Analogy of Depression for the nondepressed

I thought of an analogy that might help to explain the experience of someone suffering with depression and anxiety to someone who has never felt this and cannot understand it.**** Warning, could possibly be triggering for some people *******
Music is actually helpful for many of us, but we could ask someone to imagine a situation where the sound of any music – any music at all, no matter what the genre – was painful to hear. The background music in the supermarket, in the shopping mall, in the doctor’s office, at the gas station, in the elevator, everywhere – what if it literally HURT to hear any kind of music? We don’t necessarily notice how often there is music playing in the background in public places. And yet, this person must still go grocery shopping and try to do all of the normal things while the music that is playing in the background is inflicting constant pain, and must try to smile and keep a “normal” tone of voice and act like nothing is wrong even though every beat of the music is hurting.
Our negative self-talk is a lot like that, I think – constantly playing in the back of our minds (and sometimes yelling in the forefront), inflicting pain on us that most people can’t see or understand.evardmunch