What Happens After Depression?

If you’ve been following me on any of my social media channels, including Patreon, you may have noticed that I have not been posting much of anything, let alone putting out new content. I have been caught in the midst of a depressive episode that has been brewing since the summer. I thought I could “out run it” by being proactive; seeing my therapist, being active, being around friends, but mental illness is not predictable. Sometimes your best efforts just aren’t good enough. I was maintaining and keeping up appearances, but in one fell swoop my legs were taken out from under me and I was pulled down into the full depths of depression. The only small mercy was that with TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) I managed to keep myself safe and stay out of the hospital.

As I’m now slowly coming out of this depressive episode, I’m reminded how similar it is to going into a depressive episode. Rarely is it like a switch being flipped going from light to dark. It happens in slow steady steps. Depression can creep up on you starting out small so you think maybe it’s something else. Tired? Maybe I just need more sleep. Not hungry? Maybe I am coming down with a cold. Wanting to stay in all the time? It’s fall and getting colder. Nobody wants to be out in this weather. Then boom. You feel like the walls are caving in on you and just the thought of moving, speaking, going about daily life is exhausting. Coming out of a depressive episode is sort of like this.

Day by day the desire to die becomes less and less. The voice in your head that kept saying “I wish I was dead” becomes quieter and less frequent. You can get more work done and you don’t need to fall into a coma afterward. Little by little you become you again.

However, it works in strange and uncomfortable stages. When you lift the veil of depression, but still have many of the symptoms you realize just how bad they are. Currently, I’m still feeling disconnected from much of my emotions that aren’t anger and frustration. I feel an overall detachment from my body, particularly pleasure. I also ascribe much of this aspect to being in constant pain after a car accident. It seems like pain takes up so much space there is little room to feel anything else.

I have an extremely hard time feeling connected to my loved ones. I feel like there is a buffer around my heart that keeps me from feeling their love. Being touched, in any way, from hugs to handshakes, feels unnatural and my responses feel robotic and as though I’m not really there.

I’m back to engaging in activities that typically bring me joy, but my emotions are so blunted that I’m just going through the motions. I get nothing out of doing them, but at least I’m not stuck on the couch anymore. I’m going out, but my social battery has an even lower capacity than usual and more often than not I’m just a body. My mind isn’t there.

I don’t have a sex drive. At times the thought of intimacy makes me nauseous. I have been feeling like this for so long I thought that I may have transitioned to demi-sexuality, but it’s just that I’m still shaking off the remnants of depression.

Coming out of a severe depressive episode is sort of like grief. There are stages to it but there is no set time frame or order to when things feel remotely normal again. I just hope that I don’t lose the people I care about and the progress I’ve made in the process.