
Stalkers are a special kind of scary.
That is just a cold, hard fact of life that we must deal with.
And for some reason, these people get fixated on others.
They think they're in love... meanwhile we're calling the police and moving cities.
There is nothing more horrifying than having your life held hostage by someone.
Redditor rentinghappiness wanted to see who would be willing to discuss what it took to live through this scary life experience. They asked:
"People who have had a stalker, how did you realize you were being stalked and what ended up happening?"
I was had an ex who wouldn't take the hint. Keep my phone blowing up for months. I'm lucky though, finally they gave up. Others haven't been as fortunate.
“this is not goodbye”
"It was my ex. When we broke up it was all very dramatic and he got on a bus across the country the same day for whatever reason and sent a long message from the bus ending with 'this is not goodbye' I said 'yes it is, good luck.' Two years later I met my now husband and I suppose he moved back after 3 years. I started seeing him everywhere."
"He followed the two of us around Walmart for 45 minutes until I just posted up near a security guard and slipped out as he tried to wait for me to get away from the security guard. Then I saw him wandering around near my mother's house, but I had at that point moved in with my husband."
"Then I saw him outside of my work. He was clearly trying to get the courage to come in and he was also very clearly high. Some of the regular police officers came in by chance for their coffee and he left when they arrived. Then he figured out the general location where I was living and I saw him sort of wandering around a few times. I didn’t go home when I saw him, I went and sat in a public place for a few hours."
"Then I changed places of work and I saw him outside about three times. I was near a major transportation hub so I tried to ignore it. But when he started doing the pacing/tweaking/chain smoking thing again I figured I oughta do something so I waited for a family friend I knew would be in who was pretty domineering and I knew would go to bat for me and let him know who it was and what he was doing."
"He went outside and told my ex off I suppose. And scared him I guess cause he left quite quickly. My family friend was a bus driver so I gave him a picture and he shared it with some drivers along my regular route and as long as I stuck to that route the few more times I saw him trying to get on my bus we drove right past him or the wrong door opened to let people off and not let him on."
"We finally moved again and I quit my job because I had been bouncing around the same chain and was easy to find. Since then I have seen him once but he didn’t see me and I think it was unrelated because he actually bought something. I just sat in the camera room and watched till he left. It’s been an additional 5 years now so I assume he has figured himself out."
"I got an air of doom every time I saw him. He was kind when we dated, never abusive. But he was anti drugs and anti smoking and so seeing him high and things like that set off alarm bells. I know he was not well when he returned. I don’t know what would have happened had he gotten close to me. Maybe nothing. But every bone in my body was screaming danger. So I trusted my gut and took steps to maintain distance and I was okay. The police wouldn't have done anything. No threats were uttered and we were always in public. But all in all it turned out ok."
rkspm
Why are you up so late?
"I had a stalker in high school, and he didn't make it a secret."
"We were friends at first, kind of talking romantically, but I was very shy when it came to relationships or being physical. We had never even kissed before when he asked if he could send a song he wrote about me. It made me very uncomfortable and I asked him not to send it, but he did anyway. I expressed my discomfort and tried to continue the friendship, but it was just not working because he would still write me poems and send me weird songs."
"He started following me to my classes even though his were on the other side of school, but he wouldn't speak to me at all. It was insanely uncomfortable. This continued for weeks. He started sending me mean messages anonymously online and sending me songs with scary titles. He sent me that Smith's song The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get every single day, sometimes multiple times."
"Then one day at lunch he gave me a hand written poem and, I can't remember what all it said but the end was something about how he wanted to watch me get eaten alive by sharks. While friends, I had told him sharks were my biggest fear. I showed my teacher the poem and she freaked out and took it to the guidance counselor. She knew all the previous incidents so the letter made her worried. Especially how his handwriting changed when he was writing about me dying."
