Depression is like being at the bottom of a mountain and needing to climb it to get back to civilization. You might be thinking it’s like being at the bottom of Everest, except that might be easier. It’s more like being at the bottom of Mauna Kea, which in it’s entirety is a mile higher than Everest and extends 19,700 feet below the Pacific Ocean. Because Depression is being submerged by this invisible force (water) and not being able to breath properly without help ( Therapy or Oxygen tank).
Now that you’re submerged, it’s time to climb that mountain, that mountain starts to represent impossible tasks. Every day tasks you struggle to complete anything from getting out of bed, cooking food for yourself, going two minutes down the block to the store, or finally completing that blog post you were meant to write for that psychology class.
You know those tasks will take you five minutes at the least to complete if not seconds, and maybe thirty minutes at most, that if you just do the task it will be over and done with. And yet you could say it was a mountain. The task seems daunting, you feel unprepared, and everyone around you is just telling you to do it and be done. But you just can’t seem to find your foot hold on that mountain. Every time you try to pull yourself up you slip back down. And so it goes until one day your foot finds purchase. And you’re moving up the mountain and everything is looking bright above the water level as you break surface until you realized that you don’t have the next foothold and a new task looms ahead and somehow you are right back at the bottom of that mountain.
References:
Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.A. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.