NB., that’s a fairly mild depression, as these things go – hellish though it was. But “it wasn't that I couldn't have fun – socialising was still pleasurable”. In bad cases that no longer applies; even one’s cherished pastimes become chores, devoid of joy. Read Jane Kenyon’s poem Having It Out With Melancholy. http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15920 (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15920)
I note this because it is important not to generalise from “mild” forms to the worse ones, as it is important not to generalise from “I had a bad day” to depression. There is bad, and there is really bad, and really really really bad, and so on a few times more, and at each stage it is hard to imagine for someone who has not been there just how much worse it can get, even if they have been to the previous. I have been further down the hole than you described, but I later understood I was nowhere near as deep as it goes and cannot appreciate what that must be like.
But any level, no matter how shallow, if you have never been deeper, is hell.
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Date: 2013-01-17 11:53 pm (UTC)NB., that’s a fairly mild depression, as these things go – hellish though it was. But “it wasn't that I couldn't have fun – socialising was still pleasurable”. In bad cases that no longer applies; even one’s cherished pastimes become chores, devoid of joy. Read Jane Kenyon’s poem Having It Out With Melancholy.
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15920 (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15920)
I note this because it is important not to generalise from “mild” forms to the worse ones, as it is important not to generalise from “I had a bad day” to depression. There is bad, and there is really bad, and really really really bad, and so on a few times more, and at each stage it is hard to imagine for someone who has not been there just how much worse it can get, even if they have been to the previous. I have been further down the hole than you described, but I later understood I was nowhere near as deep as it goes and cannot appreciate what that must be like.
But any level, no matter how shallow, if you have never been deeper, is hell.