Society equating depression with sadness is a great disservice to the condition. It's quite common for it to present as just ... nothing. An emotional void where you might expect emotions to be. Things that would be expected to make you happy just don't. Things that would make you sad, the same. Your feelings are depressed in the sense that their impact is just muted across the board.

A lack of motivation is also a very common indicator. You're just missing the drive to do something because the emotional rewards that you expect to happen when you accomplish your goals just aren't there.

[–] Dungrad@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

For me I always liked to describe it as feeling like a tool. You just work as expected when needed. There is no feels, no life, no identy. When needed, you function exactly in the way society expects* and then you get put back into the dark garden shed.

hence also the "Depression doesn't look like Depression"

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah that describes me pretty well, but I’m not bummed. I mean, not really.

I don’t know. I could use therapy, but I must not have been honest enough because through my drug rehab program I was in therapy and they decided that I didn’t need it any more. They said that if I felt like I did, I could tell them, but I always want to just grab my meds, joke with the doctor, and get out of there.

I don’t know. If I am depressed I’m surviving. I wasn’t surviving before. I was just paralyzed and waiting for death. I felt like a living thing though without having to think about it, but I didn’t want to be a living thing. Now I do, and my life is objectively a mess but I’m doing better than I ever have, so it’s hard to say I’m depressed when I’m doing better than ever.

Life is a challenge, and that sucks because so far for me, it has flown by.

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Eh, maybe I am depressed. I was miserable when I was younger though and I’ll take what I have now any day haha.