Reddit user : snowfairypeach
Depression sucks deeply and in such a big way, but I believe everyone has the power to tell the illness that you refuse to be pushed around by it. Tell the illness that you are stronger and bigger, and that you are in charge, not it.