Anyone who has suffered from depression can tell you just how draining the illness is. What many people who don't have the disease don't know is just how much it can take away from you.
People with depression are often depicted as lazy when quite the opposite is actually true. Depression drains you of your energy so, even if you're aware of the piles of work on your desk and you desperately want to complete it all, your illness makes it nearly impossible at times.
You find yourself laying in bed, desperately wanting to do what needs to be done, but you're chained down. Plus, the belittlement that you constantly face doesn't help any. Nothing makes you feel like doing nothing more than someone yelling at you for doing nothing.
People with depression have to fight themselves everyday just to do the things that other people are able to do without question.
Depression also steals your drive. It takes things that were once pleasurable and turns them into chores. Scholarly young students tend to turn into depressed teenagers and young adults, loosing their drive for school and watching their grades slip. Artists who once found solace in their craft, now can't even pick up their tools without feeling drained.
This is a disease that makes you distaste living. Not everyone who is depressed is suicidial, but many people with depression do have a hate for life. It's just another thing that you have to do. Something you have to muster through everyday. You walk through everyday with your mind and body in a sort of haze, as depression also steals your normal way of life.
Depression also steals your emotions; not just happiness. Depression isn't just an endless sea of sadness. It's an endless sea of "eh." I'm not saying people who are depressed don't have emotions. They're not psychopaths, it just takes a lot for them to experience emotions, and they tend to feel almost muted.
This lack of emotions can also make everything feel much worse. Not being able to properly appreciate things really does take a toll on your mind. If you can't feel happy doing the things you know should make you happy, you kind of feel broken. This broken feeling can make it so much harder to push through the days.
This is quite evident during big events. I recently graduated high school, an event I shouldn't felt proud and ecstatic about. However, the entire event just didn't seem real. The entire time I didn't feel happy, or sad, nervous, scared or even excited. I just kinda felt, well I felt like this picture. (Yes, that is actually me at graduation, just overflowing with an abundance of pure joy.)
Depression steals the normal from your life. Knowing that there are people out there that can just get up out of bed and get things done everyday astounds me.