How do you explain depression to people who have never experienced it?

I would tell them it's like having a black cloud over you. It's a cloud that never goes away no matter how much you want it to. You want to be happy, but you can't be because your head is clouded and you feel sad and don't know why.

Hyperbole and a Half has some great comics on depression that I feel are very accessible for people who aren't clear on what it is like: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html The Bloggess is another funny person online who writes about and deals with depression, though her stuff tends to be more long-format. I find that humor can be very effective in disarming the tension surrounding trying to explain something that is often difficult to explain!

Its like being stuck in a really dark whole that you can't see the light from. You can't see anything positive from it and its just horrible.

It's something that has many forms and can impact on people in diffrent ways ! It can feel like the person with depression has no goals , motivation , will to live or any involvement with the community ...

Depression usually starts with even the smallest problems. Then after experiencing these problems, you will feel sad. And then all of the problems get on top of the other and you can't stop your emotions and it's driving you insane and you feel more and more sad. And at night, you can't help but to think of it over and over again and you feel worse. That's how it felt for me.. And sometimes, it get's too much and it's hard for me to handle it.

It is a feeling of loneliness, sadness lasting for more than a few hours, and a feeling of weakness.

Depression seems like a pit, it surrounds you and swallows you whole. It's the feeling of numbness where you don't feel happy or sad you just feel nothing. It makes you feel like there is something wrong with you and like nothing can be done. When really it can be helped, you just need to reach out.

I normally say to keep it simple: A constant feeling of sadness or void, as if you were grieving, but permanently, sometimes without a explainable reason. Some days will be worse than others, but you always feel upset over something, with no clear way to solve it..

Try to tell them that depression is like feeling sad all the time. It's like you just feel sad and cannot stop the feeling.

Depression is being stuck inside a glass container where you're drowning and there are people outside just watching. You can't reach out to them. It sucks.

It is a little hard for me to believe that one has neva experienced depression, but he or ahe is lucky if so. It is state where one feels low, sad, loss or increase in appetite in an abnormal level, loss or increase of in an abnormal level, sudden fluctuations in weight, loss of energy, etc. In total you do nothing but cry, or feel sad.

I think depression is kinda like drowning but you look around and everyone else is fine but you aren't

It's not really something that can be "cured." It's something that can really weigh you down if you're trying to move forward. Something that develops in many age groups, even for children to teens. It's something that traps you if you struggle with it. Something hard to "escape." But, with self care and support, there is a way to move forward even with the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Feeling chronically tired without any cogent reason.Feeling suddenly overwhelmed by problems and challenges even though intellectually knowing that these could be solved by us easily.

Explain the best you can the feelings you tried when you were depressed and try to make them to feel these feelings and theirs. Use a lot of details and talk with a secure tone on voice, in a slow way. Feel yourself these feelings and try to help people to feel them too. You have to use a lot of empathy. Describe some situations and some personal feelings, it could help, but first of all, I think you have to trust each other.

Depression is basically the art of depreciating our self worth, relations starting from something we shouldn't have paid too much reliance upon.

Imagine a dark cloud hanging over your life. Every where you go, its there. Everything you do, no matter how fun it is, there is always that dark cloud over your head. It never leaves from the moment you wake up to the moment you finally fall asleep. Its even there when you let out a forceful smile. That's depression.

I explain it like your life is on autopilot, you feel numb and have little energy and interest to do anything, you feel emotional constantly and want to cry.

It's like being in the middle of field in the dead of night, with no light to know how to get out of it, where to turn to or what to do.

Well, to put it simply, I don't. Not really. Depression is overwhelming, when I'm in a low phase there's nothing I can do about how I feel, and it literally feels like my emotions, responses, everything are out of my control. The hard part is explaining how I feel, like I'm trapped in my body and nothing is happy.