There are many symptoms of depression, but the one I would like to convey is the feeling commonly endured that is never exactly the same for anyone who is unfortunate enough to experience the awful illness; that is the sense of detachment from the rest of the world. Cut off from every aspect of their existence the depressive is now alone in their own prison of depression. This prison can represent itself in many ways:
Sylvia Plath (poet, novelist, sufferer of depression who eventually committed suicide after coming to the dreaded conclusion that death seemed a better prospect than carrying on living with her illness), described the detachment as seeing the world from inside a bell jar, with her view being clouded and distorted by her own stifling depressive atmosphere. Occasionally the bell jar would lift a little, allowing the "fog" to escape and the world would become slightly clearer again, but then it would undoubtedly lower once more and the stewed atmosphere would prevail. I believe that when she ended her life it was because she had finally "suffocated" in her bell jar.
One man, I forget his name now, described his cut off experience as like existing on a treeless windswept terrain that stretched to infinity; the more he hated himself the more desolate it became.
For me, it was different again. It seemed as though the whole world had turned black and white, with a grey mist enveloping everything and everyone. Much of the time I felt distant and spaced out (although that is also a result of the eating disorder at the time, not having nearly enough of the necessary nutrients to exist like one normally should. Note: depression and eating disorders are closely linked in a large percentage of cases, with one normally being a primary cause of the other. This is not always true but it is definatly not uncommon.). Indeed many sufferers have described it as living through thick syrup, merely existing had become slow and laboured.
Depression is different for every sufferer; it does not have clear cut symptoms like diseases of the body, for example, influenza or chicken pox. Being a mental illness it is complicated and very personal, and just as the symptoms one experiences whilst having it can vary greatly, so do the methods by which one’s depression is cured/healed/sent into "remission".