Walking With The Black Dog
What Clinical Depression Feels Like
If you’ve never had clinical depression or any other form of it, you’re very lucky. I’d give almost anything to be clueless. A frequent question I get in real life and on Quora is, what does depression feel like? Bloody awful. Any other questions? Just kidding. When you have depression, you have to take your fun where you can.
To help demystify how depression feels and give you an overview of how to react to friends or families with it, I’m going to describe my experience. I must stress this is just my experience, but most of the things I mention tally with what others who also suffer from depression have told me.
PLEASE NOTE: This article is not designed to be a diagnostic tool. I a not a mental health professional, so if you think you may have clinical depression or any other mental illness, please see a doctor.
Sadness
Let’s start with the obvious one, when you have depression, you feel sad. Not just watched a sad movie sad, or just argued with my partner sad. It is a deep, profound sadness that you can feel in every atom of your body. To me, it makes my body feel indescribably heavy. Any kind of movement feels like a Herculean task.
