Why You Feel Down (Even When Nothing Is Wrong)

We all suffer from some level of depression

Many mental illness diagnoses are really claims that a person is beyond a certain range of what we call “normal.” Normal people have some level of the disturbance. For example, we all experience anxiety, but not necessarily at a level that would result in a clinical diagnosis. Depression can be thought of in the same way.

I have no expertise to talk about clinical depression. So, instead, I will talk about depression that is below that level. If what I have to say applies to clinical depression, great—but I make no claims about it. Note: if you believe that depression only refers to the clinical diagnosis, you may object to my use of the term. However, I encourage you to consider the message nonetheless.

Thus, I start with the claim that everyone experiences depression at some level. It may exist chronically at a low level, or it may be experienced more acutely for short periods of time. In the case of chronic depression, we likely are unaware of it; it has become our normal state. In acute cases, it tends to be experienced in one of two ways.

The Two Ways We Experience Everyday Depression

In the first way, we recognize a “cause”: “I am depressed about __________.” You can fill in the blank with whatever is weighing on you:

• The political situation

• My work life

• The environment

• A loved one’s illness or death

• Your own illness or injury

In the second way we cannot identify the trigger: “I just feel a little depressed today, and I don’t know why.” I would bet that every single one of us has said or thought that at some point in our lives.

So, what is depression fundamentally? And how can we work with it productively?

Depression as Unprocessed Emotion

I consider depression to be the result of an accumulation of unprocessed emotions.

In another post, I discussed anxiety in a similar way; anxiety is the product of unprocessed fear (We All Deal with Anxiety and How to Work with It).

Depression results from other unprocessed emotions. It could be sadness, hopelessness, grief, anger…

1. The Weight of Clear Situations

Sometimes, we know exactly which area of our life is affecting us.

For example, someone dealing with stage-4 cancer might experience depression, and they are very clear that it is tied up with what is happening to them physically. Or someone might be depressed about the state of the world or the loss of a loved one.

What happens in these scenarios is that an intense set of experiences brings about a high frequency of heavy emotions. The more intense the experience, the more challenging it becomes to keep current with our feelings. When we fall behind, suppressing many of the emotions, we start feeling depressed.

2. The Accumulation of “No Big Deals”

Depression can also occur when nothing particularly heavy seems to be going on. You wake up in the morning just kind of feeling down, low energy, unmotivated.

Again, we are simply failing to keep up with our emotions. (See The Biggest Drain on Our Energy is Self-Inflicted.)

It is easy to go through the day sloughing off minor feelings—a feeling of sadness about a small thing here, a slight frustration there. This is especially true if none of them feel earth-shaking. The mind talks us out of experiencing the emotion by saying, “That’s not worth bothering with. It’s not a big deal.”

But over time, the collection of suppressed “no-big-deal” emotions can tie up a lot of our energy. When our energy is tied up, we experience that low-energy, flat affect that we call depression.

Releasing Emotions

If we look at depression through this lens, the path forward becomes clear: we need to bring awareness to our emotions and begin releasing them.

If it is an acute experience of depression, the first thing we must release is the feeling of depression itself.

Then, we must commit to and practice releasing emotions, even small ones, as they come up.

The process of releasing emotions is detailed in my post, Releasing Emotions.

Returning to Chronic Versus Acute: The Bottom Line

If our depression is acute, we can easily recognize the need to heed this message. But what about in the case of low-level chronic depression, which is often not noticed?

I encourage us all to assume that we have low-level chronic depression. There is nothing to be lost by committing to and practicing releasing emotions. Let’s see if the result is more energy and enthusiasm and a more positive experience of our lives.