Functional Depression

If I ever committed to any New Year’s resolution, it would have been to post at least once a month. Less than six months into the year and I already screwed up. Honestly, I’m not totally certain if it was accidental or partially due to the topic of today’s blog.

Though I know that I’ve always had high-functioning depression, I didn’t quite realize how there would be times I’d start being unintentionally self-destructive while feeling perfectly fine. The typical definition of someone suffering from functional depression is usually a person who can continue living a productive life to the external world, while spending most of their solitary moments in great sadness. You know, the person who simply doesn’t “look” depressed. As opposed to the archetype of someone who can’t bring themselves get out of bed at times and function normally.

For me, I think the only time that I ever fully checked off the typical symptoms of high-functioning depression was in my third year of college. The year that I simply don’t remember. I recall going to class, doing my work, and hanging out with friends, but constantly feeling either hollow and numb or emotional pain. There was certainly a lot of crying too. That was the year that I got diagnosed with clinical depression.

Thankfully, it’s never been quite as bad as that lost year. Currently, my depression cycles and when an episode crops up, I’d be fully aware of the sad and hopeless thoughts. The thoughts would then be followed by fairly innocuous actions like isolation and escapism.

This time, however, it didn’t quite fit the agreed-upon definition, but it seems appropos. For this specific episode, I wasn’t even aware that I was in a depressive episode. It snuck up on me and only just hit me recently. Over the last few months, I haven’t really felt sadness nor did I entertain any of the hopeless thoughts that I’ve become accustomed to. No, everything felt relatively fine. I didn’t realize how tired I was or how I was isolating myself and cutting off most of my support system. All of these actions without any of the accompanying feelings. It was strange. One day, I just noticed that my support system had dwindled down to two people and I realized that I hadn’t really spoken to very many of my friends in quite a while. And why did I choose to isolate myself? I didn’t really have a reason other than I simply couldn’t bring myself to socialize. I just decided for my mental health, I’m going to not talk to anyone. I never once concluded that I was depressed.

Something like this has never really happened to me before. Usually I wallow for a few months and then, I force myself to do something to pick myself up. But how do you try to do and feel better when you don’t realize that there’s anything wrong? I just coasted without knowing there was a problem. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a solution.

However, I’m currently in the process of making a change in my life that’s kickstarted a more positive outlook. It’s mostly serendipitous. It’s been something I’ve been planning for some time that I’m fnally executing. The timing just works. Thankfully, I’m reconnecting with friends and feeling better overall, if not a little ovewhelmed with the amount of work I’ve been dealt. Things are looking much more optimistic, so I’ll try to

Keep on.

Adam