We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share quotes or lyrics with us that describe various aspects of their depression. Here are some of their most honest, heartbreaking and uplifting replies.
Suggested by Courtney, via Facebook
2. "It's so difficult to describe depression to someone who's never been there, because it's not sadness. I know sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it's that cold absence of feeling— that really hollowed-out feeling."
— J.K. Rowling
Suggested by Mollyanne Bryan, via Facebook.
3. "In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant… My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love."
— Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
Suggsted by Camilla Møldrup Jensen, via Facebook
4. "I don't know if you've ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That's why I'm trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning."
— Stephen Chbosky, Perks of Being a Wallflower
Suggested by Naomi Pilgrim, via Facebook.
Suggested by Kat, via Facebook.
6. "Everywhere I go, damn there I am."
— Ben Folds, "Fired"
Suggested by wootowl.
7. "Because I know I'm good at something, I just haven't found it yet."
— Mayday Parade, "Miserable At Best"
Suggested by Saby Kota, via Facebook.
8. "Present fears are less than horrible imaginings."
— Shakespeare, Macbeth
Suggested by clairg3.
10. "With each step I took, I felt myself sinking deeper into a quicksand where my identity vanished; it was the same emotion I'd had on the plane, flying over Egypt. This wasn't me walking in the moonlight. It wasn't me but a stand-in, fashioned out of plaster."
— Haruki Murakami, "Man-Eating Cats"
Suggested by Eamon.
11. "Depression to me is urine yellow. Washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss."
— Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
Suggested by Chewbecca.
12. "I know I'm often told / That there's a pot of gold / But I don't see no fucking rainbow and my coffee's cold / I know I should be grateful / I know I'm good and able / But I don't have the strength to get up from the kitchen table."
— Watsky (feat. Kate Nash), "Hey, Asshole"
Suggested by Ann Catherine, via Facebook.
Suggested by Ana Gloria, via Facebook.
14. "Life, that can shower you with so much splendour, is unremittingly cruel to those who have given up."
― Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot
Suggested by Jane Nelson, via Facebook.
15. "I'm barely getting through tomorrow / But still I won't let sorrow bring me way down."
― Dolly Parton, "Hard Candy Christmas"
Suggested by Megan Fifield-Meehan, via Facebook.
16. "Whatever you're feeling right now there is a mathematical certainty that someone else is feeling that exact thing. This is not to say you're not special, this is to say thank god you aren't special."
― Neil Hilborn, "This Is Not The End Of The World"
Suggested by Nataliea AbRamos, Facebook.
18. "That's the thing I want to make clear about depression: It's got nothing at all to do with life. In the course of life, there is sadness and pain and sorrow, all of which, in their right time and season, are normal -- unpleasant, but normal. Depression is an altogether different zone because it involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest."
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
Suggested by Camilla Møldrup Jensen, via Facebook.
19. "Every single night / The same arrangement / I go out and fight the fight / Still, I always feel the strange estrangement / Nothing here is real / Nothing here is right."
— Joss Whedon, "Once More With Feeling", Buffy Season 6
Suggested by Rebecca Bryant, via Facebook.
20. "And sometimes when you're on, you're really fucking on / And your friends they sing along and they love you / But the lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap / And it teases you for weeks in its absence."
— Rilo Kiley, "A Better Son/Daughter"
Suggested by Kaitlynne Birkett,via Facebook
22. "Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Suggested by lillayya.
23. "Depression's like a big fur coat / It's made of dead things but it keeps me warm."
— Ariel Bloomer, "Icon for Hire"
Suggested by TwirlyDagger
24. "You know, sometimes I feel like I was born with a leak, and any goodness I started with just slowly spilled out of me, and now it's all gone. And I'll never get it back in me. It's too late. Life is a series of closing doors, isn't it?"
— Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Bojack Horseman
Suggested by Axel.
26. "The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality."
— Andrew Solomon
Suggested by mimi.
27. "So why am I depressed? That's the million-dollar question, baby, the Tootsie Roll question; not even the owl knows the answer to that one. I don't know either. All I know is the chronology."
— Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story
Suggested by Jacelyn Luranc Sweeney, via Facebook.
28. "It is there, deep down, deep down, part of one, like one's breathing. However hard I work and tire myself I have only to stop to know it is there, waiting. I often wonder if everybody feels the same. One can never know."
— Katherine Mansfield, The Canary
Suggested by Joe Slade, via Facebook.
Suggested by Kelsey Naklick, via Facebook.
30. "When you're standing in deep water / And bailing yourself out with a straw."
—Jewel, "Deep Water"
Suggested by ben.
31. "I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks."
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Suggested by Haylee.
32. "I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft, feathery, turnings, its malignity."
— Sylvia Plath, "Elm"
Suggested by Lizzy.
34. "I'm selfish enough to want to get better, but I'm backwards enough not to take any steps to get there."
— Kevin Devine, "Ballgame"
Suggested by kendelll.
35. "I would rather be alone than pretend I feel all right."
— Arcade Fire, "Ready to Start"
Suggested by Kris Lem.
36. "Where are the people?" resumed the little prince at last. "It's a little lonely in the desert..."
"It is lonely when you're among people, too," said the snake.
— Antoine de St Exupery, Little Prince
Suggested by Axel.
38. "So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."
— Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Suggested by Iheartzorro.
39. "Failure is simply an opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."
— Henry Ford
Suggested by Katie M, via Facebook
