If you told me there were benefits of depression a few years ago I would have told you to f*ck off. Saying that there are good things about depression is quite a bold thing to say, but I believe that I have benefited from my time being depressed in several ways. Each time I’ve fallen into a depression, it’s felt as if the world was holding me down. Everything seemed shit, and I  would do anything to get out of feeling that way. Part of using a healthier perspective has allowed me to look back in retrospect and try and understand why I fell into a depression in the first place, and more importantly, how having those experiences may have helped me in some way.

I came to this perspective after accepting that falling into depression is a very real part of life, and more common than most would like to admit. Clinical depression is something else, but the bouts of depression that the vast amount of the population experiences makes me feel as if depression is just as important to us as joy or happiness. After all, there is a dance of balance happening constantly.

Where there’s bad there must be good. For good to exist, there must be bad too. If everything was good all of the time, there would be no good as we know it – there would just be a continuous state of ‘normal’.

 

The word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced with sadness. – Carl Jung

 

Being depressed is one of the toughest experiences a human being can go through, and I know that from personal experience. So how could there possibly be good things about depression? When we become depressed, we understandably find it uncomfortable. We push against it, cowering under our label of ‘being depressed’. But what if we looked at it differently? What if we could see that instead, we are in a place of deep healing that is an essential part of the many complex human states.

 

1. It Forces You To Search For Meaning

 

There are several factors that can cause people to fall into depression and some are more serious than others. But it’s very common to arise when we feel as if our lives have no meaning. Whether we’re stressed at doing mundane work, or having a relationship break down, a loss of meaning in our lives can trigger depression. A few years ago I found myself plummeting into a spiral of depression and despair. I felt as if my life was just spinning in circles without any kind of direction.

Every day I would wake up, get dressed, go to work, come home, get in exhausted and fall into bed. And start the cycle all over again the next day. We were financially unstable at that time, and life just seemed as if it was pointless like I was just flogging a dead horse. The meaning of my life was starting to dissolve.

I felt as if I had no purpose and I was way worse than just ‘unhappy’.

During this time I found myself desperately trying to find some meaning in my life. I was after anything that would make me feel alive and useful to someone. That’s when I bite the bullet and started this mental health blog. I wanted to share my experience in the hope that other people would find comfort and some kind of help.

When feeling as if I had no purpose in my life, I decided to create one. Something that was my own. Depression made me realise that there is no meaning to life unless we make one ourselves. That means there’s no ‘blanket meaning’, but instead there are 7 billion different meanings. Each one is different and special to each individual.

We’re always trying to find that secret key that unlocks the confusion of life, but it’s closer than we think. Our meaning in life is found when we fall apart first, able to see both sides of the world.

 

2. Depression Made Me Emotionally Stronger

 

Depression is a dark experience, sometimes darker for others. Even though it’s very perfectly common across the globe,  not everyone will experience depression in their lifetimes. Those that come out of the other side are able to see a different view of the world.

Yes, that view is dark and horrible, but it can be seen as a gift. Because if you can get through depression, you can get through almost anything. Depression opens your eyes up to what the world can be like, and higher truth. It is the truth that many of us do not want to accept – the truth that the world can be a very dark place.

Whilst this can be seen as a pessimistic view, it is one that we all need to accept. There are dark times just as there are light times. When we only try to see the good in things, we push away the idea that darkness is necessary too.

Depression made me emotionally stronger. After times of depression, I’ve felt more equipped to face day to day darkness. Armed with two perspectives, it’s been easier to adjust in difficult situations. I found it much easier to see what peoples motives are, and dissolve negative feelings tied into different situations.

Because I’ve seen pure darkness, my brain has adjusted to the weight, meaning I can carry more pain than before. Much like a weightlifter that tears his muscles just so he or she can carry more load in the future once new strength has been built.

Everyday struggles seem trivial compared to depression. I have found a new sense of calm from not taking too many things seriously when they don’t really matter in the first place.

 

3. Depression Gave Me Perspective

 

We value so much crap in our lives. Our cars, our houses, our status’ or our cell phones. However, it’s all just a load of rubbish. Some of these things are more valuable than others (we need places to live) but it’s when we attach our identity to these things we lose perspective.  We think of ourselves as ‘the person that owns the nice car’, and we place too much value on it.

Depression taught me that when we strip away the bullshit, there’s only a handful of things we should put our energy into;

• our minds
• our bodies
• our loved ones

 

These are the things that save us when we are depressed and feeling our worst. We can have all the luxuries in the world, but if our mindset is not in the right place, no ‘stuff’ is going to fix our situation or make us feel better. I don’t care what new phone you bought.

Our bodies are the things we host every day of our lives and provide us with health and all the functions we need to live. If we have a healthy body, we can enjoy all of the basic pleasures of life like walking, talking, and hearing sounds.

Our loved ones are the ones that care for us in our times of need. They could be your family or friends, but they are the people that want you to be well. They are the support network that helps to influence goodness on us.

Depression has allowed me to appreciate all of the smaller things in life too – like simply waking up each day, looking out of my window, and being able to see the sunrise on a warm morning. These are all things we take for granted in life, but really nothing is off the cards.

Maybe one day we won’t wake up, maybe the world will end, or maybe there will be eternal darkness with the death of the sun. Nothing is off the cards in life, and this simple fact is one that can bring you great peace when you understand you’re not trapped in your current circumstances but you’re instead living along a long line of people having multiple experiences as they age.

When we feel no depression, there is a reason to be thankful, and when we do feel depression there is also reason to be thankful, even though we feel terrible at the time. It reminds us that we are in a continuous change of emotions that build our character over the duration of our lives.

When I look back at my own life, it looks like an up and down chart with times of joy and times of depression. It has never been a straight line or just a downward line as I once thought my life was.

 

4. Depression Allowed Me To Say “No”

 

More importantly, depression has allowed me to weigh up the cost-benefit of everyday situations. What I mean by that is, I don’t automatically say “yes” when really I don’t want to do something. Instead, I am able to weigh up whether something will be of benefit to me emotionally. If I really don’t want to do something, I no longer just jump into it anyway.

I allow myself more time to decide if something is going to cause me stress or not. In my experience, this is a benefit of depression. Whilst some may say that it is a negative way to look at things, I believe it is healthier for you. Do you find yourself saying “yes” just to please other people often? We’re all guilty of it, but it rarely helps us emotionally.

 

Other Benefits Of Depression;

 

In a recent study published in the journal of PLOS ONE, researchers found there to be benefits of depression or at least things that depressed people found easier than those who were not. They were able to;

• Process information more deeply
• Complete tasks more accurately
• Make better judgements

 

The researchers claimed that evidence pointed to depression as being something that the brain utilises to deal with very complex situations that are hard to understand. In other words, it may be something that is a necessary process the brain needs from time to time.

Whilst depression is something that is looked upon with fear and stigma, it is, I believe, something that comes just as naturally as joy or excitement and has its place in our minds.