Depression is like the falling anvil in cartoons. It doesn't care if someone happens to be in its path; it's going to hit that person like a rumbling freight train and keep moving. It doesn't make sure the person is okay afterward, either. The anvil/depression does not care. And when it hits you, you're rendered powerless. Your energy, your motivation, and your sense of wellbeing are snatched away from you, leaving you perpetually tired and incapable of focusing. This happens to pretty much anyone with depression, but it is absolutely the worst possible thing that can happen to a person who derives pleasure from productivity. When you're the kind of person who is disgusted with laziness, and you are struck by a bout of depression, you find yourself in a dark, dank hole, made 1,000x worse by the worry that comes with not getting stuff done.

I am the type of person who likes to get stuff done, and when depressive episodes rear their ugly heads, my life becomes an all out war. Stolen from me is my Nietzschean willpower and punk rock "I'm gonna knock the f*ck out of this" mentality. I'm the kind of person who cannot relax peacefully while there's still pressing schoolwork or household chores to be done. Maybe I can slack a little if it's something that isn't too big of a deal, but I can assure you I never just not do my job. I learned to have this great work ethic from years of marching band, and it's probably the best thing about me. But it is not so rock solid that a chemical imbalance can't blow it over like a house of cards. Like I said, life becomes a battle. The depression tells me "you can't," and I have to scrape miniscule pieces of optimism together to help me push through the negative thoughts. It's like digging in your between couch cushions and pulling out the few quarters among the dustbunnies.

When you have this go-getter, Type A personality, depression inevitably leads to anxiety, which leads to more depression, like a nonstop cycle of suck. You feel absolutely worthless because you don't feel like doing even the easiest of tasks. It's as though someone wrapped you up in tarp and draped chains around you. There's a heaviness to it that gives you that lump in the back of the throat. People will ask you all the time why you haven't done this or that, and all you can say is that you feel as though you just can't. Then those people will shake their heads and give you some crap about not trying hard enough. That's the thing about depression: nobody understands it unless they have it. These people will never understand what it's like to be a tarp-and-chain bearer, and we should not begrudge them for that. They're lucky people, even if they're ignorant.

Part of the problem is that society tells us that we can either be super-duper overachievers or lazy couch potatoes. When we are not the former, we assume we are the latter. I don't want to go all Marxist here, but it's one of those problems that comes out of living under capitalism. I definitely don't want to say that we have to abolish capitalism in order to alleviate the pain that Type A people suffer from when depressed. I just think it might help for the workaholics and busybees who are depressed to realize that their worth is not solely rooted on completing tasks. It is okay to take time off from working, and when you are depressed, you are truly sick. Like the physically ill, the mentally ill need time to recuperate.

So when you find yourself unable to get things done, do this: stop panicking. Chill. You are literally draining yourself of what little energy you possess by worrying. Take life as it comes and do things in small bites. You gotta tough it out by playing life on "Survival Mode." Yeah, I know this advice might sound hokey when you're neck-deep, but you've got to hold on. You have to take things slow and rebuild yourself. You WILL be able to do things like normal soon. Episodes can't last forever. At the end of the day, don't beat yourself up.