It’s a common and completely normal occurrence for people to state that they don’t understand why someone suffering from depression simply can't “get over it,” “move on,” or “just think positive thoughts”— kind of like how liberals are utterly flabbergasted by committed Donald Trump supporters’ inability to “see reason.”
When it comes down to it, depression is like a mangled beast lurking on your shoulder, uttering incessant, domineering whispers into your ear. So people who don’t get it— it’s perfectly ok. You just can’t hear those whispers, because the beast is simply not there.
For the mentally content, literal and straightforward explanations don’t work. Well, to the ears of a self-proclaimed poet, that means that figurative language needs to strip its business suit off and fly to the rescue, shooting similes and metaphors out of its hands like laser beams.
So here are 11 analogies tasked with bridging the divide between the depressed and the more mentally stable people who seek to understand them.
1. Depression is like a dog running after a piece of meat on the treadmill, except the treadmill is lined with spikes and the meat is actually just a piece of plastic with seasoning.
All those suffering from depression want is that piece of meat— a piece of the happiness and contentment people around them seem to enjoy all the time. But no matter how hard they run or how much pain from the spikes they allow themselves to endure, the piece of meat stays where it is. And even though the depressed understand that the happiness around them mostly isn’t real, that people are putting on as much of a show as they are, they still run after the plastic piece of meat.
2. Depression is like a girl getting her period for the first time in the middle of class while giving a presentation.
You don’t understand when it happens, how it happens, what exactly is happening, or why in the hell it has to happen in the first place. But it happened, and now you have to tell everyone who knows to keep quiet because you’re worried that people’s opinions of you might change.
3. Suffering from depression is unwrapping an avocado for Christmas, every Christmas, on a calendar where every day is December 25th.
You feel disappointed, sad, and angry at the fates for sacking you with this misfortune, but you smile and tell everyone that life couldn’t be better, because you tell yourself that this is all you deserve anyway.
4. Depression is wishing you could be Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter.
A whole bathroom to yourself to let go and cry knowing that no one will ever approach you? Those who are depressed have to settle for stuffed sobs under the covers at late hours of the night or walks in isolated places. Privacy is a luxury they don’t have.
5. Being depressed is like organizing an event at your school but forgetting to send a million emails to advertise said event.
You’re alone. No one is coming. You could text some friends for help, but you’ve already told yourself that you’re the most worthless failure alive.
6. Depression is like mandatory high school gym class.
It’s stupid.
7. Being depressed is like getting over a cold, praising your health and claiming that you never get sick, only for someone to sneeze on you during the winter and boom— back to square one.
No matter how many times you tell yourself it’s going to be ok, no matter how many times you cry to let out the pain, no matter how many times you go to the shrink or your friend or your teary-eyed parents— even when you feel like you’ve knocked the beast off your shoulder, its whispers are still going to crawl back into your ear. All it takes is for someone to say the wrong thing.
8. Suffering from depression is like a goody two-shoes watching an anti-marijuana video in health class.
You know you’re not going to kill yourself, you know that you’re different than those people, you tell yourself that you don’t even know where you would get the stuff to do the deed— yet you can’t help but wonder what it would be like to try it.
9. Depression is like the worst hangover ever, if your brain was an alcoholic and downed 12 glasses of bourbon every night.
You just don’t want to get out of bed, but you know that you have to because no one is going to count your symptoms as a valid excuse for anything. “Sober up,” they’ll say. “It’s all in your head.”
10. Being depressed is like a bag of chips.
There’s some stuff there, but for the most part, you’re pretty empty.
11. Depression is like realizing that you’re gay, that your “friends” are abusive narcissists, that maybe you’re smoking too much, that you’re actually very mean to your brother, or that you really haven’t been trying that hard in school— it’s a huge step to admit it to yourself, but once you do, life becomes a whole lot better.
We all fall in mental holes at some points in our lives, for different reasons and for different lengths of time. Depression is the same way, albeit a bit of a deeper hole and a more slippery one to climb out of. But once you muster the courage to accept your condition, you allow yourself to get help and the world becomes brighter, because in my opinion, opportunity is life’s most powerful flashlight. And all you have to do is follow the direction in which it’s pointing.
