 Depression can be difficult to explain. Like any mental illness, it feels different for every person. But we it's like to go on to bring people together to both share their experience and maybe even help others out. So we asked our readers and viewers, who has experienced depression and how would you explain what it feels like to others? Here we've made a list of 16 analogies for depression. Disclaimer, some submissions have been edited for length and or clarity. Number one. It's like you have weights built into your arms and legs. They're heavy and they make any basic activity feel like I'm dragging around dumbbells that are too much for me. Number two. It's like you're screaming in pain but there's no sound coming out of you. Number three. My depression feels like a black hole. But you're not in the black hole, you are the black hole. Your mind is. It sucks in anything that might make you feel emotion and it turns it into darkness. Number four. Depression feels like I'm in black and white and the rest of the world is in color. I can't be a part of it no matter how much I might want to. I don't belong. Number five. It's like a prison without bars. You're trapped by an invisible force preventing you from being happy. Number six. It's like the waves of the ocean. Sometimes the waves recede and you see the beautiful sand with the pretty seashells. Soon the tide will come and swallow all that beauty up and drag it away from you. What helped me fight that feeling is knowing that the waves will recede again. Number seven. For me it's like a heavy mist. Sometimes it's far enough away but at other times it presses me down. It can enter your body and lungs, brain, stomach and limbs. Everything feels sick. As if you haven't had fresh air in a while and it's exhausting and frustrating. Number eight. To me it's completely like the dementors from Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling's representation of that struggle was on point. Number nine. A fog that lingers in the early morning sky. Never completely fading, always present and blurring your vision. Number ten. It feels like being in the middle of a large body of water without seeing shores. Something tugs at your leg and you struggle to keep your head above the surface. You gasp and struggle but it's exhausting and tiring and frightening at the same time. Sometimes you truly doubt if you'll ever make it out of there if the thing tugging on your leg will ever let go. Number eleven. To me it feels like being snowed in by an avalanche. You're disoriented and you don't know which way is up so you dig tirelessly in the wrong direction while being starved of oxygen. Everything around you is cold and looks the same. Number twelve. It's a weight on your chest holding you down. No matter what you do it stays there and it spreads throughout your body and everything else takes more effort than ever. Number thirteen. It's like trying to run underwater. It's exhausting and annoying and it gets you nowhere. Number fourteen. For me depression was an old TV that lost its signal. All colorful images turned into noisy strange black and white mess of spots. All of the good things I'd lost and all of the bad things I've still got. Sounds turned into buzzing noises and my favorite things everything I liked turned invisible. Number fifteen. It's like all of the joy was sucked from my body. In my chest is nothing only emptiness and I'm bearing the weight of the world on my shoulders. Everything that I loved makes no sense anymore. The only thing I want to do is crawl into the darkest corner of my room, curl up and cry even though I know crying won't help. It's just feeling nothing at all. Number sixteen. The feeling of being chained around your neck, connected to all of your fears and getting tugged around ruthlessly until you choke. And that's our list. Maybe you can use one of these to explain your problems to the people in your surroundings who have trouble understanding what you're going through. If you've experienced depression and have your own analogy then feel free to share in the comments below.