Depression Is Not A Regression
The mistaken belief that makes our experience of depression worse.
The first time depression hit, I didn’t know what was going on. I spent a handful of months living in a daze — doing normal things, seeing friends, working, but with a disconnect that I only really became aware of once the fog had started to lift. This is what life’s like, I remembered. Fuck. I hope that half-hearted limbo doesn’t come back.
And then it did. The second time felt more acute than the first — perhaps because I recognised myself slipping and tried harder to stop it — but a few months later, with the help of a therapist, I broke the cycle again. This time, I thought, I’ve finally seen the back of it.
Depression turned up again, of course, lumping me into that half of depressives who experience low periods more than once, and live with a much higher chance of experiencing another in the future (the other half, roughly speaking, experience depression once and never again).
But that insight isn’t as bleak as it sounds. Sure, it’s not necessarily a comfort to people who’ve felt deeply depressed a few times. But for me, finding out that I fall into this group lifted many of unhelpful, relentless beliefs that made my experience of depression worse.
A myth: depression will leave and never come back.
“It’s gone now”, I’d tell myself, after turning the corner on a tricky period. While this was crucial for getting me back on my feet and remembering hope in the midst of darkness, it carried a subtle and poisonous fallacy: the idea that depression can only leave if it leaves for good.
It’s not a surprising belief to hold. Talking about depression doesn’t mean we’re talking about the same thing, and the different experiences of today’s mental health activists and writers means that there are — and always will be — conflicting stories about depression’s nature and treatment. So while this belief only rang true for some, I wasn’t to know of the many others whose Black Dog barks again and again.
Believing that my depression had vanished meant that, when it came back, I’d deny it and fail to take care of myself, because admitting I was depressed again would be admitting to a huge personal failure. No, it was impossible to be depressed — not only because I couldn’t bear to face all that again, but because it would mean something was deeply, incurably wrong.
Ironically, this idea that depression cannot be experienced twice and — by getting in the way of one’s present happiness, projects and future ambitions with its big bag of apathy — must be a form of regression is what helped it flourish.
Back then, when I entered those little bouts of angst and apathy, things slid downhill incredibly quickly. Hidden behind denial, depression went untreated. Instead of taking time out for self-care and the little things that keep me sane (like exercise, meditation and talking), I’d keep piling on the tasks and berating myself for my slowed progress, before letting out the ever-mounting pressure the only way us Brits know how, and going again.
With this came inevitable feelings of guilt and regression, as some projects and commitments (however much I like to think of myself as a “high-functioning depressive”) went abandoned.
Eventually, though, depression’s blinkers wore thin. The more depression came and went, the less real it felt. The more the Noonday Demon arrived, the more familiar—and less intimidating — he became. Like my shadow, depression still creeps up quickly sometimes, surprising me. But also like my shadow, I know its shape.
Though it took time, learning to accept depression as something that might turn up again gave me a handle on my predicament. I’m more alert to the triggers; proactive with the things that help me feel better.
Acceptance is not the desperate concession to weakness that makes things worse, but the healthy acknowledgement that all is not well and will get better.
A helpful truth: depression might come back, but that’s okay.
With the weight of depression eased, so the normative burden that suffering from poor mental health is regressive has lifted. Depression — much like any mental or physical symptom which challenges someone’s ability to engage with ‘normal’, everyday life — is not a regression, but an obstacle which that person must learn to live with and grow through.
Why?
Because our personal growth — our progression — is not measured in line with some elusive ideal of the perfect human being, but in the context of our own lives, with all the knotty challenges and imperfections they throw our way.
Because our personal qualities, our battles — however resentful we may feel towards them at times — are what make our experiences distinct, meaningful, alive.