Stages of depression

Stage one:

You feel it’s something wrong and you’re generally not happy with your life.

Since there are always ups and downs in life, you just let it be, because it will go away.


Stage two

You start feeling more and more unhappy and get lower and lower. You perspective becomes more negative on everything around you.

You don’t really understand what is happening with your mind. All it seems to do nowadays is just lie there without ideas or any energy and initiative.


Stage three

You try to fight it. Try to talk to people, try to smile to them and look and act like nothing is wrong or changed within you.

You hope this will get things back to normal. And you are very good at pretending, so what everyone can see is a smiley, happy person.

This only adds more to your depression, as it underlines the real gap between how you actually feel and what you are trying to project to the outside people. So social contact actually makes you realise how low you are. You now don’t like people so much and don’t really want to be around them.


Stage four

This is just spiralling down the hill. You can’t be bothered to think or feel. You’ve got no people around you, and you are sinking deeper and deeper in your own mind.

You want to sleep, as sleep brings peace and quiet with itself. No bad thoughts, but a completely flat mind.

The need to sleep becomes stronger and stronger and you find it helps. It’s what you do when you are awake that is the problem.


Stage five

You try to get yourself together to think about this thing properly, but you can’t. What is the problem? How can you solve it? You know all the theory about what you should so, what you are supposed to do, but somehow you don’t feel like you are controlling any of it.

You just feel hopeless.


Stage six
You need to talk. To anyone, someone. You need to try and say whatever you want to get out of your mind. Even if it doesn’t make any sense, even if it is so hard to put words to the chaos in your mind. Even if you have said it so many times that it just seems it lost its meaning.

You need to talk.

You need to get help.


Stage seven

You try very hard and manage to talk to someone about it. Your words make no sense and you feel stupid, you feel like you are complaining about nothing. You feel just as small as an insect crawling on the ground.

It now becomes real. Talking about it also makes you realise that there is a problem to address. And hopefully that someone you talk to, will guide you on what you need to do. Get help from a professional.


Stage eight

Speak to your GP and have some blood tests done – it, at least gets the physical part out of the way and if there is a physical problem, it will hopefully get caught in time, so they can do something about it.


Stage nine

Address the problem – have a bit of courage, a bit of spontaneity and a drop of craziness.

With me, it was to decide to quit my job. In a month’s time. That will give me 2 months to find another one. If I will not be able to do it in this time, I have a few options.

But the thought that I will be free and I know the exact time and date when I will do - that saved me.

It doesn’t feel like going up from here is going to happen over night. I am deeply covered with darkness. I just have to take it one day at a time and work my way through.

That’s as far as I got till now.