"I ended up getting called into a meeting with the principal, a guidance counselor, and the teacher I told. They even called my mom in and we all sat down and talked about what would be the best thing to do. The principal was really nervous he would do something crazy, so he said I should just avoid him as much as possible and be polite anytime we may interact. Basically how I was already handling it."
"I'm not sure if they ever spoke to him about it, but the last interaction I had with him still creeps me out to think about. I was up very late, and received a text from him, 'Why are you up so late? You should get ready for bed.' He had been to my place once before and I lived very close to the school. I'll always wonder if he was outside my house that night."
rat-kabob
I may be paranoid...
"It started while I was still in high school, he would be in a few of my classes and we would occasionally see each other around town (a very small, rural town). It slowly turned into him showing up at some of my friend group's hangout spots and saying that I had inspired him to start looking into similar hobbies. We thought it was kinda weird but just brushed it off and avoided him."
"Flash forward a couple weeks into the start of summer vacation. He had found or followed me to all of my favorite places and my work even though both were sometimes towns over from our own. I would see his car at parks where I did outdoor painting, at my place of work as well as at friends' houses, and he would drive passed the house of the family I nannied for during my days on."
"I thought it was creepy and told local authorities, but they told me not to worry. This went on for the rest of high school and up until graduation. I didn't tell anyone what university I was going to and lied claiming it was one hours away from mine. He was accepted and attended there while I left for another. He found out after a semester that I wasn't there and showed up at my dorm hall."
"He tried to break in and convince me and other people in the building to just let him in. I hid out in another girl's room until my friend was able to pick me up and take me to her boyfriend's off-campus apartment. I found out he was arrested the next morning for assaulting an RA. I called and showed them the evidence I had for his persistent stalking and finally filed a restraining order."
"He just got released a few months ago and I have never been more nervous. I'm just happy my current job and living area has amazing security and they all have pictures and his information to be safe. I may be paranoid, but better safe than end up on a true-crime podcast."
MalkiaBahari
From Church!
"He followed me home from church! He left long letters on my car every night for about a week. He was a lot older than me. The police spoke with him and he left town. I know how lucky I am that it was so simple. It was a small college town. I only know what the police told me, which was that they located him through the letters and the description of his car, found out he was not a resident, and told him there would be charges if he didn't move on."
"I realized he had followed me home the first day, so I parked at a different house and even walked into the back yard to try to throw him off. I didn't have a garage so when he came back to the neighborhood it wasn't hard for him to see my car and he started leaving the letters."
ExxoMountain
leave her alone...
"My wife did, it became a real problem. He was a maintenance man at the school where she taught. She was throwing out a lot of old, damaged books, he asked if could have them for his kids, of course. After that he wanted to always be there, wherever my wife was, he was always sweeping or cleaning near her room."
"Then one day in the winter, my wife got a flat right after leaving school, it was getting dark and her new best friend is there to fix it. While changing the tire, he started asking sexual questions, he wanted to know if she ever had a black man. Of course she said nothing."
"It got worse and the school administration was ignoring it, I was now going way out of my way to take her and to pick her up from school, she was scared. Then he said something to her while she was eating in the cafeteria, she lost it, she just started screaming and crying for him to leave her alone."
"They sent her home for a few days paid leave. Since the school was no help I went to see 2 school board members I knew, but not well. I told them that I had hired an attorney and would be suing the school district unless my wife felt safe. They moved the custodian to another school, but it took months before my wife felt safe. The custodian got in trouble at the next school and was arrested. We never heard from him again."
Disposable70
Well that is a mess of scary. How are people allowed to act out like this?
“you again?”
"I have a weird kind of related story… there is a man in my town that for the last 15 years I see him constantly, almost everywhere I go he’s there, at least 3 times a month… the grocery store, the corner store, the gas station, Walmart, the liquor store… occasionally we catch each other’s eye and look at each other like 'you again?' and kinda laugh it off."
"It has come to be a little bit of a joke where I will come home and tell my husband 'guess who I saw at the store today?' The only catch, he’s always at these places first!!! so it’s ME who looks like the stalker!"
