What if “depressed” is just how I am?

When people experience long-term depression, it can start to feel permanent.

I remember sitting across from my own therapist, years and years ago, and saying to her, “Maybe this is just my personality, it’s just who I am?”

I was experiencing depression, it had been an issue for me for a long time. I wondered if I was just, depressed, forever. My therapist was able to show me that depression was not my personality, it had just weighed my personality down for so long it felt like the damage it was causing was simply part of me. Because of depression treatment, I found help and was able to find my way back to myself.

Long-term depression is tough, and treatable

Have you suspected, or even had a mental health professional confirm, that you’re dealing with depression? Maybe this is a recent revelation, or perhaps you’ve been dealing with depression for a long time.

It is very important, whether you’ve just recently started to experience depression or if you have years of grappling with depression symptoms, that you seek out depression treatment. Like any chronic illness, there are long-term impacts that extend beyond the fatigue, hopelessness, numbness, irritability, or sleep and appetite changes of depression. Mental health treatment can make all the difference, and recovery from even long-term depression is possible.

What can long-term depression lead to?

If you experience depression over a long period of time without seeking treatment, there can be impacts to your physical health, your mental health, your social life and even with your work. These negative impacts tend to feed into each other to make it harder and harder, over time, to cope with untreated depression.

Depression and your physical health

Depression and taking care of yourself

Depression has been shown to make it harder for you to make effective decisions when it comes to your physical health. There is solid research showing people who have had heart attacks or strokes have a much harder time recovering and following medical advice if they also have untreated depression.

Depression and inflammation

There is emerging evidence that depression leads to chronic inflammation, especially in the brain but throughout the body as well. Some inflammation is very helpful to your ability to heal, but chronic excess inflammation can damage your brain tissue, and damage your body, leading to chronic illness.

Depression and sleep loss

Chronic insomnia can cause serious health issues. A lack of sleep can bring about chronic irritability, tiredness, and memory issues. It can also escalate to increased risks of high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, heart attack, and stroke. Insomnia is no joke, and is very common with long-term depression.

Depression and pain

Depression symptoms include issues like nausea, constipation, aches and pains, migraines, pain during sex, and more. Dealing with any one of these long-term is tough, and it isn’t uncommon to deal with multiple of these. These pains can worsen without depression treatment, and trying to manage chronic pain on top of chronic depression can worsen symptoms of both.

Depression can shrink your social life

When trying to understand depression, there are several symptoms that can cause someone to withdraw from those around them. In depression, it can be appealing to be alone. In long-term depression, this loneliness can become a vicious cycle, reinforcing depression symptoms and increasing stress. Withdrawing from others can also make it harder to recognize the depths of someone’s depression.

Depression also leads to rumination, or thinking over and over the same troubling, stressful thoughts and worries. When these thoughts trend toward self-worth or one’s place in their social circle, the persistent repetition can make these thoughts feel true. You might back off from your relationships to try to protect yourself from being hurt, or avoid connection because you believe you have no worth and there’s no point in trying.

Depression can hurt your career progress

Depression symptoms like difficulty making decisions, low self-worth, and exhaustion can derail you in your career. You are bright, capable, and interested in doing well in your work, but long-term depression can halt your progress in its tracks. It can make it harder to even make it to work, which can destabilize your life and add to your stress.

Depression can make seeking treatment harder

Depression symptoms like withdrawal from others, exhaustion, hopelessness, and decreased decision-making can all make it harder for you to seek mental health treatment. This is super common, and entirely relatable. Just know, we want to encourage you to consider that there is help out there, and therapists like those at THIRA Health are ready to help you find yourself again, even after struggling with long-term depression.

How can mental health treatment help you?

Understanding depression is key to getting help. When you start to recognize the impacts of depression on your life, you can start to dig yourself out. Reaching out to find help can make a massive difference in loosening the grip depression has on your life.

Therapy modalities like dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) can help you find balance on a middle path of thinking, away from the black-and-white judgements of depression. They can also help you stay present in the now to reduce rumination and despair, help you to improve your interpersonal skills so you can seek out more contact with people to reduce the isolation of depression, and help you better tolerate the distress of the depression experience.

Depression is very treatable, and please know, there is hope! Consider connecting with us at THIRA Health to see how our compassionate and capable therapists can help.

Alongside mental health treatment from a therapist, you can find depression support groups in your area, or even online. Understanding depression can be easier when you feel less alone:

• Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance
• Mental Health America
• National Alliance on Mental Illness support groups