A Dark Place

Feeling lonely is one of the worst feelings in the world. Being alone doesn't necessarily mean you're lonely, but when you're alone and lonely, you can get sucked in to the deepest hole of despair. I've felt like a loner most of my life even when I was surrounded by my family and friends but I never realized how much my loved ones helped put a band aid on those feelings. Loneliness is one of the major accelerators of depression. It's not the loneliness itself that causes the depression, but usually there's a trigger and some type of external factor that pushes you in to a downward spiral where you feel so low, you don't think you'll ever make it out alive.

 I'm sure everyone has uttered the phrase "I feel depressed" at one point or another. It's usually an exaggeration of their feelings and they are trying to make a point to people that they are feeling down.

 "Things will get better."

"It could be worse. Be grateful for what you have."

"You just have to stay positive."

"It's just going to take time."

You hear all of these phrases and sometimes even whisper them to yourself at times, but it's hard to listen and put the words in to action.

It's hard to listen when you feel like no one truly understands what you're going through. When people don't know how weak you really feel inside because you have been trying to put on a brave face for so long. When you still try to laugh and smile around people you barely know to prevent them from feeling uncomfortable around your underlying negativity.

 

Depression is feeling tired all the time. Depression is not leaving your house for days at a time.

Depression is not seeing the point in anything anymore.

Depression is feeling hopeless.

Depression feels like getting out of bed in the morning is an Olympic event.

It's not that you don't think you have people that care about you. You know they do and they are out there even if they are a phone call away instead of a walk down the street. But when you're depressed, you choose to see all of the bad. You know that you shouldn't and you should be grateful for what you do have, but being in such a deep hole and not even wanting to try and climb out, that's true depression.

The simplest tasks, like showering, require the most energy, of which you have none.

 
There's no simple answer to make the feeling go away. Usually the best thing is to make sure you still go out. Try and be around people. But what do you do when you have nowhere to go and no one to lend a hand and pull you up when you fall down?