What is it really?

WHAT NON-DEPRESSED PEOPLE THINK ABOUT DEPRESSION:

• Depressed people are sad all the time.
• Depressed people are too sad to get out of bed.
• You'd feel better if you exercised.
• If you'd clean your house, you'd feel better.
• You just need to focus on the good things in your life.
• Depressed people just need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

WHAT DEPRESSION REALLY IS:

• Depressed people are not always sad.
• Your mood is not the only thing that is depressed.
• Your body heals more slowly than normal.
• your concentration is diminished.
• You don't stay in bed because you're too sad to face life, you stay in bed because your body is so tired you can't imagine doing anything else.
• Sometimes depressed people do have energy, but sometimes that energy only lasts a few minutes.  Sometimes I wake up ready to face the day, and by the time I have gone to the bathroom and walked back to my bedroom, I'm too tired to do anything else but lay back down in bed.
• depression sucks the energy and the life out of you.
• Depressed people would love to get outside and exercise if only they still had energy left after they've gotten dressed and put their shoes on.
• Pleasure doesn't last when you are depressed.  You can do something that brings joy to your life, but once you stop, the pleasure is gone.  Normal people do things they enjoy and it makes their life fulfilling.  Depressed people do things they enjoy and the moment the pleasurable activity is over, so is the joy.
• Things that you can normally handle, will send you over the edge when you are depressed.
• Niceties are lost along the way.  Even when you are normally kind, when you are depressed, you find yourself saying things, or not saying thing, the way you normally would.  I forget the little stuff like "please" and "thank you" and "good job" when I'm depressed.
• Depression is physically painful.  I'm not sure if it causes pain or if pain is just more noticeable and less tolerable when your depressed, but there physical pain.
• Depression makes you feel empty.