Pinkiepie1111
Freaky
"I worked as a secretary at an adult school when I was 18. An adult student kept bothering me taking pictures of me outside the office etc... I quit that job and got him banned from the school. Fast forward 3 years later I’m in a relationship 6 months pregnant and I’m working at a drs office."
"A police officer shows up and tells me I’ve had a private investigator on me for a few weeks but he reported his client to the police because his client said he was my husband but the PI after following me for a few weeks figured out he wasn’t and was stalking me. He went to jail for a few days never heard from him again it’s been 19 yrs... freaky a** crap."
lola2203
Crazy
"He wasn’t subtle about it. He threatened me by phone and email, followed a moving truck to my new apartment, ignored police instructions to stop contacting me multiple times, then contacted me through other people, showed up in random places in my new city."
"It only stopped after he got arrested for assault (on someone else) and ultimately moved to a different city, where he was again arrested for assault. That last part I only know because I was regularly looking him up on court records to see if he was free."
TerrifyinglyAlive
Be careful out there. Stay aware of the people around you.
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And there are just as many grievances for which we are not at all sorry.
Curious to hear about people's track record of their questionable behavior, Redditor NanoPKx asked:
"What is something bad you have done with no regrets?"
Is it petty theft or flat out stealing? You decide.
The Parting Gift
"'Forgetting' to bring back a company ipad after they forgot about me having it. Actually they never asked for it back so I still have it and use it."
– Koetjeka
Furry Companion
"I stole a barn kitten while delivering packages for FedEx. He kept climbing my legs and getting into the van, sitting under the wheel when I tried to back out (it was a steep driveway, no way to swing the van around). I called the number on the package, looked the name up on facebook, called the local non-emergency to get contact info, all failed."
"So I took him. Now, if you're not from a rural environment, you might not understand that barn cats like that are 'no-man's-cats.' For all the owners know, he got sick or got got by a coyote. And he would have died, because when we got him to the vet he had a nasty upper resp infection and some other nasties."
"Now, one deformed nasal passage and the cutest snore later, we have a bonkers little orange cat with the heaviest penchant for snuggling I've ever seen (his name is Monty btw)."
"Edit: I forgot to pay my Cat Tax: https://imgur.com/a/HIXS4us"
"Edit Part 2: Monty loves the attention. Thank you for loving him as much as we do :3"
"MmmmMMMMRrrrrrrrrrrAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW" -Montgomerey Valentine, 2022
– SonOfSkinDealer
The Dirty Treat
"A housemate of mine kept eating mine and my girlfriends food and even though I asked him to stop the only thing he would ever say is 'I thought it was mine' then keep eating it."
"Well I bought my girlfriend some ice cream she really enjoys and she put the half she didn’t finish back in the freezer. Well when she want to get the rest it was gone and it made me madder than I think it probably should have."
"The very next time I saw him and somehow keeping a straight apologetic face I told him how he accidentally ate our sex ice cream and that bits of it had been on our parts etc. I told him I felt guilty not to tell him and that I had to apologise for him to eat such a thing."
"I will never forget the face he made when I told him. A face of pure self disgust and shock to which all he had to say was 'I wish you never told me that' and proceeded to move out around a month later."
"Although he didn’t actually eat sex ice cream, like why the f'k would you put it back after use anyway? Sometimes I wonder if I went to far but in that moment I just did not care at all. He still doesn’t know it isn’t true and I’ll probably never see him again."
"F'k you Vitas buy your own food."
– SpicyDolphin74
Vengeance is sweet.
Payback Time
"A drunk driver hit my parked car, left a huge dent in the front driver’s side door, and then drove away. I happened to be looking out the window at the time and saw the whole thing, including his plate number. Cops got there not long after and took my statement. After a couple days and a couple phone calls, I found out nothing was going to come of it because he was the son of the sheriff the next county over."
