Depression: The Ache from the Depths

It’s the aching of your soul

As though a hollow vessel has moved in

Where there was once a beautiful garden

It’s pain so deep, you cannot recall

A time when joy existed

Like an old photograph, the image

Of the life you loved, faded

Though, it may still exist

Around you, yet

From where you sit, the colors

Dull, ever-fading from sight

Unbeautified, the darkness consumes

Your vibrance, your zeal for existence

To thrive

You once longed, now only

To leave behind the affliction,

The gut-wrenching torment

But the power of the fog, of the haze

It draws you back to your bed

Back into yourself, the place

Where deep

Cries out to deep,

And once again

Your longed-for escape

Just out of reach

Depression. Such a common word, yet so misunderstood. A disorder in itself, yet also a symptom of disorders. It can be a part of PTSD, especially complex PTSD. I’ve seen clients, struggling to feel connected to others or to the world surrounding them. Going day by day without feeling whole, ever decreasing self-worth. Losing hope, finding life to be meaningless, empty. And yes, some of the time, this is purely depression. But with the population I serve, it’s typically more complicated and intertwined with other mental health issues. Often I find that trauma, especially traumatic childhoods, causes a sort of separation from the self. My clients with cPTSD often don’t have a clear understanding of their own personality because they were never free to show it. And in the mess of the chaos or abuse, they began to lose hope and joy because they had only enough energy to ensure they survive.

Depression in and of itself is awful, but the loneliness of feeling misunderstood by those around them brings a much greater level of pain that they cannot share, often cannot express. As common as depression is, it is an experience you cannot truly understand unless you’ve lived it. A fact that’s sad yet true. A fact that keeps many in silence and in suffering. Reading that, you may think that a therapist can’t understand what you’re going through. You may think we’re just a bunch of people who read textbooks and learned to look for certain symptoms to meet the criteria. Well, we did. But I’ll also let you in on one of the most well-known secrets in my profession. Therapists as a whole have experienced a whole range of mental instability. And we tend to specialize in the issues we’ve personally lived through. We just don’t tell you all about it because, well, it’s not our therapy session.

Therapy CAN help. It’s not just sitting and talking about your feelings, but yes that is a part of it. We teach you skills, help you find the root cause of your pain, and help you understand yourself and the world more clearly. Personally, I’ll guide you to look at your earliest memories to learn where negative core beliefs began. I offer EMDR for a variety of conditions, including trauma, grief, eating disorders, phobias. We’ll bring different parts of your brain online to solve things, to get the pieces back into their proper places so that you can feel safe.

So if you’re looking for help from someone who knows what it’s like to have lost all hope, to feel as though life has lost all meaning, just pick someone. Pick a therapist and schedule your first session. Even if you don’t click with that first one, don’t give up. There are literally thousands of us, and we each bring something unique to the space.