Real-life Depression Symptoms

......you hit right on the head............OMG!

I say your symptom list be pasted right over the Manual page.....

It says your "cured".......awsome.   Even with antidepressants, I still can

not fathom that.

I never really thought of taste being a part of depression but I guess it is. I always thought of my obsessive eating as depression but not the fact that I didn't really taste what I was enhaling. Food is only in three catagories for me, somewhat sweet, somewhat spicy, or bland. I don't really taste the spectrum.

All the other symptoms on the list are a picture of my life. I just spent three days on one romance novel (I'm a slow reader) and my house just went to pot. Gives me something to think about.

HI, THIS IS JENNIFER TURNER, YOU REALLY DESCRIBED HOW I,M FEELING NOW. I HAVE LET MY SELF GO... NO HAIRCUT AND I NEED IT SO BAD...EVERYTHING IS OVERWHELMING...EVEN TO THE POINT OF NOT TAKING A BATH EVERYDAY...I LOOK IN THE MIRROW AND I SEE ONLY THE BAD THINGS...WEL, I NEED TO SAY THAT MY VISION IS SHOT, I WILL GET MEDICARE IN MARCH WHEN I,M 65, BUT I HAVE BEEN DEALING WITH, VERY BAD VISION, CHRONIC PAIN....DEPRESSION. AND NO MEDICAL INSURANCE FOR THE LAST 7 YEARS. ITS CRAZY HOW WHAT YOU WROTE IN THIS POST FITS ME. IT COULD BE ME WRITING IT. I HAVE NOT UPDATED IN A LONG TIME. WHATS THERE TO SAY? I FEEL LIKE CRAP AND I LOOK LIKE CRAP...I JUST WANT TO LET YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOU WROTE THAT IS JUST ABOUT ME....THANKS A LOT......GOD BLESS YOU....JENNIFER

All the things u have said so far are so true! (i seen to check mostly true on all the other tests as well)

Im only 14 but basic things like hygene have majorly gone down the drain. Forget about showers i think washing my hands is all i can manage at the mo!

And my homework... well ill let you guess the state thats in!

I have a list of jobs i should have done and well right now thats lieing in the gutter. My life is a mess!

Even questions like 'what do you want to eat?' are too much for me! and forgetful.. lets not start i cant even remeber when somthing important has to be handed in or my student note book is! Plus my axiety is so bad i can barley go outside alone withought thinking somthing bad will happen. wow glad to know i'm not the only one!

Thank you for posting this.

I can relate to your problems. In retrospect I can see that I have probably suffered from depression since I was a child. About 25 years ago, I started taking trazadone and my whole life changed for the better. In 96 I had a very stressful year and began taking prozac with the trazadone. I thought it was wonderful, but that's cause it made me manic. Since then I have been taking zoloft with success, but it seemed to lose it's effectiveness after a time. I am now in the process of changing to wellbutrin and it's been a rough couple of weeks. I have had stomach aches, headaches, diaharria (sp), insomnia, suicidal thoughts and everything else. Withdrawal from zoloft? Getting used to wellbutrin? Who knows. And now I just read that wellbutrin is bad for your liver and I don't know if I should continue with it. My psychiatrist (an angel) died a couple of years ago, so I am just dealing with my GP who is great, but doesn't understand about depression. Any advice appreciated. ps. My husband also suffers but not as bad as I do. He takes celexa.

Thank you for this eloquent list. I found it when I was searching for writing about being depressed. I'm doing an article for our college newspaper about suicide, and wanted some words from within, as it were, to describe how it feels to be depressed. I won't quote your list verbatim but it did give me some good material with which to start.

I'm so glad your depression is successfully treated. I'm sure you give hope to many.

YOU FEEL GUILTY ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!!

I too suffer from depression and didnt realise as a child that was why i always felt so sad and shut myself away in my room as much as possible. It took great effort to get to school as i didnt want to be with other people.I couldnt tell anyone as i didnt know what was wrong.

I have a grown family and a job i enjoy.I notice when i become tired i feel worse, tearful and worried, and no interest in ordinary every day things.It's like a black cloud has close in on me, weighing me down and you just feel such a relief when it lifts.

As soon as I saw this I had to send the list to my boyfriend.  These are all the things that I have been going through for years but was unable to express.  He would ask what's wrong and the most I could ever explain is that I am tired mentally.  I could never put my finger on the specific thing that was wrong just that I know things were not right.  Thank you for making this list.

Boy, your symptoms are right on with mine! Except I have a few more. Like having a failed back surgery and now I can barely walk, can't even cook for myself, clean house, shop for groc, and the list goes on. So I look at my life now as compared to what I had planned for myself and it's all been taken away from me. So, what else is there? What's to look forward to? What's the use? There's just a big nothing. Since I didn't have anyone in my life, I don't have someone else to worry about but now I figure there won't ever be anyone out there for me either. Who wants someone who is gimping along with a walker, falls down alot, can't walk very far without having to sit down, etc., etc.

Your lists is the first one I've seen that people can really relate too. I used to plagued by depression, it was part of the reason I studied psychology. I just wanted more understanding. I learned a lot, but like you said, when those symptoms come right out of the DMV it just doesn't resonate with people. One more thing I wanted to add to your list, was that I often just didn't feel like getting out of bed in the morning. I felt it was just easier to stay in bed so I didn't have to deal with the rest of the day. 

I always seem to find things that relate to me personally years after having had to struggle. Your list is spot on to what I've been going through my entire life, since childhood, age 5 - and not realising that this fishbowl feeling wasn't exactly ideal or had to be suffered through - I finally realised I was still/continually depressed when I was 18 and then again when I was 22 and now i'm 25 and it just seems...well...endless. The list of symptoms should be included in the websites which we all refer to as first call. Please try to make this list more available to those who need it. Although knowing the symptoms don't make them go away, it's a start.