How Depression Could Be the Best Thing that's Ever Happened to You

The Story of My Most Recent Depression

At the start of 2020 I thought I had it all figured out. I’d just started a big work contract that I expected would supply the deposit for me to buy my own place. I’d recently begun a relationship with a girl I was crazy about. Life was great and I was excited about the future. But then Covid hit. We went into lockdown. My contract was terminated as the events industry I worked in came to a grinding halt. I was living in a house share in London, with 100 miles between me and my new love, and I watched my dreams of buying a flat in the near future fade away. It hit me pretty hard. That’s a lot of rug to be pulled out from under someone. But we were all in it together, and I was hopeful that things would get back to normal pretty quickly and we could pick up where we left off.

I didn’t tell my partner that I was struggling. As men, so many of us have been taught not to show emotion – told we should remain strong at all times. My girlfriend already had plenty on her plate – her work continued throughout the pandemic and she was looking after and home schooling her young son at the same time. I didn’t want to add to her burden and still, I thought we’d be back to normal in a few weeks.

But as the months rolled on, the uncertainty and lack of progress affected me more and more. Men are also taught that our worth is calculated by the amount of value we provide, and as a 35-year-old man living in a house share, unemployed, lonely, struggling to decide on the best course of action, I couldn’t see what I was bringing to the table anymore. My self-esteem began to plummet. By this point I’d set a precedent of not telling my partner what I was feeling, and the slow, insidious creep of depression had pulled me in without my noticing.

At Christmas I had plans to visit my girlfriend and I couldn’t wait. I hadn’t been able to spend Christmas Day with a partner for the previous 6 years, and I was so excited. But a few days before, London suddenly went back into lockdown, leaving me stuck at home again. I was so depressed. I still wasn’t able to talk about it with my partner and our communication became more and more strained. I needed support but had worked my way into a headspace where I couldn’t ask for it, so my behaviour became needy and passive aggressive as I tried to get her attention. This continued to escalate into the new year and I could feel her frustration. I finally I managed to pluck up the courage to tell her I was struggling, but it was too little too late and she told me she thought we were too different and wanted different things. That crushed me and sent me hurtling into a downward spiral. The UK went back into lockdown for another 4 months. I was depressed and lonely already, and now I was ashamed of it too. Disgusted in myself for not being able to be stronger. Everything I had been so excited about was gone. Left isolated with my thoughts, things quickly got dark and I hated myself.

What is Depression?

Depression is widely misunderstood in our culture. It’s often seen as a moping sadness, but it’s truly debilitating. It psychologically limits our ability to interact with the world. My experience and understanding of Depression now is that it’s a signpost telling us that our lives our out of alignment with our core values, or being true to ourselves. The tricky thing is, many of us don’t even know what our values are. This is why we see people who seemingly have everything but are still depressed.

*Now, I fully appreciate that some people have been through traumatic life experiences that were out of their control, to the point that it might take most of a lifetime for their nervous systems to be able to reset. Our bodies respond slowly and there's no quick fixes. But therapies for trauma are improving fast and, as these practices become more mainstream, there is a lot that can be done to help us understand each other's challenges and help each other heal. I do believe that values play an important role here too - giving us a framework to help us make better decisions that will guide us towards healing, even when our systems feel overloaded.

*Addition Oct 2023

There are two drivers at the wheel in each of us – our head and our heart. When we’re not in alignment, they can often feel like they are pulling in different directions. In the west, we put a lot more value on heady logic, which is an amazing tool for getting things done, achieving our goals and chasing success. But if it’s not guided by what our heart desires we will never feel fulfilled. Our hearts contain 40,000 neurons, cells just like in your brain – that’s enough for it to act independently – to learn, remember, make decisions and even feel and sense. It’s the part of us that yearns for connection, for meaning and to be part of the flow of life. It guides us to our interests and dictates our values. But so many of us have lost the ability to listen to what it has to say, or suppressed it to follow what society tells us we’re meant to want.

