Depression Can Make It Difficult to Process Emotions

Depression has many well-known symptoms, and one of them is how depression makes it difficult to process emotions. This emotional effect is incredibly difficult for me to handle. I was an emotionally repressed child, and I only just started practicing emotional openness in college. I am still learning how to feel in a controlled fashion, how to conduct myself despite intense emotional outbursts, and how to work with feelings instead of against them. And I’m also learning how to cope during the times my depression blows my emotions out of proportion; because, depression complicates my ability to process emotions.

Processing Emotions with Depression Isn't Always Useful

Humans utilize emotions in many instances, such as when making decisions. What people decide to do is often based on how they feel about a given situation. For example, I may decide to maintain a friendship because it makes me feel joyful, lighthearted, and comforted; or I may decide to end a friendship because it makes me feel downtrodden and tired. I am constantly motivated by my feelings.

Though emotion can be useful, I prefer the comfort of reason as opposed to the difficulty of emotion. I take my emotions into consideration, but I regard my emotions as quick-changing, fleeting lenses that only slightly affect the way I see things. I tend to be more motivated by logic and reason than by my emotions.

Exaggerated Emotions in Depression Makes Processing Them Useless

Unfortunately, emotions get in the way of my logic when depression tampers with my brain. My depression is really good at taking what I'm feeling and magnifying it to an extreme, almost as if I asked for a hair trim and received a buzz cut. By the time the depression subsides, I am overwhelmed and exhausted by the sensory overload. I cannot process what has just occurred, and I shut down. Because this emotional magnification occurs so much, I have discovered that not feeling emotions is sometimes a good thing.

Must You Always Process Emotions If You Live With Depression?

I don't enjoy being emotionally numb, because I find it to be uncomfortable and eerie. Not feeling things makes me view myself as a robot. When I shut my feelings down, I worry that I’m not human enough, because I’m not laughing, smiling, or crying genuinely like others are shown to do (like people in restaurant commercials).

But I have come to the conclusion that it is okay to not feel things sometimes. Emotions are exhausting, and bad brain days can make it difficult to process feelings. So in my case, sitting back and choosing to not process my emotions is an act of self-care. I am giving myself permission to rest, and to focus on other aspects of my mental health. An added bonus is the extra time I have to dedicate to fulfilling my basic needs.

And after all is said and done, if I still worry that I am too inhuman, well, I remind myself that it is human to worry.