"Fast forward a couple months, I see his car parked behind a local bar within walking distance of my apartment. I got out my hunting knife and sliced all four of his tires, and made a couple trips around it destroying the paint job. Yellow Pontiac Sunfire, and I still remember the goddamn plate number even after almost 20 years."
– IgnoreMe304
For The People
"I was a GM for a retailer that was going out of business. During the liquidation I let my employees that worked until the end store product they wanted to buy in a closet I claimed I didn't have a key to. Oh the final days I sold them all the items they requested for 95% off. 70" tvs, ipads, gaming laptops whatever they requested."
– Midnights606
Surreptitious Swap
"Years ago I worked for a wealthy dude who was married to someone semi-famous. He would waltz in every morning and talk about the fantastic dinner he had the night before, how he hung out with some other famous person or whatever else."
"He paid me peanuts. I had a hard time making ends meet."
"I was the office assistant and IT guy. So it comes time to get a new computer for one of the designers. I spec something out, and show it to him. It was a ripper of a machine for the time (early 2000s). But it wasn’t expensive enough for bossman."
"So I added a really high end graphics card. Boss was happy then. The card added nothing for the designer: they only did illustrator and photoshop."
"So I came in that weekend and swapped the graphics card for my aging one from home."
"No one ever knew. Or cared. And I got a new graphics card."
– Dudeinairport
When times are tough, people had to do what it took to survive.
T.P. Crisis
"In college I was so poor I would steal toilet paper from the supply closet in our major building."
– Business_Loquat5658
Hungry College Buddy
"I stood watch for a college friend who was going hungry because he’d been disowned and his roommates had made living with him intolerable after he came out."
"I was loosely affiliated with an off campus program with local churches that gave free student dinners on Thursdays. We would go to church to eat, then bring dishes into the kitchen."
"Anyway, he would go in there and steal stuff like peanut butter, literal bread (not an allegory), granola bars etc. while I watched out for the pastor."
"Eventually we both got caught, the pastor for the college students got a bit mad because he was responsible for us while we were there to eat. And I think it was offensive on some level to steal from church. But then he saw what my friend was taking, and asked him if he had enough to eat. My friend shamefacedly said no, not usually."
“'Okay, fine. Put the food back, and come with me.' Took my friend grocery shopping instead, got him connected with the food pantry and community garden at church instead."
– SchnarchendeSchwein
Based on these examples, people didn't twice about their actions in the heat of the moment.
Within reason, we all gotta somehow get by.
But do you think their actions deserve punishment?
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When a person sees someone they care about going through a struggle or crisis, their instinct is to uplift them with positive advice.
But sometimes, the wisdom imparted by friends isn't always helpful or relevant to the situation.
Curious to hear from strangers online who could do without specific knowledge, Redditor Saibotnl1 asked:
"What life advice can just f'k off?"

These Redditors have a problem with how certain people have on outlook on life.
Time To Rest
"Sleep when you’re dead."
"Cool, but you’re going to be dead a lot sooner."
– Tag2graff
Irrelevant Sadness
"People have it so much worse than you so don’t be sad!"
– notrachelmar
"To that I like to say, 'people have it so much better than you so don't be happy!'"
– ___jupiter____
Your Life Path
"Almost anything relating to what age you must be in order to buy a house, have children, marry, have a profession, or do anything else. Seriously, everyone's life is different from everyone else's. Make your life the way you want it to be. If you so desire. Up to you."
– Frn071
On The Contrary
“Cheaters never prosper”
"Yes, they f'king do."
– waqasnaseem07
People can get out of any situation they find displeasing.
But others feel people should just "stick it out."
Ignoring Bullies
"Just ignore bullys or get someone else to handle it for you. I have never seen this work, only makes it worse. The only effective way I've seen to deal with them is by not making yourself an easy target and make them scared to f'k with you again. If going psycho on their a** is the only thing they'll respond to that's their fault. Also want to add in schools they will punish you for self defense but that punishment is only sitting around a few hours in detention or sitting around at home with a suspension. The punishment is temporary boredom, it's absolutely nothing compared to being bullied and when it's over the important message will still stand that you will not tolerate being a victim."
