When Depression Feels More Like Disconnection Than Sadness

You can keep going through life and still feel strangely absent from it. Depression isn’t always sadness ~ sometimes it’s a loss of connection to the parts of yourself that make you feel alive.

We tend to picture depression as sadness.

Sometimes it is.

But depression can also feel strangely like less.

Less interest. Less energy. Less pleasure. Less curiosity.

Less access to the parts of yourself that once made life feel like yours.

You may still be working, parenting, answering messages, making dinner and doing all the things that need to be done.

From the outside, life can look remarkably normal.

Inside, you may feel increasingly far away from it.

When parts of life become harder to reach

One of the difficult things about depression is that we can know what would probably help and still be unable to move toward it.

You know you usually feel better after seeing a friend. You know getting outside might help. You remember that you used to paint, garden, cook, make things, exercise, read, play music or become completely absorbed in something you loved.

Knowing that doesn’t necessarily make those things accessible.

And “I know what I should do, but I’m not doing it” can very quickly become another reason to judge ourselves.

Perhaps a different question is:

What has become difficult for me to access?

There may still be something there

Depression can make it feel as though parts of us have disappeared.

Energy. Connection. Play. Anger. Creativity. Desire. Hope. A sense of possibility.

But unavailable isn’t necessarily the same as gone.

Sometimes there are moments when something briefly returns ~ laughing unexpectedly, becoming interested in an idea, feeling something while listening to music, noticing the light through the trees, getting angry about something that matters, or suddenly wanting to make or do something.

Those moments can be easy to dismiss because they seem small.

But perhaps they are worth noticing.

There is still someone in there responding to the world.

Therapy can be a place to experiment

Therapy doesn’t have to be another place where someone tells you what you should be doing.

It can be a place to become curious about what happens when something begins to come alive ~ and what gets in the way.

That might happen through conversation. It might involve noticing the body, exploring a relationship or familiar pattern, working with imagery or creativity, trying something unexpected, or simply experiencing another person staying present with something that has been difficult to carry alone.

We aren’t trying to manufacture happiness.

We’re looking for places where there is still movement, response, interest, connection or choice ~ and seeing what becomes possible from there.

Finding your way back

I don’t think therapy should promise to return us to some previous version of ourselves.

Life changes us.

But depression can narrow our experience until the world ~ and sometimes our own sense of who we are ~ becomes very small.

Change can begin by creating a little more room.

Room for curiosity.

Room for connection.

Room to notice what matters.

Room to discover that something you thought had disappeared may still be there.

Sometimes the way forward isn’t forcing yourself to feel better. It’s finding what helps you feel more present in your own life.

You may not need to know exactly where you are going.

Sometimes we begin simply by noticing what makes you feel a little more here.

~

Robby Shearer, RSW, SEP