Depression is something that affects a big portion of the human population. I am one of the unlucky ones that has to live with it on a daily basis. It took me a long time to realize that I’ve been dealing with depression for a majority of my life. I mean how can you know you have depression when you only have one frame of reference. Now I’m not saying that I’ve been depressed or sad every single day of my life. More like I feel that my average level of contentment with life is a lot lower than that of the average person under the circumstances that I’m living in. In the past, my depression was a lot easier to manage, but in the last couple of years it has turned into something that I have to deal with everyday instead of a couple of days a month. I’m losing this battle that I didn’t even know I was fighting. My body has been screaming at me telling me that something was wrong, but I was oblivious. Or I guess I was just fighting the battles in the wrong places with the wrong ammunition.

“It took me a long time to realize that I’ve been dealing with depression for a majority of my life. I mean how can you know you have depression when you only have one frame of reference.”

The day I realized that I probably have been dealing with depression was in September of 2017. Since then I’ve been asking the people around me a lot more questions about themselves and how their version of life feels. I’ve also spent a lot of time the past couple of years reading about people’s depression. It took me a long time to accept that I had depression because I couldn’t comprehend that other people’s reality was a lot different than the one I was living. I kept looking into my past and noticed that the way I felt was mostly due to depression. I naively thought that the way I felt was normal. That having suicidal thoughts and all the other symptoms that come with depression was normal. That people just learned to better cope with that voice telling you to kill yourself.

From May 2019 to January 2020 I’ve been using lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to treat my depression. It’s been almost two months since the last time I’ve microdosed LSD. One of the reasons I wanted to stop was so I could feel my depression again and be able to record exactly how it feels. Microdosing LSD has been life changing and has been very successful in treating my depression. I’ve used it for the better part of 9 months and have learned a lot more about my depression. The past couple of weeks have been fucking terrible and I can say I’ve had suicidal thoughts everyday for the past 18 days as of writing this (March 23, 2020). When I’m microdosing LSD I can say that I don’t have suicidal thoughts at all. I feel like I’m experiencing life the way a normal, healthy human being is experiencing it. Maybe even better. Without further ado, I’ll do my best to explain how my depression feels like.

Depression and anxiety go hand in hand. For some reason my version of depression doesn’t include anxiety. However, I’m someone who doesn’t really get anxious very often. The only times I experience anxiety is when I’m doing something for the first time or when I’m uncertain of a potentially negative outcome where I might be at fault. I’ll say the thing that makes me anxious the most is going on roller coasters. I find it odd that I don’t get anxiety as much as other people do. When reading about people’s depression and anxiety struggles I am very grateful that anxiety is not a part of my depression. However, I’ve always been a pretty laid back person that just goes with the flow so maybe I have learned to not let the future/unknown affect me as much.

My depression comes with a lot of suicidal thoughts and ideations. I fairly often think about how it would feel to dive off a tall bridge or how it would feel to put a rope around my neck. I wonder if I would be able to do it. Or if I would be able to pull the trigger to a gun held against my head. A couple of years ago, I felt sad about leaving the people I care about. These days I indulge in those suicidal thoughts. I allow them to come into my head and I savor each one. I am no longer afraid of death. I’ve become very close to the voice in my head that tells me to kill myself. I fucking laugh at that voice and it no longer affects me negatively like it once did. I’m not sure if this is exactly healthy but it leaves that suicidal part of me perplexed. I no longer value my life like I once did. I find life to be one giant joke and so insignificant. It makes me wonder why I even cared about so many things in my past. I wonder why I cared about what others thought about me. Or if people would like me. Or why I sacrificed so much to do well in school or to do a good job at my place of employment. I just feel like so many things aren’t worth the sacrifice. Especially when I see how much people seem to only care about money, fame, status, etc. To me life isn’t worth it. Because once you die, you stop existing. Or at least I hope that’s what happens. I’m ready for this ride to be over.

I’ve spent a long time thinking of the best analogy to my depression. The best comparison of how my depression or I guess my suicidal thoughts feel would be to compare them to hunger. When you are hungry you feel something in your body alerting you to eat. If you have ever fasted or skipped meals eventually the feeling of hunger leaves you. But the feeling of being hungry always comes back. My depression is similar to this. My suicidal thoughts are always there in the background. When I’m not engaging my brain with something thought intensive is when I hear the suicidal parts of me. My depression also has a lot of other symptoms besides just suicidal thoughts. When you are hungry, something you might experience feeling weak or you might get a headache. You also might feel easily irritated or quick to anger. Depression is like hunger, only, how do you satisfy depression? At least with hunger you know to give your body food and everything goes back to normal. With depression my body alerts me that something is wrong. I get these fucking headaches very similar to when I don’t eat food. I feel weak and fatigued. Almost like when you have the flu and all you want to do is sleep and lay in bed in hopes of feeling better. But the depression is always there no matter how much you sleep or how much you try to ignore it. Like a splinter stuck in your brain always reminding you that something isn’t right. Eventually the suicidal thoughts start happening more often and the voice is louder. You try fighting it but you just feel so shitty. Every. Single. Day. You sleep for 8 hours but still wake up tired. You try to engage with others but just don’t have the energy anymore to fake how you truly feel. The things you once enjoyed doing no longer bring you joy. All that is left are your thoughts. A broken record on loop telling you that there is no hope. Why even try? Just fucking die. Just fucking kill yourself. Sometimes it tells me that I am not worthy or that I don’t matter. Or that people don’t care about me. My brain lies to me. Something inside of me is poisoning my brain with these thoughts. And these thoughts poison my life. They hurt me and the people around me. These thoughts are relentless. They are there when I drive. When I go out for a run. When I take a shower. When I lay in bed trying to go to sleep but the insomnia prevents it. My depression is exhausting.

“All that is left are your thoughts. A broken record on loop telling you that there is no hope. Why even try? Just fucking die. Just fucking kill yourself.”

This is a list of the symptoms I feel when I’m depressed:

• Anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure). I don’t enjoy the things that I once enjoyed doing. Anhedonia brings a feeling of boredom and restlessness.
• Fatigue. I feel like I rarely get a good night’s sleep. I feel like I’ve had chronic fatigue for a good portion of my life. I always blamed it on being overweight.
• Insomnia. I can’t go to sleep. My sleep schedule has been irregular my entire life. I tend to stay up late very often because I hate laying in bed with my thoughts.
• Apathetic. I don’t feel motivation to accomplish the goals I’ve set for myself. Things like chores and hygiene don’t matter when you feel depressed.
• Procrastination. It is like my brain can’t figure out that I’m just fucking over future me. I’ve struggled with this a lot and now believe that my depression could be a culprit.
• Libido. Weirdly enough my sex drive is through the roof when I’m depressed. I guess I’m just trying to get that dopamine rush anyway I can.
• Dehydration. It’s almost like my brain doesn’t know that water is essential. I’m mentioning this because I drink a lot more water while microdosing.
• Patience. I have very little patiences for people. I feel like I have less control of my emotions. If something upsets me I can explode on people.
• Headaches. When my depression was the worst I started getting these headaches that felt like they were right behind my eyes or near my temple areas.
• My digestive tract doesn’t make any sounds. It’s like everything is dead in there. When microdosing I feel like my GI tract is a lot more active.
• My bowel movements are a lot more inconsistent and/or harder. When my depression was the worst I was constipated all the time. Lots of blood in my stool.
• My body seems to run hotter. Almost like it can’t regulate itself. I wake up drenched in sweat or half naked. It prevents me from staying asleep, too.