Depression vs. The Blues vs. Cancer

I’ve been feeling blue for a week or so. I’ve never experienced it before; I’ve only ever had experience with sustained periods of clinical depression.

I finally truly understand why people can be so insensitive towards those with depression; the differences between the two experiences are monumental, yet our language does not adequately express this. People seem to think that depression is a continuation of the blues, an extreme of it. Not so.

I have struggled with clinical depression for most of my life; suicidal ideation first visited me when I was ten. In my late twenties, I was hit with a round of depression that ended up lasting for two years. Two years during which I was constantly encouraged to just force myself to do things; if I tried harder, I’d feel better.

Now that I have experience with the blues, I can see why well-intentioned but deeply misguided people kept repeating this to me. Depression is not on the same spectrum as the blues, it is a different animal.

Here is how a day goes for me when I’m feeling blue: I wake up feeling sad, listless, and empty. I want to fall back asleep. If I don’t have to get to any appointments, I do so, hitting snooze and sleeping in. After laying around in bed for a bit, I tell myself that I’ll feel better once I take a shower and put on my makeup — and I believe it.

The shower feels great, and as I stand under the stream of water I feel energy starting to build up in me. I feel invigorated as I give myself a scalp massage and body scrub, then step out and dry my hair and apply some makeup. I look in the mirror and feel pretty, and feel happy because I’m a woman and I’ve been trained to equate my feeling of self-worth at least in part to how I feel about my looks (but that’s another essay for another time.)

Done with my shower, I realize I feel sad, still. I think about what I want to do — go back to bed, sleep, or curl up? But the voice in my head reminds me that I’ll probably feel great if I go out and take care of errands that need to be accomplished. I believe this voice, so I go out and do whatever needs to be done. Being outside, and moving, gets my blood pumping and my mood elevated, and I’m happy to talk to the various strangers I encounter.

I come home, feel listless again, wonder if I’ve done enough. Rather than dwelling on it, the voice reminds me that I’ll feel good if I go for a run — so I take my dog out and we run, slowly because this is new for me, until my lungs are burning and the physical exertion makes it impossible for me to think about my sadness.

At the end of the evening, I fill out my mood-tracking app, and realize that I’ve actually had a day that qualifies as good — and it’s in large part because I got up, took care of myself, exercised, accomplished tasks, and interacted with others.

So… what those misguided people were telling me was absolutely accurate, had I merely been feeling blue.

But here’s how a day would go for me when I was in the darkest depths of my depression:

I wake up, and my first thought is ‘why?’ The Voice starts up, ‘why are you still alive? why are you awake?’ and I wonder to myself how I am going to get through the day. It has been a minute and I am already exhausted; I woke up exhausted. Depression is not me feeling sad, it feels like a demon has taken over my mind and it’s sole mission is to make me give up. I try to fall back asleep.

If I can’t, I turn on my phone and start reading internet content. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it distracts me from the Voice. I read fluff pieces and I read comment sections and I read reddit; I never comment. I spend hours doing this. Every time I am inbetween links, the Voice starts up again, ‘kill yourself. kill yourself. kill yourself.’

I realize this sounds like it can’t be true — but that is literally what my depression turned into, a voice telling me to kill myself on a loop. It felt invasive, and it did not feel like me. What I identified as me was still in there, but tiny, and weak, and exhausted, and spending all her effort trying to ignore the Voice or argue with it. The Voice - depression - was as malignant, foreign, and parasitic as a cancer tumor.

If it has been too many days since my last shower, eventually I might decide to make that the goal for the day. I’ll push my blankets off of me and then lay flat on my back, uncomfortable, exhausted. I’ll eventually sit up, and stare into space as the voice tries to berate me into submission, into just killing myself already.

Eventually, maybe, I’ll end up in the shower. I’ll have put some music on in an attempt to distract me from the voice, but the shower drowns most of the sound out and I’m all of a sudden overtaken by the Voice. Kill yourself, kill yourself, there are safety blades in that cabinet, that would be one way to do it, you’d be making everyone in your life so much happier if you just killed yourself. The physical pain makes me crouch down and the water pounds on my head and I eventually have to turn the water off so I can stand up again.

I get out, wrap my towel around me, and collapse in bed naked, wet, and exhausted. Eventually, I’ll have the energy to crawl back under my blanket. I’ll pick my phone up to read more distractions.

On some days I’ll force myself outside, because there are things that need to be done, and each step feels like there is an anvil attached to each foot. The sunshine hurts, I want to lie down in the middle of the sidewalk, I want to disappear. It’s hard to focus on what other people are saying because the voice is still there, always there, ‘kill yourself. kill yourself. you are so worthless. you are making everyone around you so miserable. you are such a burden. kill yourself.’ The voice is not creative, or eloquent, but it is persistent.

Walking is exhausting, there is no energy for jogging. The sun hurts. Showering hurts. Going out and doing things just makes me more exhausted, just takes me away from the two distractions I have — reading and sleeping. Any time spent not doing those two things is time when the real me is having to battle with the Voice, and she’s been doing it for months, now years, and she is so. tired. and scared.

I wanted to share the difference between depression and the blues, for those who have a friend suffering from the former and who don’t know how to help, and also for those suffering from depression who feel they are unheard and misunderstood. Depression felt like a demon had taken over my mind. Every moment not spent distracting myself was occupied with fighting it. Everything hurt. Doing anything made it worse. I did not choose it, I did not want it, the part of me that was fighting it felt overwhelmed, scared, and tired.

Showering, makeup, friends, errands, exercise, sunbathing — all of these things contribute to a healthy, full life. But they are impossible for those in the depths of depression, and suggesting them only validates the voice’s assertion that you are worthless, lazy, shameful, and a burden.

I’ve had cancer. I was supported during cancer. It took months for me to realize that my pain and exhausted during treatment were valid, that no one would question it — because every symptom of my depression was questioned. Questioned until I was convinced that it was all made up, all my fault. It took constant encouragement from my nurses and doctors to take painkillers during my chemotherapy, because I didn’t trust my own perception of pain. I was told almost daily how brave I was, that I was a fighter, that I was strong. The exact opposite of my experience during depression.

Have experienced both, I will validate every depression sufferer who has wished to themselves during their darkest moments that they had cancer instead: they are equally as life threatening, unfair, painful and exhausting, and you’re right — at least when you have cancer, people believe you.

Believe your loved one who is struggling. Treat them as you would a person going through chemotherapy, who is fighting for their life.

And if you’re suffering from depression and reading this: I believe you. You are fighting your ass off. You deserve support. You deserve care. You did not bring this upon yourself. The tiny part of you that’s still there, fighting off your version of the Voice, is right. And above all else, you deserve professional, medical care that helps you defeat this parasite, this tumor, this depression. I understand that you might not want to be on medication — I didn’t either. I also didn’t want to go through chemo. But neither have to be forever; they just help shrink the illness until you can fight it yourself again.