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*Editor’s Note: Elephant is not your doctor or hospital. Our lawyers would say “this website is not designed to, and should not be construed to provide medical advice, professional diagnosis, opinion, or treatment to you or any other individual, and is not intended as a substitute for medical or professional care and treatment. Always consult a health professional before trying out new home therapies or changing your diet.” But we can’t afford lawyers, and you knew all that. ~ Ed
In my experience, depression has always been like that nosy neighbor next door who comes over unannounced.
I’ve been plagued by it my whole life.
It’s like a heavy cloud that follows me around, waiting for the perfect moment to burst into rain—or, more accurately, a torrential downpour. Once it hits me, I start slowly slipping away from myself and become an outsider in my own body.
I lose all sense of clarity and reality, and I retreat so far inward that I lose sight of who I am.
Some days, I’ll stand in front of the mirror and not recognize the person staring back at me. In my mind, she looks tired, sad, a bit fragile, and completely lost somewhere inside herself. Sometimes, I avoid the mirror altogether because I don’t want to see all of the hurt and ache written across my own face.
The thing with depression is that ordinary, everyday moments feel so much heavier—distorted even.
Small, basic tasks like getting dressed, brushing your teeth, or showering all feel too overwhelming to tackle.
It feels like you’re trapped in this numbing state where you can’t move, you can’t talk, and you can’t muster enough strength to get anything done. This leads to negative self-doubt, making me, personally, feel like an utter failure at this thing we call life. And there’s the proof in the pudding that I have a hard time accomplishing nearly anything.
My mind constantly whispers to me that I’m worthless, useless, and nonexistent. It tells me that I can’t do anything right and that I’m just a waste of space. It’s hard when you hear that inner critic calling out your flaws. It practically screams at me to make sure I’ve gotten the message.
It does a good job of convincing you that you’re all of the things you feared you’d be.
For me, I never want to be viewed as lazy, sluggish, or unmotivated, but with depression, it reiterates it all the time. It tells me that I’m falling behind in life and that I’ll never catch up. It’s easy to believe all of those lies when you’re mentally and physically drained.
I can’t help but put myself in this bubble of shame.
I shrink myself little by little until I become one small shard from a shattered glass castle.
The thing is, people don’t see how much inner turmoil exists with depression.
They don’t see the heavy weight I carry with me each day, slowing me down to a snail’s pace. All they see is my mask. I’ll smile, laugh, and engage, but it’s not real. I’m actually dissociated. I’m there in the physical sense, but mentally I’m suffering somewhere in the depths of my mind.
My body is running on autopilot. It knows when to move, when to smile, and when to “put on the charm,” but I’m stuck on the outside looking in.
Depression has changed the way I view myself. The things I used to admire about myself diminish the instant it shows up. My kindness dissolves into hatred. My passion is overcome by fear. My self-worth swirls into a black hole. It makes me feel like I’m this fragile, slow, unreliable person, and truthfully, I’m not that way at all.
Depression shrouds your whole personality, and you become convinced that’s the person you actually are.
I lose sight of myself completely. My hobbies, passions, and the parts of myself that are authentically me fade into the background like they were never there in the first place. It’s truly heartbreaking to be forced to cut the cord from who you are and live life in the gloomy shadows where you think you belong.
Healing isn’t something that happens overnight, and you can’t put a timestamp on depression. But you can come out of it and step back into the light. Step back into your own skin and become you again.
I’ve gone through very heavy depressive episodes, and of course, I’m always hard on myself during them. But once I emerge from that state, it’s a liberation that’s hard to explain. I know it’s cliché to use the old “caterpillar turned into a butterfly” bit, but it’s true.
You spend so long in seclusion trying to survive, trying to heal, to get out of there whole, and once you break free of the ties that bind, you find yourself again. You’re free to learn how to fly, to rediscover the world with new eyes, and to expose the beauty that was within you all along.
Depression can distort your perception, but it doesn’t erase you.
I’ve lived to tell the tale. And yes, the fog will always be persistent, but the real you is always there. It’s just healing and waiting to feel safe enough to return to the world.
No matter how far you’ve gone through the labyrinth—running in circles for days, months, or even years—you’ll still find your way back. Your compass might be broken now, but your gut instincts will guide you far better than any navigation device can.
Even though depression is something that lingers over me, I know that I’m capable of pushing through and never giving up on coming back to the surface. I may only be realizing this now, after years of letting depression consume me entirely, but I’ve learned that I’m in there.
That woman just needs time to feel her feelings and reemerge into the beautiful butterfly that she is.
~
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