Heavy.
That’s how I felt when I woke up this morning.
Not just my body, but my mind, too.
Brooke Shaden All rights reserved
The kind of heaviness that makes me want to crawl right back into bed.
The kind of heaviness that makes feeding my dogs a chore and their rambunctiousness an irritation.
The kind of heaviness that saps my motivation and my appetite.
The kind of heaviness that makes me want to burst into tears for no apparent reason.
And yet, I crawl out of bed, albeit reluctantly. After all, the dogs need to go potty and get fed. I’m diabetic and need to eat, myself. The tears are hanging out on the fringes, just looking for an excuse to flow.
Even writing this saps my energy.
But the dogs have gone potty and been fed. I managed to put some food in me, too.
And yet, the heaviness remains.
I wish I could say this was abnormal for me, but it’s not. I’ve never been the type to just hop out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to tackle the day. Most of my days are like this, this feeling of heaviness that settles in on my body and mind and won’t lift, no matter what I do.
This is not being depressed. This is depression.
There is a difference. Everyone can feel depressed from time to time, a time of intense sadness or pain. But depression is a constant melancholy, if you will, sapping the person with depression of energy, strength, and will.
Depression saps me of my will to care.
Does laundry need done? Yeah, but I don’t feel like it.
Does the grass need mown? Yep, but I don’t have the energy to tackle it.
Will dinner need to be fixed? Yes, but I’m too tired to contemplate it.
Probably the only thing that keeps me from giving up entirely is my anxiety, which, interestingly enough, is the opposite of depression. If depression says, “I don’t really care,” anxiety says, “I care too much.”
Honestly, it’s probably my anxiety that’s kept me from the more destructive tendencies that follow depression, like if I harm myself, who’s going to clean up my mess? Who’s going to look after my dogs? Who’s going to take care of my house?
So, I suppose it’s my anxiety that keeps me alive.
And yet, it also keeps me worrying about stuff I can’t control. It keeps my mind racing about how to fix things that I can’t fix. It’s the reason that when my head hits the pillow at night, my mind keeps racing.
Before I started treatment for my depression and anxiety, I never really thought about any of this stuff. I just thought this was normal for me, that this was just how I was naturally and that there wasn’t anything wrong with me.
But feeling your chest tighten up for no reason while you’re checking out at Walmart and having the overwhelming urge to get the heck out of Dodge is not normal. That happened to me just over a week ago. Fortunately, I was in a self-checkout and had just finished ringing up my items. You can lay odds that I as soon as I was done paying, I was practically halfway out the door and hurrying to my car so that I could breathe.
That was the closest I’ve ever come to having a known panic attack in public. After doing some reminiscing and talking to my best friend last week, I realized that I may have been suffering from panic attacks much longer than I’ve been aware.
And after looking over what the Mayo Clinic lists as symptoms of major depressive order, aka depression, it seems I’ve been dealing with that a lot longer than I had realized, too.
I don’t write all this to make anyone feel sorry for me. Quite the contrary. I want to clear up misconceptions and bring awareness. Major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder are real conditions with real symptoms. They can be treated, but they can also be debilitating.
I saw this picture on Facebook and thought it appropriate for this post. This is what I would ask anyone who might encounter someone with depression and/or anxiety. Please be kind. Please don’t judge someone based on what you see. Be kind. Be patient. Be compassionate.
For more information on major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, I recommend these articles from the Mayo Clinic:
Depression (major depressive disorder) – https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20356007
Anxiety disorders – https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anxiety/symptoms-causes/syc-20350961
Most importantly, if you find yourself identifying with anything in these articles, especially if it’s persistent, please seek professional help.