My story with depression

Hello Reader! Welcome back!

It was at least a year and a half before I chose to get therapy for depression, and even though I do recommend it… therapy isn't always appealing or affordable. That’s why I want to share the insights and strategies I’ve learned—both in and out of therapy—that have most helped me with my depression.

Since this topic spans more than 2 years of insights and personal experiences—I’m splitting it into several newsletters. Today we'll start on a personal note with my story of how I came to recognize depression in my life. Then in coming newsletters I’ll dive into the strategies that have been most helpful for not only treating my symptoms—but making genuine progress in feeling less depressed and more emotionally resilient over time.

Each of these newsletters is written with the intent to help you regardless of whether or not you struggle with depression. You'll learn concepts that are directly applicable to figuring out your life, living your dreams, and helping other individuals in ways that matter.

Disclaimer: I’m not a psychologist. What I’m sharing is what I have personally experienced, and what I wish I had known sooner for my own situation. My advice does not apply to everyone, and is not a replacement for personalized therapy.

Recognition and understanding

As I share my story, I want to help you understand and have empathy for anyone who struggles with depression—especially if that person is yourself. Please, please have empathy and understanding. It’s easy to look down on yourself when you feel you were once more capable—and then gradually or suddenly you find yourself sleeping in, missing appointments, or even unable to work. But being upset with yourself makes your mental condition worse because you accelerate a downward spiral.

This diagram is slightly misleading because it's actually okay to be sad or frustrated. The problem comes when you become upset with yourself about the fact that you feel depressed. The more you agonize over any part of the cycle, the worse depression gets. I have heard this also applies to anxiety. You kind of just have to let it happen. We'll talk later about what we can do to make things better.

Learn from my experience

It can be surprisingly difficult to recognize depression. One way to increase your recognition and understanding is to read about others who have described how they feel. This is the main reason I’m sharing my story with you now. My experience does not highlight every symptom of depression, but I hope it helps to broaden your current understanding of how depression may affect you or others in the future.

First signs

Depression came very gradually for me. The first symptom came at least a year or two before I really began struggling with my mental health. Occasionally and inexplicably, I started having a hard time handling emotionally difficult situations. I felt more sensitive and irritable than normal. Situations that wouldn’t have bothered me much in the past made me feel uncomfortable, sad, or bitter. It wasn’t a huge difference, and it hardly effected my life. It was just enough to be noticeable and a bit strange.

The second symptom was that I started getting really tired. Sometimes I felt so much extreme fatigue that I would slowly climb down onto my hands and knees next to my computer desk at home, and then lie down. I usually didn’t feel sad or upset—I was just extremely tired for what felt like no reason.

This fatigue started affecting my life more and more. At the time I was teaching a college religion class (which I loved doing), and one day after prepping my class I again felt extremely tired and laid down on my bed without thinking. I was asleep almost instantly and didn’t wake up until I got a text from one of my students asking if I was alright—the class had just ended.

Denial

I’ve known and been close to a lot of people who struggle with depression so sleeping through my class was a wakeup call (or wakeup text?) that I needed to treat my condition seriously. I knew then that I “might” have depression. The problem was that I didn’t think I felt sad or gloomy, and I still enjoyed my hobbies and time with friends. Plus I still felt optimistic about the future and could look forward to things. So was I really depressed?

I have some good friends with diabetes so I wondered if I might be experiencing some kind of imbalance with my blood sugar. That could have explained me being irritable and tired, but I got some blood work done and… that wasn’t the problem. My results were normal.

With that ruled out I suspected it must be depression. Since I had already been experiencing depressive symptoms for several months, I knew I shouldn’t pretend the depression would go away on its own, but I wanted to see if I could cope by myself before getting professional help. I started trying to be more intentional about exercise, and I worked on forgiving myself when I fell short of what I had previously been able to do.

Decline

I had a lot of good days, and a lot of hard days. As the months rolled on I noticed I needed more sleep. In the past I had functioned really well on an average of 7 hours and 15 minutes of sleep every night. After I got depressed I functioned best with 8-9 hours of sleep.

The most significant symptom affecting my life occurred at my work. It gradually became harder and harder for me to focus. I didn’t dislike my work. I thought it was interesting. I had a fantastic manager and a fantastic team. So I couldn’t understand why I was just staring at my screen for an hour, two hours, or even an entire morning or afternoon without getting anything done. I still usually wasn’t “feeling” depressed. I wasn’t feeling much of anything besides confusion as to why I couldn’t get my brain to work. If I put in really fast and intense music I could often get my foot tapping, my brain would crank back into life, and I could get some work done. Other times my head just hurt from playing so much loud music.

