Many of those suffering repeatedly proclaim that others do not understand the depths of their depression. To those I say… I have been there. Thankfully, I do not linger there for more than a day at most and most times less.

It is a time when all seems for nothing. A paralysis sets in that immobilizes the sufferer who feels lost and separate from the rest of humanity. Nothing matters, nothing interests, everything annoys… or you become without care. You do not reach out, they do not understand anyway, so what’s the use. The mind cannot overcome this. You languish, in the depths of sorrow, unhappiness, and then there is the hollow nothing. You sit and stare.

Plans and desires for the future are all on hold… you can function… but it seems only like your body becomes a mechanical thing… it does what it must and no more. If there are no obligations of job or life, then there is no function.

I know someone who suffers this scenario frequently. They go silent… for a week… maybe more. Where there seemed interest, there is nothing. You cannot draw them out of it. Depression like a thick mud has them in its grasp. They are trapped. If you try to pull them out often times they pull you in. No matter the foundation you stand on, no matter how firm… they can make mud out of it and trap you there as well.

I do not know the course of treatment that can assist them. The depression they suffer is toxic and spreads quickly… to attempt to help is to risk the disease as if it were some horrible plague. I can only wait and hope that they will rise out of the muck themselves. Then maybe I can at least try to help them keep out of it, if they want me to.