PART 2: EMOTIONS

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There seems to be this myth that people with depression are unable to feel emotion. Let me tell you that that is absolute rubbish!

Yes, we may feel emotionless at times, but at other times all we can wish for are those emotionless moments. A wave of immense sadness unlike you have ever experienced before (unless you have depression or a similar mental illness) starts deep within your being and makes its way to your heart and to every inch of your body, causing physical pain and discomfort, concentrated in your chest and spreading outwards. Probably the best thing I can compare it to is that painful numb feeling you get when have been sitting still for too long (like when writing exams).

So you see? Numbness is not necessarily without other feelings attached. There is so much more than what others see at the surface to people's emotions.

And people who have depression are able to feel happy at times. They can smile and laugh just like anyone else. At other times, however, the internal pain and darkness consumes us, blocking all the good in the world from us. It's times like these we wish for the emotionless times.

When the emotionless times come however, we wish to be able to feel and become restless and uneasy, but at the same time tired and have no energy, making it hard to escape.

Depressed people have emotions. They are also far more extreme than those who are "normal" with regards to mental health. I put normal in inverted commas because what is normal? What society classifies as normal is not truly normal: Those of us with mental illness are normal too. The only difference is that we just have to fight harder to survive.

Stay strong.

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