Sitting there, alone, with my depression, I freaked the fuck out. My life was nowhere near where I wanted it to be and I couldn’t make sense of what had happened to get to that point. I began frantically searching for anything to relieve me of this boulder I was carrying around, and started challenging any aspects of myself that I perceived as weak. I spoke to therapists and analysts, attended any and every workshop I could to glean insight into myself, I tried psychedelics, meditation, read countless books, I began working with a coach, faced and overcame fears, and slowly but surely started to understand more about who I really am and what’s important to me.

Perspective

The incredible thing is, none of us see the world in quite the same way. Everything is coloured by our own life experiences, which focus our perceptions and what we pay attention to. Yet we all walk around believing that our subjective reality is objective truth. Once you can get your head around that, things really start to change. Without an objective reality to attach to, we’re free to look for more useful perspectives on every situation we find ourselves in. Even my perspective of this situation is my subconscious trying to form a useable narrative from the experience. We can actually choose the life we want to live by defining our values, and upholding them religiously.

What I Learned

Looking back now, there are a couple of key learnings that I wish I could share with my former self. But I’m pleased to be able to share them with you. The first is that it’s not weak for a man to be emotional. Many men are terrified of sharing their feelings with their partner because they fear they will be seen as weak and get rejected. But negative emotions are real and natural – we all have them, and a valid response to many situations. The issue arises when we’re unable to fully own them and try to hide them. If we can’t be honest with ourselves about how we are feeling, how are our partners able to trust us to create a safe environment for them to share theirs? By hiding our real feelings, we create a block to real intimacy and connection in our relationships. Now this doesn’t give us permission to open the floodgates. A Spartan warrior would wail in grief for his fallen brothers at the end of a battle, but he was still a warrior. It’s our duty to make ourselves as strong as possible, and to not make our emotions someone else’s responsibility. This takes a lot of self-awareness to even understand what we are feeling in the first place, as well as the ability to make a plan to deal with them. I could’ve told my partner at the start: “Babe, I’m struggling at the moment. I feel stuck in limbo and it’s making me depressed. I’ve found a support group and I’m dealing with it, but I just wanted you to know if I seem a bit off, that’s why.”

The real strength here, which brings me onto the second thing I learned, is that, by knowing our values and aiming to stay true to them at all times, we can know that we’ll be somewhat OK no matter what life throws at us. If something happens, someone behaves in a way that’s not in alignment with our values, then they weren’t for us. Our values therefore make our decisions for us and curate the experiences we will accept in our lives.

So you see, our worth as men is not actually attached to the physical things we bring to the table, as we’re led to believe. It’s actually inherent in who we are, what we stand for and how we see the world. If we have a functional perspective of the world and are grounded in our values, it means we’ll be able to create the things we want, that are in alignment with our heart. The house, the car, the money, these are all quick and easy to identify signifiers to tell if someone has a functional enough perspective to achieve success, but if they are not in alignment and built on solid values, that success will feel meaningless and this is often when depression or mid life crises arise. Conversely, we can have a great perspective and be in tune with our values and have no interest in material gain. An artist for example, creates the world he wants and expresses his values, he may have no interest in money or fancy cars, and yet people are drawn to him for his perspective.

The most important thing here is to identify and fully live your values. An exercise I have all my clients do to help them define theirs, and something I suggest you give a try, is to make a list of 5 people you look up to. These can be people you personally know, they can be celebrities or even fictional characters. For each I want you to write a list of the characteristics they have that you most admire. What is it about them that you wish you could emulate? Once you’ve worked through 5, you should have a pretty comprehensive set of traits you’d like to embody. Learn these and re-read them regularly. I also like to spend time visualising mine every morning, playing through scenarios from my life and imagining how I might have acted differently if I was fully in alignment. It takes time but the more you practice showing up in that way, the faster you will move towards that reality.

Final Thoughts

I hope this article can provide a little hope if you’ve been battling with your own demons. Nobody would actively choose to descend into depression, but this can be the catalyst that turns your life around and makes you step up into the person you could be. Being lost is what it takes to take the steps to find out who we are and what we stand for. We are comfort-seeking creatures, we walk the path of least resistance and don’t take serious action until it’s really necessary. Your body is telling you to make a change and I wish for you all the courage to do whatever it takes. If you’ve found this helpful, or if you have tips on what has helped you in your own journey then let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.