(Please note that if you haven't already read part 1 of this then please go and read that before you read what I am about to say. You can read part 1 here)
Being depressed involves a whole host of different emotions. You can constantly be feeling tired, even if you had 12 hours sleep the night before. You get angry over the smallest of things and get irritated really easily. You often tend to feel absolutely no emotion whatsoever. This can often cause people to call you dead inside if they pick up on this, which is kind of true. There are many times where you want to show and prove to someone that you do care, yet it's almost impossible for you to do that. It's like you want to come out with this sweet and caring personality, yet more times than not you literally show no emotion at all.
There are many different symptoms that you can get when it comes to depression and these symptoms can vary from person to person. Generally, you feel sad, hopeless, and find yourself losing interest in the things that used to bring you so much joy. But these don't just occur for a day or even a week. They can occur for months and possibly even years.
The first set of symptoms that can occur are psychological symptoms. These involve a continuous low mood, feeling hopeless and helpless, low self-esteem, feeling tearful, feeling guilty, feeling irritable and intolerable of others, having no motivation or interest in things, difficulty making decisions, not enjoying life, feeling anxious, and having suicidal thoughts.
The second set of symptoms that can occur are physical symptoms. These involve moving/speaking slower than normal, changes in appetite/weight, constipation, unexplained aches/pains, lack of energy, low sex drive, changes to your menstrual cycle, and disturbed sleep.
The third set of symptoms that can occur are social symptoms. These involve not doing well at work, avoiding contact with friends/socialising less, neglecting your hobbies/interests, and having difficulties in your home/family life.
Some people will often confuse feeling sad for being depressed. A good example of this is if you are dealing with the loss of a loved one. Whenever someone we love dearly passes away we all feel a great deal of sadness, with it at times feeling like we can no longer carry on without them. But even though there will be many people that are thinking that what they are going through at this time is depression, what they are actually dealing with is grief. Obviously, some of the symptoms of depression are similar to what you might feel when you are grieving, such as a low mood, your appetite changing, and having difficulties at home. But it is important that we don't get the two confused.
Grief is a natural response that we go into as soon as someone we know and who was very close to us passes away. It is particularly prominent in the days and weeks, possibly even months after someone has passed. Whereas depression is an ongoing issue that never goes away. At first, I thought that I was just grieving the loss of my Grandad and that after a few weeks this feeling would go away. That was over four years ago now and I'm still feeling exactly the same, if not worse.
Depression creates a feeling of loneliness that seems as though it is never going to go away. You could be amongst a load of your friends having what should be a really fun time, however you still manage to feel as though you are on your own with no one to turn to. It is one of the worst feelings you could possibly get and you begin to wonder what your life was like before you started feeling this way. You begin to question if you were ever happy, or have you just been lying to yourself the entire time? You probably weren't ever happy, you were just a child and so what you ever thought was happy, wasn't. And then as you got older you realised what the real world is like and that in actual fact it's highly likely that you have been depressed your whole life.
No one should ever have to feel this way. Depression shouldn't be a thing and at the very least should be able to be treated in a way where it can go away - like when you have a headache and you take some paracetamol to make it go away. Unfortunately, the world doesn't work like that and as mental health problems still aren't being taken as seriously as the physical problems we encounter, creating the problem of many people not being believed when they say they have mental health problems, such as depression. Many people also claim they have them when they don't as they see it as a 'fashion trend'. Mental health isn't some trend for you to follow to try and impress your mates with by saying you have it. Mental health is a very real thing that many of us have to try and cope with day-in and day-out. And once mental health illnesses start being treated as a real issue and it is recognisable in those who genuinely have it, then I feel as though I will be able to rest easy. Even though I may still have the issues that I have been going through for a while now, as long as I know that these issues are being treated seriously then I can feel better knowing that there are other people out there, like me, who genuinely have these problems and aren't just claiming to have them to try and be 'trendy'.
When will this end? Who knows. But one thing I do know for certain is that I'm not going to let my depression and the other mental health problems I have define who I am. Will you join me?
Love Beth xx
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