I like to ponder so I tried to self-diagnose what might be causing my depression. I had a lot of great breakthroughs and taking time to think was really helpful for me. It was also really helpful to stay in touch with some of my amazing friends and family who were very supportive. These things were great, but it wasn’t enough. Even if I felt better for a few days the depression would always come back to make my work difficult and my days exhausting.

I started dating a really amazing girl who brought additional light into my life; however—despite the fact that it was great to spend time with her—it was also hard because I had less time alone to work through my thoughts and emotions. I also wasn’t good at organizing my schedule to make time for my girlfriend and still talk with friends and family who had been helpful discussion partners in the past. Perhaps worst of all for my mental health—I tore my ACL doing kung fu and spent more than 6 months without any of the intense exercise that had been helping me cope with my depression.

Last solo effort

When my depression started affecting virtually every aspect of my life, I reflected again on what could have initially caused my depression. The biggest change I could think of was that I had started working full time. By itself transitioning out of school shouldn’t be cause for depression, but there were a couple factors that made my situation harder.

First, I started working in 2020 which meant that everything I did was remote. I didn’t get a lot of social interaction. Second, my work desk was in my bedroom. I spent 8-9 hours working everyday in my room, and—because many of my personal hobbies also took place on my computer—I then spent several more hours in my room. Since I would also sleep in my room, I was spending the majority of my time (20+ hours per day) in the same little room. I honestly didn’t think I was hurting myself. I was wrong.

Fast forward again to late Summer, 2023. Because I suspected my unhealthy lifestyle had been the catalyst for my depression, and because I was feeling bad about my productivity at work while I was depressed, and because I had wanted for years to start working on my own business—I decided to quit my job and gift myself a new career and lifestyle that would compliment my mental health. It definitely helped… at first.

Darkest hour

The pain of depression is one of the most difficult things for me to describe to someone who hasn't experienced something similar. I'm confident saying from experience that emotional pain hurts just as much as, or more than, physical pain. (I've only had appendicitis and torn my ACL, but depression was worse than both). I really can’t say what others have felt, but for me depression has similarities to being really sick physically.

Imagine you feel terrible and can barely move. You can’t think clearly, you’re exhausted, and there’s an emptiness inside of you that makes you want to scream. Or maybe you want to scream because the fun and joy that used to exist in your life have been sucked out with a vacuum and you don’t have hope because it feels like things are only getting worse. Of course—because of that emptiness inside—there's always the question, if you try to scream will you even have any air to exhale? You might as well give it a try though because then maybe you’ll feel some kind of emotion other than trauma or perhaps someone will hear you and somehow help make the pain of nothingness go away.

That's not a perfect explanation, but it paints a decent picture of what I was feeling in Autumn of last year. Sometimes it was more mild, and sometimes it was just as severe as you would imagine reading that last paragraph.

So quitting my job didn’t solve my depression, and neither did switching to my dream job. It’s true that I had less stress after quitting, but I still had most of the same habits, mindsets, and approaches to life that I had used before. I slowly started feeling worse until I simply didn’t want to exist anymore. I didn’t want to kill myself, but I thought it would have been awfully convenient if I had gotten into a car crash or died in my sleep. I’ve been told there isn’t a large gap between these kinds of thoughts and suicidal ones.

My ability to cope with my depression wasn’t going to change unless I changed, but I didn’t know what to change. I had tried for 2 years, and my mental health had only gotten drastically worse. What more could I do?

It was time to get help.

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And that, Reader, is where we’ll pick up next time!

Takeaways

I hope it proves valuable for you to have heard my story before I share what has helped me rise from the ashes. I’m really excited to explain in upcoming newsletters the strategies I've been using to get back on top of my life. They have made a world of difference for me!

In addition to acting as context, I do think there are helpful takeaways from the experiences I shared today. What stood out to you as you read? And what are some things that have helped you or people you know? I'd love to hear your insights!

Lastly I want to say, if you're struggling to the point that you wish you didn’t exist—or better yet long before you reach that point—please get help. You might feel like you are burdening people, but we want to help you. If you need it the suicide hotline in America can be reached by dialing 988. Stay safe!

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Whew! Alright, if you made it all the way to the end, thanks for your time! I’m looking forward to picking this up again where we left off!

Keep your dream life in sight!

-Nate