I have no reason to be depressed, so why do I feel so bad?

Why am I depressed when nothing is wrong?

You can’t get out of bed. Everything feels pointless. You feel like Eeyore, walking around with a black cloud over your head. Except Eeyore is cute and has Pooh and Piglet and you’re hiding under your duvet wondering how you’re supposed to function feeling like this. You can’t be bothered with anything anymore.

It’s common for people to be confused about depression and why they’re depressed.

I’ve met a lot of people through my work who were depressed without knowing why. But when they’ve started talking, there’s always been a reason; a good reason.

We don’t learn about emotions at school

So you pretty much get what you got in your family. And for a lot of us, our family didn’t really do emotions.

Not doing emotions means not knowing what to do with them. It means not knowing what they’re for, how they work or how to ‘get rid of them’.

It can also mean getting stuck in one particular emotion, or not being able to move freely from one emotion to the next. Maybe some are missing completely.

How to understand depression

Physical, emotional and sexual abuse and physical and emotional neglect are all forms of childhood trauma.

When people suffered with childhood trauma of some sort, this affects the way they think, feel and behave. They may not even realise that anything was wrong.

Sometimes people compare themselves to others and notice that something is wrong but they might not know what to do about it.

Depression infographic showing factors involved in depression

The past frequently bleeds into the present with childhood trauma. It can become mixed up with now or it can mean that we simply don’t have effective ways of dealing with our emotions when they feel too big.

Sadness vs depression

Feeling sad is a normal emotion (although it may be hard to tolerate). We feel sad when we’ve lost something or someone or we miss something or someone.

Depression is a state that can occur when we’ve tried to ignore being sad for too long. It happens when emotions get stuck and aren’t processed or released.

We can also be depressed because of our present situation. Difficult relationships, poverty, racism, inequality, job problems or existential angst can all cause depression.

My life is good why am I depressed?

It may not be your current situation that is affecting you, but your past.

It’s common for people to underestimate the impact that abuse or neglect had on them as children.

Sometimes people do not realise their childhoods were traumatic or they minimise what happened to them.

The most commonly underestimated issue in my experience is emotional neglect.

Emotional neglect by parents

Emotional neglect (sometimes also know as CEN or Childhood Emotional Neglect) causes very significant emotional pain in children (and can continue into adulthood)

Emotional neglect is when parents don’t know what to do with emotions or how to help children calm down or feel better when they are overwhelmed.

Sometimes parents shame, ignore or punish children for experiencing certain emotions. They may not discuss emotions or help children to understand what they’re feeling.

It can be hard for people to identify emotional neglect because they look bad and think ‘but nothing bad happened’. And sometimes it didn’t but nothing good happened either.

Emotional skills can be learned!

The good news is that all the skills required to process and tolerate emotions can be learned.

You do not need to be stuck feeling depressed and hopeless.

If you’d like to find out if I can help, you can click here to schedule a free 15 minute call.