Unlike how awkwardly tall I am compared to my high school friends, there is something not apparent in this moment to an onlooker or someone just scrolling past it on Instagram.
I was in a major depressive, months-long episode. Less than a handful of very close people to me know when I have been in a depressive episode over the past 10 years, and it has been about once per year.
To anyone around me it was clear I was feeling so happy to be a bridesmaid at one of my closest friend’s wedding, smiling and partying with my family and friends, all while looking bomb in this dress! #dustymint
My joy was genuine.
My fun was genuine.
And I still was very depressed.
What you don’t see are the feelings of low self esteem, worthlessness, lack of pleasure from my favorite activities and music, fatigue, lack of concentration, overall feeling in a fog, and the guilt that keeps these feelings in a vicious cycle. It doesn’t go further than that for me. The root problem is my act of avoidance. In these states, I try to avoid all thoughts of what makes me feel anxiety in the first place, therefore, repressing my deeper thoughts and feelings and not facing them because I believe doing that would be too painful.
So, I don’t face my problems or let myself think these anxiety inducing thoughts, causing me to just sit in these feelings. My anxious brain gets overpowered by these strong feelings and forms more negative (and false!) thoughts accordingly.
You’re a failure.
You can’t be what you want to be.
You’re not good enough.
Through this repression and avoidance of pain, it ends up causing so much more. These thoughts are huge generalizations from being way too hard on myself, but I don’t realize this in the moment because they feel so true. So I get stuck in this rut.
Repressing doesn’t make pain or anxiety go away. It keeps it locked up inside and grows way beyond what it was to begin with to where it feels so hard or sometimes impossible to get out of this rut. The pain only grows and causes more harm.
But by taking the seemingly terrifying step to examine your thoughts (or journaling, opening up to a friend, going to therapy, etc.) you finally allow yourself to think your thoughts and face the feelings and events that caused this mess to spiral downwards.
And it’s the only way to break out of the vicious cycle a depressed brain puts you through and to finally…
let that shit go!
You have to deal with the pain
to be free of it.
It always gets better.
If you see someone in your life acting differently (for me it is becoming much more quiet and awkward) or not reaching out to make plans or talk as much, simply checking in on them by asking hey are you doing ok? Or how have you been? It really does make all the difference. It did for me.
-Erin B. Doppelt, MSW, LSW
Assistant Director at a therapeutic preschool
Glenbrook North H.S. ’10 Graduate
