Depression is hard but human
I was 13 years old the first time I got depressed.
Much of that time is a blur, and what I do remember is dark.
I remember feeling like I was always on the verge of breaking out into pain and tears, like one of those fragile flowers that close up and collapse when you touch them.
I remember thinking that nothing mattered.
It is painful and disheartening to think back at that time. How could it not be? But what I find more terrifying is the thought that I might experience it again.
So I decided to figure out what depression is for and hopefully make some peace with why we experience it.
I want to share with you what I found.
Depression evolved to help you survive
Depression is something we are all susceptible to experience. It could hit anyone of us — like passing out at the bar after slamming too many drinks and find out the next morning that it wasn’t a bar, but your living room table. Indeed, it can happen to all of us.
Being universal in this way means that depression is an evolutionary mechanism.
Now, why would evolution have passed along an experience such as depression? What could possibly be the point of feeling so low?
Surely, there must have been a glitch in the system, and depression got passed along through generations by mistake. Or someone upstairs just felt like playing a sick joke.
Maybe it’s both.
Regardless, here is what one of the leading psychology researchers in the field says about depression. His name is Aaron Beck. He is one of the founders of cognitive-behavioral therapy which has proven very effective at treating depression:
“Depression represents an adaptation to the perceived loss of a vital resource investment” (Aaron Beck, smart cognitive-behavioral therapist)
Depression happens when we lose something that really matters to us. This could be someone close, a cherished career, or an important skill.
That is what happened to 13-year-old me. The vital resource investments I lost at age 13 were the relationships I had to leave behind as I switched schools for the third time.
But why was my natural reaction to feel low, sleep too much, and not engage in any activities? In other words, why was my reaction to get depressed?
To help me survive.
Imagine this. It’s 5000 BC. I’ve lost my buddies in a horrible attack by another clan. These relationships were vital to my ability to defend myself, so I worry that I won’t survive the rough conditions of 5000 BC life.
What the fuck do I do?
I need to protect myself while I recoup and figure out what to do next. I have to make sure I’m not super vulnerable and just walking around, an easy target.
So my energy gets low, I stay inside my cave, and I distance myself from others.
I get depressed.
And that is actually freaking smart.
(Full disclosure: I know nothing about 5000 BC life, and I have no clue whether humans still lived in caves during this time or not. Bear with me. Also, somehow I always imagine any human being before the 16th century as a caveman without feelings. That is why I have completely ignored the fact that 5000-BC-me might also be quite sad to have lost my buddies.)
Depression will always be all-consuming
Now the story I’ve just painted might sound too simplistic — even pretty. Like I’m preaching some “life is beautiful” and “everything happens for a reason” nonsense.
So I want to make something very clear before we move on: There is no denying or prettifying of depression.
Depression sucks. It is all-consuming — in the worst way.
To emphasize my point, let me give you a few scientific examples of what happens when you get depressed:
There are cognitive effects on memory, attention, and planning. This leads to difficulty learning new information and a decreased ability to think and solve problems — a skill we need on an everyday basis.
Then there are physiological effects. These include disturbed sleep, low level of energy, unbalanced weight, and appetite, and general restlessness or slowed down motions.
Lastly, there are emotional effects. Overwhelming feelings of sadness, emptiness, or hopelessness. Lack of interest or pleasure in anything. Experiences of worthlessness or guilt about being sick — and sometimes recurring thoughts about death or suicide.
It’s rough.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way out.
You can pull through depression
So what would’ve happened to me next in this 5000 BC world? How would I — and why would I — get out of my depression?
Because I start realizing that I can survive despite my loss.
After spending hours, days, weeks in the cave, I realize that there is more to life than what I lost. Sure, I may not have my buddies any more, and it sucks that I don’t have someone to help me protect myself.
But I also need food, I need water, I need something to do. I can get those things.
Aaron Beck claims that depression is under cognitive control, which basically means that your mind is in charge.
That’s quite an optimistic statement.
Once we start seeing the many other opportunities and resources we can get our hands on, the mill might begin to move differently. Depression might start lifting.
For 13-year-old-me, it took quite a while to get there, though. I felt stuck and hopeless and saw no point in associating with others. In living, if I’m honest.
But I didn’t go to therapy.
I wrote.
I wrote about the darkness that was my mind, and the world, and the people around me. I wrote about the hopelessness I felt, about the all-consuming loneliness constantly threatening to suffocate me.
And at some point, it started getting lighter. Other aspects of my life came up, and they began taking up space in my writing. I wrote about my annoying sisters and that cute new guy in class. I wrote about how stupid Julia looked with those ponytails and how I didn’t understand why Thomas wanted to date her.
I kept writing. As much as I could.
And it helped me see the world differently — from scarcity and loss to one of vitality and so much more exciting drama to engage in.
Don’t be afraid of diagnoses
Writing helped 13-year-old-me. But this is not to say that if you have a severe diagnosis, you shouldn’t seek help.
You should.
I personally believe that we could all benefit from therapy — no matter where we are in our lives.
Talking to someone who is dedicated to your growth and betterment and who wants to share in your journey is rare. Therapy is a unique opportunity in this sense. But that is another topic.
Let me return to depression.
All diagnoses are a continuum. They are not black-and-white phenomena. We all switch in and out of placements on the scale, and depression is no different in this sense.
You can imagine it as one of those light dampers, where you slide the bar to choose how bright you want the room to be for whatever you’re about to do. We all have a depression light damper that slides back and forth to different bright-or-darkness levels — regardless of whether you have a diagnosis.
Now, diagnoses can be great and give us some clarity about what is going on. But they can also feel numbing and dictating — as if they become our whole identity.
I don’t find that especially encouraging.
It can feel like ever since some person told me I am depressed, I stopped being smart, kind, funny — or a sister, a friend, a hard worker. But these parts of myself don’t get erased because someone put the label ‘depressed’ on me.
Knowing this is something I do find encouraging.
You don’t have to treat a person with depression as the fragile flower I described myself as at the beginning of this article; you don’t have to be afraid to touch them. This goes whether or not that person is yourself. You can talk about it. Ask about it.
I know that I now will.
The beauty of these fragile flowers — they are called sensitive plants, look them up — is that they will reopen in time.
13-year-old-me never got a diagnosis. And it is only now that I reflect back on young me that I begin to understand what happened. What it is that I lost that I cared about, which led me into my depression.
Knowing what I know now — that depression is normal and human — the next time I meet someone who is depressed, I will try to talk to them.
I will ask: “What is the thing you lost that you really cared about?”
Maybe that will help me understand why they need to stay in the cave for a bit. And maybe my understanding will help them get out sooner. And maybe — just maybe — they will even start writing about it.
How about you? How will you touch depression differently after reading this?
