What It Feels Like To Have A Depressive Episode

It’s been awhile since I’ve spoken about my depression — at least my depression today, in this very moment — and that is intentional because I feel I have nothing to say. I have been “stable.” There are no crazy mood swings to report. No insights to share. Instead, I am stuck in a holding pattern. Stuck, like an airplane circling at 10,000 feet. I will either land or run out of gas but for now I’m just hovering.

I am stable but going nowhere fast.

That said, things are shifting. I can feel them shifting. Each day I am growing moodier and far more impatient. The feelings of insatiable hunger and overwhelming nausea have become one in the same. I am blinking more, trying to keep the burning at the base of my eyes at bay. I am walking more, and wandering more. And while I am okay — at least in the conventional sense of the word — I can feel deep (and old) wounds reopening. I am sleeping less, eating less, and finding less and less desire in day-to-day activities. I am either excessively productive or laid out on the couch, crying into pillows when no one is watching. And it’s frustrating.

I’m frustrated.

I want to stop it but I know I can’t. I try to fight it even though I can’t. Instead, I just keep circling and hovering, not knowing when I will crash — or where.

Clinically I know what this feeling is; it is called “an episode,” a major depressive episode, and it is defined as “a depressed mood or a loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities [that] consistently [lasts] for at least 2 week[s]” or more. It is when the textbook shit occurs: the numbness, the emptiness, the endless tears, the insomnia or, most days, hypersomnia. It is when feelings of worthlessness surface, and it is when suicidal thoughts are most common. But it is more than a list of symptoms. I am more than a list of symptoms, and this is my reality when my depression takes hold.

When I cannot see past the sadness, the blackness.

When I cannot get out of bed or leave my house.

When hope is dismal and every minute seems impossible.

And it is coming, slow and steady. I can feel it, and I can’t fight it. All I can do is try: try to trudge through, go to therapy, keep taking my medications and try. Try everything and anything to keep myself afloat, and try to keep myself accountable.

And I guess that is my parting message today to everyone. To those who suffer from depression and those who do not:

Try, just try.

Don’t worry about being great or good or even okay.

Try, just try.

And remember that, in “our darkest moments…we must focus to see the light” (Aristotle).

We have to try. Just try.