Let me quote from Ken White of the Popehat blog:
“Depression is not like sadness. Everyone has been sad. Everyone has been depressed on one occasion or another. But clinical depression is something else entirely.
“What is it like?
“Forgive me, but I’d like for you to imagine the worst day of your life. Maybe someone you love was killed in an accident. Maybe a loved one got a terrifying diagnosis. Maybe you abruptly lost a job you need to support your family. Maybe you caught your husband or wife cheating on you. Maybe you found out your son or daughter is addicted to drugs. Maybe you experienced some dreadful public humiliation.
“Remember how that felt, at the worst part of that day? Now imagine you feel that way most of the time, for months at a time.
“Think of the most stressed and worried you have ever been in your life, and then imagine that your stomach feels like that all the time.
“Imagine that you are constantly gripped with overwhelming feelings of dread and crushing hopelessness — irrational, not governed by real risks or challenges, but still inexorable.
“Imagine that you are often fatigued to the point of weakness and irritability because you can’t get to sleep until late at night, or because your mind consistently shakes you awake at four in the morning, racing with worry about the day’s activities as your stomach roils and knots.
“Imagine that most social interactions become painful, the cause of nameless dread. Imagine that when the phone rings or your computer dings with a new email you get a short, hot, foul shot of adrenaline, sizzling in your fingertips and bitter in your mouth.
“Imagine that, however much you understand the causes of these symptoms intellectually, no matter how well you know that you are fully capable of meeting the challenges you face and surviving them, no matter how well you grasp that these feelings are a symptom of a disease, you can’t stop feeling this way.
“Imagine that you have moments — maybe even minutes — where you forget how you feel, but those moments are almost worse, because when they end and you remember the feelings rush back in like a dark tide that much more painfully.
“Imagine that you know you should talk to someone about how you feel — but you can’t bring yourself to do so. Have you ever been so nauseated — from illness or from drinking — that you can’t bear for someone to touch you or talk to you? Imagine feeling like that — that the human interactions that might ease the pain are too painful to endure, that every word on the subject is a blow.”
Thanks for your very insightful post.