– User Delted
Remain to be Miserable
"Stick it out"
"Whether that's sh**ty jobs, shi**y relationships, shi**y living situations..."
"By all means don't just give up on things when you face challenges, but if something feels wrong or is wrecking your peace then take some control and change it if you can!"
– petitezoey
"Easy for you to say," might be an auto-response to these suggestions for many people.
Invitation For Recklesslessness
"Live like everyday was your last"
Yall know what people do when they learn they have a single day left to live?"
– LimeGrass619
A Possible Consequence
"I did that as a teenager and ended up homeless and addicted to heroin. Didn’t pan out for me too well."
"19 years sober though today."
– Open-Section-7263
A Practical Approach
"If I knew with certainty that I had one day left, I'd double-check all my financials, my will, and my insurance policies, make sure my wife had all of my passwords and knew where all the money was, spend the rest of the day with her and the kids, then call the medical examiner and ask to lie down on the gurney so that when I die they won't strain their back moving my remains out of my house."
– Asteriad
Nose Stuck In A Book
"Work while they sleep. Study while they party"
"That's not a recipe for success, that's a recipe for a lot of white hairs, burnout syndrome and a stroke before your 40s..."
– Khomuna
Doesn't Apply To Everyone
"Do what you love and money will follow"
"I love walking my dogs and grilling food for my friends but That sh*t doesn't pay the bills as well as my engineering degree!"
– Elons_android
While people's intentions are good, they're better off keeping their two cents in their own pockets.
Not everyone likes to hear platitudes.
Sometimes, people just want to know they're not alone with their problems over listening to unlikely solutions that are nothing more than superficial pick-me-ups.
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Kids start going to school from the age of five, and for the most part, they spend more time at school than at home. Because of that, teachers can become very important figures in the lives of their students.
Some students don't have the best home lives. Some keep it to themselves, but others confide in their teachers.
Curious about various situations, Redditor Delicious_Mastodon83 asked:
"teachers of reddit what is the saddest thing you found out about a student?"
In Need of Parents
"Not a teacher but was a school-based therapist. Had a student (7 -8 y/o) I didn’t know knock on my office door and ask if I’d adopt her and “if you have room, my brother too, but if not, that’s ok, we can be split up. We’re split up now. And I don’t take up space. I just need a sleeping bag”. Broke my heart."
– secretkpr
Heartbreaking, But Industrious
"My mom taught at a school in a bad neighborhood in Chicago in the mid 90’s. There was a second grader that would save his milk and ketchup packers from lunch for his mom so she had something to eat when she got home from work."
– PowerstrokeMe
Big-Hearted Mom
"Not a teacher but a parent with a 9 year old son. Every day I pack extra in my sons lunch because he tells me he has a friend that never has anything to eat. It's winter and my son came home and told me his friend was turning up with shorts and shirt and holes in his shoes. So I sent in a jumper and long pants for him to wear and some slightly used but good condition shoes. I have been up to the school recently and the teacher pulled me aside and thanked me profusely for helping this child. Apparently teachers are not allowed to aid kids they teach here in Australia and they have already reported the issue 3 times to child welfare without results so I was the only one helping this child. The teacher told me before I started sending in more food and clothes, this child would steal others food from their lunches and look through the bins because he was so hungry. They doubt he gets fed at home. So now I make sure to always send an extra lunch and some school clothes/supplies when I can. I can only hope child welfare eventually does something but it breaks my heart."
– spetzie55
Amazing Big Sister
"It was right after winter break and before class started I was just talking with some students and asked if they got anything fun for the holidays. One girl said on no, I don’t ever get presents, my mom is a drug addict. But I went out and got some stuff for my little sister so that she can have a real Christmas."
"She just said it so matter-of-fact. She was so used to being the parent to her little sister that she didn’t even care about her own childhood. It totally broke my heart."
