Talking About Depression: What it Feels Like and What Helps Me Cope With It (AARP Magazine)

We’ve all had moments in our lives when we feel sad. But if weeks go by and those feelings linger, it may be a sign of clinical depression. More than mere sadness, depression is a mood disorder that can suck the joy out of life and leave you feeling too overwhelmed to engage in normal daily activities or to get much pleasure from people or things that you previously enjoyed. It can be exacerbated by stressful life events, such as the COVID-19 epidemic, thought to be a factor in surging rates of mental health issues around the world.

Since depression can feel different to different people, AARP asked five adults who have had the condition to describe what it feels like and to share what helps them cope.

Maria Olsen, 58, Fairhaven, Maryland

“It felt like my being, my soul and my consciousness were floating overhead, watching me go through the motions.”

When you think of the cautionary phrase “Depression doesn’t discriminate,” Maria Olsen comes to mind. Successful and whip-smart, with two loving children, she may be the last person you’d expect to struggle with the disorder. But Olsen, a civil litigation attorney, has dealt with depression at various points in her life. She experienced her first major depressive episode in her 20s, following a “soul-crushing” miscarriage. Eventually, her depression lifted, thanks to a combination of talk therapy and a new lease on life. In 1992, Olsen was appointed to serve in the U.S. Justice Department during the Clinton administration, becoming the highest-ranking Asian American political appointee.

Years later, a stunning revelation from her father sent her spiraling into her deepest depression. “Suddenly, I became silent and barely talked for a year — and I’m a loquacious extravert,” Olsen says. “My son would cry and say, ‘Mommy, please talk!’ I just couldn’t get the words out.” There were days when her husband would go to work and her kids to school, and she would sit and stare off into the distance until it was time to pick them up. “My body was there,” she recalls, “but it felt like my being, my soul and my consciousness were floating overhead, watching me go through the motions. I was a ghost of myself.” 

As her kids entered their teenage years “and started pushing me away,” Olsen felt a new sense of gloom descending and began to lean on alcohol for relief. By 2012, at age 49, she was drinking two bottles of wine a day. “My husband starting finding the bottles and said, ‘If you don’t go to AA, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’ ”

She began attending meetings and spent time in rehab. She also worked hard to alleviate her depression, using a mix of talk therapy, yoga, meditation and journaling. She worked with a dialectical behavior therapist (DBT is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that teaches patients to manage their emotions, tolerate distress and improve relationships) and tried various 12-step programs.

The medication part of the equation was a challenge. It took months of trying several drugs before Olsen found one that worked: Zoloft. She improved and went off medication for two years, but earlier this year, struggling with her partner’s cancer diagnosis, she resumed taking Zoloft and returned to talk therapy.

How she copes: She’s incorporated meditation into her daily life. “Because I’m a busy litigator, that doesn’t mean taking an hour out of my day, sitting in lotus position, chanting or being silent,” Olsen explains. “For me, it means taking deep, cleansing breaths to re-center myself throughout the day. I use traffic lights as a prompt for a deep, cleansing breath. I frequently do a 15-second meditation, breathing in to the count of four, holding it for a count of four, breathe out to a count of four. It forces me to come fully present. I cannot simultaneously be focusing on my breath and worrying about the future or fretting about the past.”

Olsen also makes an effort to surround herself with people who are positive, supportive influences. “I avoid energy vampires. We all have family members that we can’t avoid, but we can all limit our time with people who deplete our energy.”

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https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2022/depression-experiences.html