Dude, you just laughed. Are you really depressed?

Yep I’m sure. You just don’t see everything.

Yeah people with depression actually can and will laugh. Firstly, as I said in my previous post, you are not always down and sad when you are depressed. That means if a joke is fuckin’ funny then it’s fuckin’ funny. You laugh, just as every ordinary person. Also, most of the time people have an at least “ok” day, otherwise you would not see the person that day. You probably won’t see a person on a “bad” day, because they are not going outside (exceptions confirm the rule) of course.
Secondly, depressive people really should be acting in Hollywood movies. Bold statement, you might think. Let me tell you this, though. There is this thing called work and/or responsibilities. In other words, things you have to do. What would you do if you had mental problems and were generally in depressive moods alsmost every day? Yes, you would put on a mask and act like nothing is going on. Day in, day out. And that’s exactly what I did for years. I’m sure a lot of affected can relate. You lie every day arriving at work answering the question of how you are doing. You laugh, you joke, you pretend to care. Every fucking day. On the one hand side nobody will notice what’s really going on (depending on your acting skills ofc), but on the other hand side this mask is slowly eating you from the inside out. It costs so much energy that I couldn’t do anything anymore after work. I just wanted to be myself again at home.
If you do this long enough you eventually start to loose the sense for yourself and for who you really are. Due to the suppressing of my real emotions every day I started to experience a complete lack of emotions. Imagine a heart rate monitor after people die. Just a dull line, no ups and downs no matter what happens. I feel like for some time I somehow conviced myself that the fake emotions I showed around people were my real emotions. My brain somehow fucked me over, probably to protect me or something (I don’t know actually). And let me tell you it’s so hard to absolutely feel no joy or happiness for close people when they tell you good news from their lives. There was just nothing there, I knew I was happy for them, because I like them ofc but there was no emotion there. Knowing something and feeling something is different. The mask has to stay on of course.

“But why don’t you just tell your friends/family what’s really going on?”

The short answer is because you don’t want to bother them. This makes probably no sense for people that never experienced a depression, because as friends/family you help each other when problems occur, right? I mean it should be like that but let me explain it to you with the long answer.
Many depressed people hate themselves. They don’t think they are worth anything or are only worth something when they perform really well everywhere. So basically as a depressed person you don’t think you are worth the hassle. If you don’t believe you are worth anything why would you believe that other people think you are worth the hassle? Because, you don’t want to be a burden to anyone you stay quiet.
In my previous post I wrote that depressive people think about their environment and other people before they think of themselves. This is a huge factor with the mask thing. Let’s say the reason why you keep on the mask everywhere is not because you think you are not worth anything. Let’s say you somehow know certain people really love you and would want to help you etc. Why would you still keep on the mask? Because, you care so much for everyone but yourself you don’t want to make them worry. Your brain is really fucked up in that regard. So you keep on the mask and keep on acting day in and day out. This behaviour draws so much energy, though.

So just in case you see yourself in what I just described: Please stop the masquerade, it eventually will break you! I know you don’t think it’s true but everything will get better if you tell someone! I eventually asked my doctor for help (before I told anyone else) and that saved my life up until that point. Honestly, I don’t know if I would be here if I did not find the courage to tell someone. Talking about it with someone is such a big relief! Up until this point I only had good experiences when opening up to somebody. If I could I would do it earlier in retrospective.

This post is quite short but this was a rather tough one for me to write. I hope this was an eye opening short description of every day life with depression. Feel free to comment, like and/or share this blog if you want. Much appreciated.

Peace!