– tonydanzascaulk
The Importance Of Human Affection
"Second hand story from my mom, elementary teacher for 30ish years. She had a hug or a handshake out the door policy, just some small contact and a proper goodbye, and had this young boy who always picked the hug. She wondered why he always went for it, most kids would go back and forth depending on their mood that day, so she asked him why he was always so excited for the end of day hug? His answer, "It's the only one I ever get.""
– needsawholecroissant
Coming Out The Other Side
"Two teenage boys (16/14) with learning disabilities were on my caseload, they never missed school but often ditched class. They were homeless mid-year after they went home from school to find the locks changed, their Mom had abandoned them for a new boyfriend. She didn't leave an address for them to find her."
"*Edit: both eventually dropped out, however a couple of years later the younger brother came back to visit. He and his brother were both working construction, and his brother had gotten married, had a child, and was living with his wife’s family."
"The younger had roommates and was saving for a car. He told me it was a shame I didn’t have kids, because I would make a good Dad."
"People often persevere, even with the odds stacked against them."
– Kursch50
True Parentification
"Not me but my daughter is a teacher, she has lots of stories but one that stands out for me is one of her kindergarten kids saying she was tired and her asking why, the little girl explained that she had been up all night with her mums newborn baby. She did this every night, fed her bottles and everything."
– lb47513343
Luckily, He Was Resilient
"This year I had a 17 year old kid enroll at my school. He was sitting in my math class and I could tell he was struggling. After class I took some extra time to go over a concept with him. I asked him to read the question to me, and he sat there silently. He then looked at me and said “I’m not going to lie to you, I cannot read. I have no idea how to say these words""
"Turned out at age 17 he was illiterate and had been kept out of school by his very religious, controlling parents. Over the past few months he has worked very hard! Now he can finally read at an 8th grade level and he is STILL improving!!"
– User Deleted
A Heroic Teacher
"I worked in an inner city charter school. One of my students (`M10) had a sib (M8) in a lower grade. The mom was there every day in the beginning of the year encouraging them, helping them and generally being very supportive... until a CPS agent spoke to me asking about her behavior. After CPS left things went downhill. The boys showed up late to class even though they lived a half block away from school. When in school both boys were tired from sleeping in the car while their mom "went fishing". She also had two very young girls which she dragged around making the boys take care of them. One day the boys didn't show up and their teacher walked over to the house to find the mom had loaded up the fridge, paid the rent for the month and abandoned them. The teacher (a candidate for sainthood btw) took them in, adopted them and grew them up to be great men."
– mopedarmy
This is really heartbreaking stuff! Luckily, teachers aren't just another adult in your life; they can be your saving grace as well.
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TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains sensitive content about depression and mental health.
As the stigma around mental health lessens (however slowly), people are more forthcoming about the problems they are facing. One of the most common mental health issues is depression.
Depression can affect many different types of people. Factors such as gender, race, nationality, and even age have no bearing on whether someone suffers from depression or not.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally, "...an estimated 3.8% of the population affected, including 5.0% among adults and 5.7% among adults older than 60 years..."
Depression displays in certain patterns, such as mood changes, physical difficulties, and social isolation. However, depression manifests differently in different people and feels different to different people.
Reddit users divulged what depression felt like to them when Redditor iodineseaspray asked:
"What does depression feel like to you?"
Some of this is sure to sound familiar.
The Worst Kind Of Boredom
"Like being more bored than you could imagine but also not wanting to do anything at all, even breathe. So you want to do something, but you can't imagine anything that you would like to do so you're just sort of stuck."
– BuddhistSlater
"So you then spend literally hours staring at a blank wall hating yourself, your life, and everything around you. Well, as much hate as you can summon in the absolutely mentally numb state you find yourself sat in day after day."
– merryman1
Lack Of Motivation and Energy
"Complete lack of motivation."
"Ignoring people that I love, and who are trying to help."
