What's it like anyway?

A two week hiatus, and I hadn't even gotten started yet. GO ME! I have been feeling so good the last couple of weeks, that I didn't want to look back at what if feels like to be depressed in order to describe it. Today it isn't such a long reach back, so let's see how clearly I can describe what it/has been like for me.
   Sorry if it this doesn't flow smoothly, the thoughts are coming to me and I am trying to put them down in an order that makes sense, but it may be choppy. . .
  
   I am pretty sure I have been dealing with depressive episodes since I hit puberty. Something I have figured out recently, is that life changes are a trigger for me. Looking back now, I can understand some of the things I did when I was younger. When I was 12, I lived in my bedroom for 3 weeks, only coming out for meals and to bathe. . . .after moving to a different school district. I turned into a world class jerk, and was a horrible person to a nice guy. . .after I graduated from high school. I lay in my bedroom and cried almost non stop for 3 days. . .after I moved to another state. The list continues and the pattern stays the same. What doesn't, is the way the depression effects me.  Now that I think of it, the end feeling is always the same. The deepest part of depression for me is like an emotional vacuum. Everything gets sucked into this bottomless pit of blackness and it starts to pull me down with it. I can feel it physically. My body feels heavy like something is pulling me down The way it starts and the. . .what to call them. . .bonus thoughts/emotions are different each time, making it hard for me to get control before I am laying on the couch hating my life. Sometimes it starts as boredom, sometimes it is sadness, recently I had an episode that started with the "I don't cares." This new motto quickly reached into every aspect of my life and nothing will bring you down faster than not givin' a crap about anything. There have been bouts where I am angry all the time, times when I thought about hurting myself, or that being dead would be easier, and times when I don't feel anything at all.

   Irritability is almost always present when I am depressed, and I have to keep it right in the very front of my mind, AT ALL TIMES, to not blow up on the kids when they do something that interferes with my wallowing. To be caught off guard results in flying off the handle and yelling when I shouldn't, which results in guilt, which results in more fuel for the downward spiral. Loneliness is another ever present feeling in depression. In a room full of people, none of them can be feeling what I am feeling. Maybe they have before, but they can't be feeling this way now. I have felt before like I was in a glass box, watching everyone around me have a good time, seeing the fun all around me, but being unable to join in because of my barrier.

   Depression is different for different people, and each low can be different for the same person, which has been my experience. It is also believed that men and women suffer differently. Statistically, more women are diagnosed with depression than men, but some believe that a lot of men display different symptoms than the down, weepy, blue symptoms that are associated with depression. Instead they show aggression, or are more easily angered.

So guess what. . .not everyone gets it

   The common cold of mental illness, depression. A very fitting nickname because it is something that most people suffer through at some point in their life Well guess what. . . AAACHHOOOOOO. Unfortunately, I seem to be fighting a chronic version of this particular bug.
   Something that hadn't occurred to me until recently is that not everyone understands how it feels to be depressed. Strange to my mind because I can't escape the feeling, but my own husband is one of the many who don't get it.
   I have been making strides lately in understanding myself, and figuring out what it is I have to do to get better. I want others to understand too. To understand that they aren't alone when they suffer, and for the people who don't suffer to understand what it is like for their loved ones who do.