When you're a woman who's always had it together, depression can feel like a personal failure.

Your friends are worried. Your partner is frustrated. Your boss has noticed. To make matters worse, you're furious with yourself. You know what's expected of you, and right now you can't deliver.

You used to be the person who never hit snooze, who went for a morning run or ride and was back early enough to make yourself a protein shake before working a 10 hour day. 

Now getting out the door feels impossible. When you do make it out—to hike, or climb, or see friends—you're exhausted and grouchy the whole time. You come home, scroll your phone, sleep like crap…and then wake up and do it all again.

There’s nothing wrong with you. You have depression.

When you're a high-achieving woman with depression, the guilt you feel is all-consuming. You call yourself lazy, tell yourself to just try harder, and cycle through shame every time you fall short. And it feels like you’re always, always, falling short. 

The world doesn't allow much room for high-functioning women to struggle. You can be tired, but not that tired. You're permitted to have a bad week, but not a bad month. 

There's an unspoken expectation that you'll figure it out, bounce back, keep pushing through—and when you can't, the people around you don't always respond with patience.

Depression sucks. But you don’t have to do it alone anymore.

What Happens When You're Depressed? 

Depression is a vicious cycle.

You feel bad, so you do less. When you do less, you feel worse—guilty, ashamed, and down on yourself for not “trying harder.” Because you’re feeling so bad about yourself you do even less...and the cycle repeats itself. 

Depression looks different than you might think.

Many people picture a depressed person as someone who sleeps all the time, never changes out of sweatpants, and cries constantly. 

Sometimes, that’s how depression shows up. But for a lot of high-functioning women, the picture depression paints is very different. It looks like: 

• Going through the motions while feeling hollow and disconnected inside
  
  
• Snapping at the people you love and not knowing why
  
  
• Doing all the right things—working out, eating well, staying busy—and still feeling terrible
  
  
• Struggling to do the activities that used to make you feel like yourself
  
  
• Lying awake exhausted but unable to sleep, your mind running on empty
  
  
• A creeping sense that nothing really matters, even when your life looks fine on paper

This kind of depression is easy to miss, and it’s even easier to miss when you’re the one in it. You might think you’re just burnt out, stressed, or in your luteal phase. 

Your type of depression might not look like depression at all.

(If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, there’s help: dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Prevention Hotline or call our local mental health support line here in Durango at 970-247-5245.) 

How Does Therapy for Depression Work? 

It's time to shift the downward spiral.

In therapy for depression, we work on breaking the "do less, feel worse" cycle.

One of the first steps is stepping back into your life—and yourself—in small, manageable ways. I know, I know…if you're a woman who runs half marathons before 8 AM, "small and manageable" probably sounds insulting. 

But depression has drained a lot of your energy, and starting small helps give you some of that energy back. 

Depression has been lying to you.

The depressed mind sees everything through the lens of depression. It's like wearing glasses with the lenses tinted with sadness, low energy, and negativity. So when your mind says "that won't work" or "what's the point,” that's the depression talking, not the truth.

A big part of therapy for depression is learning to recognize the painful stories your depressed mind tells you. Learning to observe these stories lessens their weight, and they start to have less power over you and your life. 

Sometimes you need someone to climb down with you.

Depression is like a well. You've been at the bottom for a long time. Well-meaning people have tried to pull you out of it. But sometimes you just need someone to be in it with you for awhile, to acknowledge the pain you're in without trying to fix it. 

The depression well holds a whole slew of emotions— sadness, shame, grief. For a lot of women, that's the part that's hardest to touch, and the part that most needs tending.

As I often tell women with depression, the overwhelming part is that there's a lot going on inside of you. The hopeful part is that we have a lot of different places to start.