Depression is Invisible.

It is Complex.

It is not just 'feeling a bit sad'.

That is the wrong word.

The word depression makes me think of a flat tyre, something punctured and unmoving. Maybe depression minus anxiety feels like that, but depression laced with terror is not something flat or still.

As the poet, Melissa Broder said:

"what idiot called it 'depression' and not 'there are bats living in my chest and they take up a lot room, PS: I see a shadow'?"

At its worst you find yourself wishing, desperately, for any other affliction, any physical pain, because the mind is infinite, and its torments - when they happen - can be equally infinite.

You can be a depressive and be happy, just as you can be a sober alcoholic. It doesn't always have to be an obvious case.

It can affect people - millionaires, people with good hair, happy married people, people who have just landed a promotion, people who can tap dance and do card tricks and strum a guitar, people who have no noticeable pores, an who exude happiness in their status updates - who seem, from the outside, to have no reason to be miserable.

It is mysterious even to those who suffer from it .

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Excerpt from: Reasons to Stay Alive