Does This Still Count as Depression?

On existential crises

I seem to be in a depressed place that feels slightly unrecognizable to me. When I was in my 20’s, depression looked like a lot of time in bed, acting, I’m positive, delightful around my friends and family at times, and barely scraping meals together if I did eat at all. I have now entered a phase of late 30’s depression. This depression is one in which I am still having similar existential crises but I consistently eat balanced meals, workout four to five times a week, and do my creative tasks and hobbies.  It’s just that everything seems to be done with an emptiness and a worrying. A constant worrying. I worry about my partner’s health, about my aging parents, about how I will or will not deal with my aging parents, losing my friends, my dog choking to death on something weird he ate off the floor because he’s an idiot child, not living up to my potential (whatever my brain has decided that means), having enough money for retirement, growing my business, and making more money. As a person with chronic anxiety this is not new. Thankfully, after a decade of therapy, I have developed some coping mechanisms and reframing skills.  This might be why this depression looks the way it does. It’s a more responsible depression, if you will. A depression that will one day have a Roth IRA account, a sizable nest egg, and a mortgage.

I’m not sure what has brought this on. I was talking to my friend Nicole yesterday- who writes an excellent substack on grief -about existential crises. They seem to be all the rage right now. There must be something about watching thousands of people getting murdered mercilessly for nearly a year now and not having any say in the matter. Or perhaps it’s the fact that even groceries have become expensive. Or maybe it was being trapped in our homes for a couple of years, existing mostly on the internet because even our friends were too dangerous to be around. Maybe it was losing so many of our people. Inside and outside the pandemic. Just in the way you lose people in life. Everything feels more tenuous now. I feel everything I’ve created could crumble in an instant. 

Thanks to therapy, I recognize that some amount of control lives inside of me. That my lack of hope that anything would ever improve-my love life, my career, my income, my art-was colored by the way I thought about myself. I am happy to say that all of those aspects of my life have, in fact, improved. I am no longer a 20 year-old with no idea what I’m doing, what I want in a person, and what I want in a life. And yet, I’m still existing in a culture that prioritizes greed.  One that is rampant with abuse. One that decides certain people deserve far more than others. One that tells us there is a certain way to be. To look. One that quickly doles out cruelties. These are the things that are mostly outside of my control. This is the aspect of my depression that simply means my eyes are open. It is the part that never quite goes away. So, I eat my balanced meals, knit my sweaters, lift my weights, kiss my partner, visit my parents, hug my friends, sing to my dog, make my art, write my stories, and do it all as the world burns.