Depression and Anxiety
My personal experiences with depression and anxiety, featuring Inside Out characters for clarity; if you haven’t watched Inside Out and don’t want me to spoil anything, stop reading.
Depression is when Sadness sits on your chest when you wake up in the morning. She’s upset, and you have no clue why.
You feel like crying from feeling the weight of her on you, and you’re immobilized, paralyzed.
You don’t feel like getting up, either. It’s warm inside and cold outside, so why bother?
Sadness speaks to you in her low moan. “Everything sucks anyway, so why would you want to get out of bed? Let’s just sleep here awhile longer. Or maybe forever.” She sighs and flops over on her belly and pins you to your bed.
You try to search your brain and find Joy, but she’s gone. She went on an unannounced vacation and decided not to tell you when she’s coming back. So you’re experiencing this feeling of dread, not knowing how long she’ll be gone for. You need Joy. She really helps you lift your spirits and find a reason to go on.. but without her, you only have Sadness for company.
You and Sadness exchange a few sighs. The world does seem quite dark, now that she mentions it: somehow more gray and maybe tragically beautiful?
Sadness says, “Well… It’s kind of quiet. You can listen to sad music if you want, I guess.” So you move reluctantly from beneath the sheets to fumble around for your phone. You find it at last and set it to a series of heartbreakingly sad, melancholic songs. But somehow you feel a little better.
Sadness gets off your chest and starts humming sadly, tears dripping down her face. And before you know it, you’re crying, too. Your blankets soak up your tears, and you reach for the nearest stuffed animal and hug it tightly. You sit up in bed and lean against the wall. You pretend to be in the lowest, saddest part of a romcom and feel a little better.
Sadness doesn’t feel real anymore. She looks at you with huge, droopy eyes as she starts to disappear.
You’re a little sad to see her go, but at least you feel a little lighter now.
In her place is a baby version of Joy. She says, “Isn’t Sadness beautiful? Don’t worry, I’m here now!” And you start feeling better. Joy’s not the best at comforting people, but she makes you smile, so you start believing you’re happy.. until you actually are happy!
And then you jump out of bed and get dressed and get ready for the day.
But the day’s tinged with Sadness. She’s touched almost everything around you, and she’s the one who’s at the control panel. She turned almost all of your core memories blue and sad, and it’s created this aching feeling, this nostalgia that really hurts you.
Sadness talks to you. “Things used to be so nice, but they’re not now. Look at how happy you used to be and how miserable you are now. Everything sucks.” And you have no choice but to agree. Those memories used to be full of joy, but looking at them now and comparing your current life to them.. you feel sad. It’s like Sadness has filtered everything you’re going through. The day seems grayer. Friends seem more distant. Do you even have friends? Memories seem stuck somehow, like they’ve been trapped elsewhere or taken away from you.
But then you get to class and Fear pops up. “What are you doing???? You aren’t prepared! AHHHHHHHHH! LEAVE! DON’T STAYYY. THIS PLACE IS FULL OF JUDGMENTAL, WELL-DRESSED, WELL-ADJUSTED PEOPLE AND YOU DON’T BELONG HEREEEE. THEY’LL KNOW YOU DIDN’T DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND YOU DON’T FIT IN AND YOU AREN’T SMART ENOUGH.” And then you try to sit down by your friend, giving them a small smile to show them that you’re okay when you’re actually panicking inside.
You ask, “What am I supposed to do again?”
Fear says, “Uh, pull out your binder, pretend to take notes or something.” And you do.
But then Anger appears and scolds you. “You dumb shit. Can’t you do anything right?” and Sadness appears again with a sad, heartbroken smile.
Disgust makes an appearance, repulsed by your actions. “Wow… you sad, sad excuse for a human being. What makes you think you can actually pretend to be a student when you’re absolutely worthless and undeserving of everything? You shouldn’t even be here. You should be disgusted with yourself.”
And then these emotions are all duking it out inside your head as you’re trying to listen to what the professor’s saying. The professor sounds like one of the adults from Peanuts. People are laughing at something they said and you try to laugh, too, but you have no clue what’s going on. There’s a battle going on inside your head, and Joy is again nowhere to be seen.
Before long, Fear has taken over, his eyes bugging out from his head. He’s panicking. Upset, you spill your coffee over your notes. “Oh my god, you did it. You did a terrible thing. Hurry, wipe it up with your sleeve before it runs over to your friend’s notes!” So you do. “Now you’re getting weird looks. But you didn’t have a napkin so I mean, you have to do what you have to do right?”
Disgust chimes in, “You gross me out. Look at the expression on your friend’s face. She looks disgusted.”
Fear takes over again. “What if they don’t like me anymore? Why am I so weird- WAIT. HOLD IT. JEEZUS TAKE THE WHEEL. You haven’t been paying attention to the professor THIS WHOLE TIME!”
Disgust says, “So you show up to class and you don’t even bother paying attention? See, this is exactly why you don’t deserve to be here. You can’t even pay attention in class, you fool.”
Anger explodes.
You start shaking from caffeine and Fear. Fear’s taken over the controls now. He’s screaming, “GET OUT! GET OUT! Leave the classroom. Pack your things and go! GO!!!! Everyone’s judging you! Everyone knows how you feel! Leave and go somewhere safer! Like your dorm room!”
So you hurriedly pack your things and leave in the middle of class because fear has overpowered your sense of self-consciousness.
And that’s what anxiety is like. Fear motivates you to action, makes you jittery and impulsive and irrational.
And all this time, Joy is nowhere to be seen.
Imagine repeating these scenarios again and again and again and again.
With Fear, Disgust, Anger, and Sadness controlling your brain and Joy nowhere to be found.
That was my reality for the longest time.. for perhaps two or three years. It only got particularly bad this semester, when I overloaded and took on far more than was humanly feasible.
Joy made a few appearances sometimes, particularly during academic breaks when I had no commitments.
She showed up a few times on the weekends and then disappeared.
And then she disappeared for a few days altogether.
And then they all disappeared — Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust — and I grew numb, emotionless.
And then there was nothing but pain, pain and darkness.
And then I nearly died.
But then I got help.
People helped me, and I reached out to them.
And then my emotions came back.
Joy was the last to come back, but she still did. She came back with a warm smile that flooded across her dainty features.
She enveloped me with a warm embrace.
And I no longer felt cold and sad and scared and angry and disgusted.
I felt loved.
