What makes depression many times worse than it already is

It’s only when we’re there—at a particular destination—that we really have a grip on what’s actually going on; because this life is so deeply experiential. There are inherent limits to what we can communicate, because there are all sorts of psychological filters we screen information through. And even when we’re there in a specific location, side by side with another person, we can still have two different perceptions of what’s going on.

When we’ve reached the destination called “depression,” which is probably the worst, most hell-like location anywhere—never a place you send a postcard from—it’s the same.

This sense of disconnection is what makes depression many times worse than it already is. When we’re depressed, we know acutely how hopeless life is, how closely despair crouches, how debilitating just living and breathing is, let alone the energy required for work.

When our lack is so visible in the forefront of our lives, as we come to face everything we hate about feeling this way, as the mind is frustrated doing the simplest things, where function is a perennial challenge, we notice something even more apparent.

We notice very plainly just how estranged we are from life and the people around us. Depression is the loneliest of illnesses. It’s cruel in that it shows us how weak we really feel, and it rubs that reality in our face.

We see it in people’s responses to our responses to them. It’s like meeting someone really different when all is awkward. When we see mirrored back to us our own sense of feeling inadequate, we see that lack of connection as our fault, never really thinking that the other person can only reciprocate the awkwardness. It’s not really a reflection of what they feel about us at all, but it’s all they have to work with.

It’s like the reality many face when they reveal their story of abuse or trauma or loss, and because it can seem outlandish, the response can be one of, “I really don’t know what to think of that,” and so the person telling their story interprets that as the person either disbelieving them or unable to go there.

The biggest challenge someone has in helping anyone who’s depressed is just how to connect, when in our depression we may not even know how to connect with ourselves.

What is sorely needed when we’re undergoing depression is an empathy where a person or people will choose to linger with us for a time; if we’re in the mood to mix for support, that is.

If we linger together long enough, we do break through barriers to intimacy. But there needs to be an interest, and what ought to spark that interest is what the person helping might learn as they seek to understand. What we really need in our depression is understanding of our own crisis, and when another person shows the kindness of patient interest in this regard, intimacy is built and trust is established.

It’s to not just listen, but to be present, which has to be the most selfless of activities. Only as we commit to being there as if we ARE the depressed person can we hope to achieve a semblance of connection—and then it may be that the connection is incredibly authentic.

Only as we’re attended to in our depression like this do we sense we really can drop our guard and BE before this person who has availed themselves to us.

What’s needed most desperately indeed in our depression is the desire to act as if we really do truly understand, and because our perceptions are all so finely tuned, we find we can’t fake this.

Empathy is the greatest gift we can receive in being encountered in our depression. 

Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash