What depression/anxiety feels like...

[ScaredToBreathe]

Hi all, everyone experiences depression and anxiety differently and I'd like to hear from anyone willing to describe their experiences with major depression, social anxiety, and anxiety in general. It could be what you feel like in general, a specific experience you had, how people may have treated you differently, how it affects your life, the thoughts you have, or anything else you'd like to convey about your disorder(s).

I also want to ask you guys for permission to possibly use some of your posts here for an assignment I'm doing on mental disabilities. I am trying to portray what it is really like to experience these disorders and how much of a struggle they can be to people. You will be completely anonymous, and you can PM me if you are more comfortable with that.

It would be helpful if you could describe your feelings or thoughts in detail, like you are really trying to make someone who hasn't experienced anxiety/depression understand how it feels. Or what you wish people, especially those who've made you feel judged/hurt, could know/understand about you. Try to keep it short (but meaningful), a few sentences will do.

Thanks I will start:
My depression makes me see all things in life negatively. Everything's dull; nothing feels good anymore and you just want to escape somehow but nothing you do ever helps; nothing ever gets better. I ruminate constantly over negative thoughts, sometimes about small things that happened years ago but they still bother me, pull me down, and I have no control over it.

 

[LoyalXenite]

I tried to answer this a couple times... But I struggled to find the words.. so im copying this from Tumblr

-mancermechro:

having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. it’s the fear of failure but no urge to be productive, and it’s wanting friends while hating socializing. it’s like running a marathon with the willpower of a corpse because you want to get to the end but you also want to sleep and evaporate into the soil and become compost for snails and flowers because then at least you’re useful

 

[ScaredToBreathe]

I tried to answer this a couple times... But I struggled to find the words.. so im copying this from Tumblr

-mancermechro:

having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. it’s the fear of failure but no urge to be productive, and it’s wanting friends while hating socializing. it’s like running a marathon with the willpower of a corpse because you want to get to the end but you also want to sleep and evaporate into the soil and become compost for snails and flowers because then at least you’re useful

Isn't it weird that we know best how terrifying and miserable things like anxiety are, because we experience them constantly, yet it's still so hard to explain accurately how it actually feels? I guess one reason for all the social stigma and people who don't take anxiety as a serious/debilitating thing is that it can be hard to understand if you haven't directly experienced it, and especially people with low empathy.

The post you quoted explains it in a pretty interesting way, I agree that anxiety holds a lot of contrasting feelings. Wanting friends while hating socialization rings really true for me too. Sometimes I feel like I need to get out and meet people, but when I do I just end up tired and wanting to go home. Then I'll miss having friends and going out, but I have no energy or motivation to put effort into keeping friendships alive and just give up...