Depression is one of those things, where your experiences don’t make any sense until you put a name to it. You feel alone, you ask “Am I depressed?“, but you’re not sure. In 2012, the World Health Organisation realised a video with Matthew Johnstone illustrating what does depression feel like, to answer some questions about this experience shared by 350 million worldwide. Here’s the stills + transcripts from the first part. I hope you realise you’re not alone. It’s not your fault. No shame.
“I had a black dog. His name was depression.”
“Whenever the black dog made an appearance, I felt empty and life seemed to slow down. He could surprise me with a visit for no reason or occasion. The black dog made me look and feel older than my years. When the rest of the world seemed to be enjoying life, I could only see it through the black dog.”
“Activities that usually brought me pleasure, suddenly ceased to.”
“He liked to ruin my appetite. He chewed up my memory and ability to concentrate. Doing anything or going anywhere with the back dog required super human strength. At social occasions, he would sniff out any confidence I had and chase it away.”
“My biggest fear was being found out. I worried that people would judge me.”
“Because of the shame and stigma of the black dog. I was constantly worried that I would be found out. So I invested vast amounts of energy into covering him up. Keeping up an emotional lie is exhausting.”
“Black dog could make me think and say negative things.”
“He could make me irritable and difficult to be around. He would take my love and bury my intimacy.”
“He loved nothing more than to wake me”
“. . with highly repetitive negative thinking. He also liked to remind me how exhausted I was going to be the next day.”
“Having a black dog in your life isn’t so much about feeling a bit down, sad or blue”
“. . at it’s worst it’s about being devoid of feeling altogether.”
“As I got older the black dog got bigger”
“. . and he started hanging around all the time. I’d chase him off with whatever I thought may send him running. But more often than not he’d come out on top. Going down became easier than getting up again.”
“So I became rather good at self medication”
“. . which never really helped.”
“Eventually I felt totally isolated”
“. .from everything and everyone.”
“The black dog had finally succeeded in hijacking my life”
“When you lose all joy in life, you can begin to question what the point of it is.”
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