Depression can have a big impact on your mental and emotional health. Pessimistic thoughts intensify. Feelings of sadness, loneliness, hopelessness, and despair deepen. An ache inside feels like it will never end. These thoughts and feelings interrupt your life and the lives of the people around you.
However, not everyone understands just how deeply the wounds of depression can go in terms of causing emotional pain. A practical way to think about emotional pain is to compare it to physical pain. The different factors and symptoms associated with depression can create emotional bumps, bruises, and scarring.
Emotional pain can hurt more and be even more damaging than physical pain. If it’s not taken care of, it can also lead to health problems like a weakened immune system, inflammation, or high blood pressure
So, how can you ease the emotional pain caused by depression?
Consider a few practical tips for dealing with emotional pain.
Lean Into the Feelings
The human body is wired to move away from pain and toward pleasure. Emotional pain is no different. People have many different strategies for dealing with emotional pain. They may redirect it, minimize it, avoid it, internalize it, etc. Regardless, emotional pain does not loosen its grip when it is ignored. Instead, it is stubborn and digs its heels in even deeper.
It might seem counterintuitive to lean into emotional pain, but the more light you can shine on it, the less intense it will feel.
Depression is the result of not being able to express emotional pain. Feelings are drawn inward instead of expressed outward and released. Inward movement can leave you feeling stuck, heavy, paralyzed, and disconnected from life. Outward movement leaves you feeling light, mobile, energized, and connected to life.
To begin, find a quiet place and close your eyes. As you begin to bring awareness inward, approach your feelings with curiosity, not judgment. At first, you may not know what you are feeling, and that’s ok. Notice the body sensations that are emerging. Does the feeling sit anywhere? If so, focus on that area. Notice how long you can sit with your feelings before you distract yourself. Ask your body questions such as, “If you can express yourself right now, what would that look like?”
Listen for the answers to your questions. If possible, keep a journal nearby to record your experience.
The longer you can sit with your feelings, the greater your tolerance will be, and the quicker you will be able to move through your emotional pain when it emerges.
Fighting Loneliness with Positive Self-Talk
Many people who are dealing with depression also feel lonely. In fact, this might be the reason you are depressed, or you might isolate yourself because of your depression. Relationships and support are extremely important in everyone’s life, but even more so when you’re struggling with overwhelming emotions and thoughts.
If your depression makes you feel lonely, you might also feel helpless, as though you’re not good enough for healthy relationships. This can lead to doubt and negative self-talk. You might think that you’re a burden to people or that no one really likes you.
One of the best ways to battle this emotional pain is to fight against that negative self-talk. Think of your self-esteem as a muscle that needs to be “worked out” in order to get stronger. Ask yourself practical questions to challenge your all-or-nothing thinking about your loneliness and why you feel the way you do.
As you continue working on positive self-talk, make every effort to reconnect with friends and family, even for short periods. Doing this will help you to realize that you’re worthy of love and have the ability to love others, despite your depressed feelings.
Healing the Scars of the Past
In a depressed state, it’s not uncommon to ruminate over things you’ve been through in the past. Ruminating on unpleasant situations from your life can pull you deeper into a hole of darkness. For some people, it’s easy to invent negative situations and dwell on them.
Healing these scars matters so they don’t keep clinging to you for the rest of your life.
One of the first things you can do is to realize that your internal dialogue is far more critical than anyone else’s, and most likely you are the only one in your life who is dwelling on your failures. If you lost your job, had a bad breakup, or even if you made an embarrassing mistake at work, there’s a good chance no one is talking about it or even remembers it the way that you do.
When you realize these negative situations aren’t important to other people, you can start to make them less important to you, too. As a result, you’ll think about them less and less.
If you’re still having a problem with these emotional scars, lean into them and acknowledge them. Remind yourself that whatever you are feeling has already happened to you, and it can no longer hurt you in the way that it once did. Remind yourself that you are safe right now and that you are not alone.
Acknowledging, instead of distracting yourself from your emotional pain, can make a big difference in not letting yourself get sucked into the past.
Easing the Pain of Trauma
Depression can often be linked to emotional trauma. Maybe you’ve gone through a particularly traumatic event. Or maybe years of repeated trauma have brought you to a state of depression and anxiety.
Whatever the case, dealing with trauma can hurt and make you feel unsafe.
Everyone has different coping mechanisms when it comes to trauma, but seeking out help from a professional counselor or therapist is one of the best ways to get through it. A counselor can help you identify what triggers your pain and learn different ways to manage and relieve your symptoms.
You Don’t Have to Carry This Alone
If depression is weighing on you, let’s talk. Schedule a free 20-minute consultation or reach out through my contact form. Together, we’ll explore what’s beneath the pain and consider a path toward healing. Want to learn more first? Visit my Depression Counseling page.