"Just sh*t"
– HatFromStraw
"I feel it extra at work. Letting things slide until you either get into trouble or trying last minute to prevent it."
"Funny those times when I'm working to save my butt, the depression goes away and i feel super focused and motivated."
"I try to carry that energy over but no, it's rinse and repeat."
– ExtraBitterSpecial
Powerful Insecurity
"Insecure about absolutely everything, no hope for the future, dissociation from society and not knowing how to “act” anymore, feeling like I’m not as good at the things I always thought I was good at or that the “talent is wasted on me”, only food cheers me up and sometimes even that doesn’t work"
– tenamonth
Loss Of Creativity
"This. It's like some numb fuzziness you feel in your brain. It's the worst thing ever for an artist who just wants to create but your brain comes up dry with a dense fog that wants to just lie down for a few hours"
– FinnProtoyeen
A Mental Inability To Breathe
"For me, it feels like I’m in a lake with a ball chain tied to my feet, desperately swimming up for air, the only problem is the chain isn’t long enough. I can only get an inch of my head out of the water to breath, and as soon as a high tide comes, the water just floods over me and I feel like I can’t breath again. I live like this, constantly feeling like I’m struggling to breathe, weighed down by my own mind. It’s a struggle and I can’t really describe it in any other way, I’m jealous of people who don’t worry about depression"
– DrowningInBrokeness
"Like suffocating under a heavy cloak"
– kmartfreak
"Like being crushed. Like if the air was crushing my muscles and bones and I can’t breathe because I’m being crushed…"
"Kinda like that."
– Afreshnewsketckbook
Listlessness
"Scrolling thru your steam library. Thinking you want to play something, either not settling on anything or not wanting to put the effort into the game. Going back to the scrolling."
– Aistadar
"It feels like you're forced to play a game of Monopoly (represents life) and your just rolling the dice to appease everyone but you genuinely don't care about where you go, where you land, what you pick up, what you pay, what you gain."
"You kind of just watch it happen without interest and while people are cheering or oh no-ing for you, you genuinely don't care. Everyone is a piece on this board that hardly matters and you feel like we're all just running in a circle over and over again and it's boring and disinteresting as hell."
"You lose all curiosity for everything and just let everything happen and pass by you. No motivation, hardly any love, hardly any care. Feels like the world is in black and white and your waiting for the game to end became it's so absolutely boring and disinteresting, but it never does."
"You come to resent the game and eventually hate it because it feels like you're being forced to play it and suffer it's consequences when you never asked to play it in the first place."
"That's what depression felt like for me. Since then I've been medicated and recieved therapy. I'm doing a lot better now and I don't feel this way anymore, thankfully."
- KnlghtLlghts
A Relation To Fantasy
"You know that scene in the Lord of the Rings where Bilbo is describing to Galndalf what having the Ring all those years felt like? "I feel thin. Like too much jam spread over too much bread." That's honestly the best way I've seen to describe it."
– Electrical_Age_336
"I always say the closest thing to compare it to is a dementor in harry potter. It sucks every ounce of happiness out of you until there is only darkness left."
"Side note: chocolate always helps"
– sunfacer
Fear Of Lack Of Justification
"Like someone close to you died yesterday. Expect no one has, and nothing has happened to justify how you feel."
– AlterEdward
A Physical Pain
"Physical pain in my heart, will start crying just by attending to the physical sensation in my body."
– sagieday
Help Yourself
"I've always described it as having a shadow fixed to your brain which fuels things like indecision and negativity. You can do things to temporarily help but you can't truly shift it. Previous normality is forgotten. But it's amazing how much you can mask it."
"I found I didn't realise how bad I was until I started to get better"
"For anyone suffering with depression. Please, please speak to someone. Best thing I ever did"
– DavosLostFingers
Depression isn't something you can just deal with or get over. Learning to cope is not easy. However, as Redditor DavosLostFingers pointed out, talking to someone can literally save your life.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with depression, contact the American Psychological Association by phone at 800.374.2721 or 202.336.5500.
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