Hannah Holmes Journals

My darkness has returned. I call it my darkness because it feels very specific to me, even though I know I am not the only person in the history of the universe to experience depression. Of course not. Lots of people have depression. I am not unique or special, right? Or maybe, I am not alone is a better way to think of it. I can be unique -- everyone is unique, ironically -- but I can also acknowledge that others have experienced similar, if not exactly the same, situations and feelings.

Is depression something you have or something you feel?

I have a chenille sweater. I am wearing it right now. But I don't have depression in the same way I have a sweater. Depression is not an accessory. It isn't something I can touch. It isn't tangible or tactile. But I do feel it: the heaviness, the slowness, the fogginess, the stickiness. "Stickiness" seems like an odd adjective to apply here but to me, depression often feels like trying to go about your daily life while wading through a swimming pool filled with honey or molasses, so the word "sticky," somehow, feels appropriate.

When I am depressed, I watch a lot of television. When I am anxious, I watch no television at all, because I can't relax or sit still. When I am doing well, I watch, what is probably -- I hope -- a healthy or normal amount of television.

I spent most of my early twenties depressed. Therefore, I spent most of my early twenties watching television.

Scrubs. Glee. Desperate Housewives. Ugly Betty. Gossip Girl. New Girl. Modern Family. And so many others I don't remember or can't remember or can't think of right now. Maybe I'll look up my Netflix history later.

How to describe depression: heavy, shadowy, dark, stone-like, deep, empty, unending. I am under water. I am surrounded by fog. I am weighted down. I am sad. I am shadowy and twisty and uninterested in the details of life. Life moves slowly. Or does life move quickly, and I move slowly? I am like a sloth without the smile. I sit anchored to my stone-like darkness while life spins all around me with all of it's uninteresting mundane details that I would rather not bother with at all. I sit on the couch and think about the things I need to do, and think about how I would rather not do them. It is painful to do the things.

I am scheduled to have coffee and breakfast with friends tommorow. I don't want to go, but I will go. I think. It will be difficult to get dressed and ready. It will be difficult to feel like going. But I will go. I think. I don't think I will cancel this time.

I don't want to say I have depression. I want to say I feel depression. I feel it, mostly in my stomach. Also in my forehead. Sometimes in my throat. Often in my legs when they feel weighted down, like with bags of imaginary rocks.

For a mental condition, depression feels overbearingly physical.