“We try to hide our feelings, but we forget that our eyes speak.”
– Anonymous
Introduction
Depression is one of those topics that is finally getting some headway. Massive quotes online talking about how to stop being depressed. Athletes are coming out on their platforms to speak about it. With the state of the world, can you really blame someone? The best thing we can do really is to make some heaven on earth, at least in your own world.
I even came across some Reddit and Quora posts that were pretty alarming. Topics like “Is death better than being alone?” “What are the effects of loneliness? Is it better or worse than being alone with nobody?” Someone who was divorced for ten years responded and said this: “It is much better being lonely than dying each moment of your life, living with the wrong person.”
Depression can hit from anywhere; it can be about work, love life, family, or not achieving personal goals. The list can go on for a while.
Let’s take a look at eight early signs that you might be experiencing depression.
1. Feelings Of Helplessness/Hopelessness
The constant feeling of failure. It feels like no matter what you do; the result will remain the same. Then when we feel that we can’t accomplish it, we feel worthless. Then we will continue this downward spiral with negative self-talk since we feel we can’t do anything. We start becoming super critical of ourselves. Then we’ll create this mindset that due to failures, we are just a burden to everyone around us. We begin to feel inferior and not belong anywhere.
2. Loss Of Interest
Losing pleasure/enjoyment in activities such as sports, hobbies, and going out with friends are usually early signs of depression. It’ll start to impact your relationship with friends and family since you won’t be as engaging. When it comes to depression, it is usually something people are nonverbal about until they come to terms with it and want to seek help.
3. Uncomfortable/Forced Happiness
People who suffer from depression tend to hide their symptoms and put on a happy face in front of others. So people won’t try to investigate it further. This is also known as “smiling depression.” It describes a person who masks their depression behind their smile. Smiling on the outside, but inside, there are feelings of internal hopelessness and sadness.
4. Less Optimistic
Another early sign of depression is being less optimistic overall about things. You’ll start to have a more pessimistic view of the world. You’ll begin to develop a trait called “depressive realism.” This means you’ll start to believe your viewpoints more strongly that you can control and not have another positive outlook on them.
Being critical about things is one thing, but a negative outlook on life can cause serious isolation. People like to be around other people who bring positivity into their lives.
5. Inconsistent Sleeping
With this one, it can go both ways. You can have a lack of sleep because your thoughts can be racing, and you can’t calm down. The second option can be that you are sleeping too much to avoid dealing with problems contributing to your reality. Depression and sleep do have a pretty close connection. Safe to say, people who have trouble sleeping can usually be linked to something that’s going on in their life that’s causing depression.
6. Low Self-Confidence/Self-Esteem
When you start feeling helpless, you’ll begin to feel hopeless, and eventually, your confidence will take a hit. After failing numerous times in a row or failing to make the right decisions, you start to question yourself. Then you’ll begin to have uncertainty and can’t trust yourself anymore to do the right thing. As humans, we love interactions with one another. If we don’t receive that validation from another person, we doom our minds into believing we are not doing something right.
7. Constant Overthinking
Have you ever sat down and wondered why, for hours, days, possibly weeks why a certain situation happened? Depending on the situation, this can sometimes make sense. However, if it starts getting to the point where even the most straightforward task takes you longer and complicates an easy answer? This can be an early sign of depression. If you are constantly second-guessing every decision you make or always imagining worst-case scenarios is an unhealthy way to live.
We tend to believe that consistently thinking and rethinking about things that bother us is problem-solving. This method/habit of overthinking doesn’t provide the result we are looking for. When we think about it, in reality, when we overthink, it creates mental stress by staying focused on the negative aspects, dwelling on the past and worrying about how it’ll affect our future.
8. Prefer To Be In Isolation
Depression isolation is usually one of the stepping stones toward depression. A person who actively isolates themselves from communicating or being around people is an effect that will happen over time and will likely get worse as time passes. Similar to forced happiness, this trait is a little more extravagant due to the fact that the person is not present. They don’t want loved ones or friends to worry about what’s happening. Especially when they are in a state where they can snap and lash out at someone who doesn’t deserve it. So they instead put themselves in isolation to protect themselves and others.
Conclusion
“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end.”
– Elizabeth Wurtzel
I do believe that when we suffer from depression deep down, it’s because we know we have the ability to overcome whatever is causing us to feel this way. We are just emotionally overwhelmed by it that we can’t think straight at the moment. We have to remember that growth is not linear; It’s a process. There will be days where you accomplish a lot, and days you haven’t been able to. That’s natural because every day provides the possibility of new problems to overcome or opportunities for growth.
Noticing these eight signs of depression can go a long way. The important thing is that we can’t let our negative experiences change our views on life. Depression is a serious issue that often gets overlooked and not discussed. I came across a quote by Robin Williams. He said,” I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.” Take time to talk to your friends, loved ones and see how they are doing. Just that little conversation can go a long way for them. You never know whose needs to hear their words for them to keep going.
My next post will be about how to deal with depression and steps to improve yourself in the process.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave one!