What Are the Harmful Effects of Depression?

Depression sucks on its own terms 

When patients ask about the most harmful effects of depression, we tend to answer: depression. Depression sucks on its own terms. Being unhappy, being unable to feel good, and struggling to build a meaningful life are all extremely challenging. Simply put, feeling bad is bad. The experience of depression itself is miserable. In fact, the definition of depression, arguably, is the status of being miserable.

Depression can impact many parts of a person’s life, from relationships to physical health to work performance. When spending so much time and energy suffering, you can miss out on building your life—missed educational opportunities, missed career opportunities, and missed events with friends and family. Building a life is emotional, intellectual, and physical labor. It requires life force, ambition, and hopefulness, all of which are tough to maintain with depression.

Depression makes it hard to show up in relationships

Relationships ask for a give and take. This seems nearly impossible when dealing with depression. Depression is distracting and tiring. It can remove us from the world. Because of this remove, depression can make it difficult to show up, both literally and figuratively, in our relationships.

In particular, it’s hard to provide emotional support for others when you’re also struggling yourself. Receiving someone else’s joy becomes difficult and receiving their frustrations and sadness is even more so. It can become a challenge to celebrate and grieve, as well as give and offer support to loved ones. This is not to say that people who are depressed don’t do these things all the time. They do. However, it takes much more effort to be our fully loving selves with depression; there is more to override.

Depression can harm our physical selves 

Depression affects the body in a multitude of ways. One significant concern with depression is sleep. Depression can cause a lack of sleep, which is terrible for health. Sleep is about restoring the mind and body and over time, a disruption of sleep can cause an erosion of health. A similar phenomenon happens with exercise, which can also impact our overall wellness.

When we’re depressed, we get used to lowering our standards

Many of the harmful effects of depression can be tough to notice for the person suffering. Someone dealing with depression looks at themselves through a lens that is colored by depression. We get used to things and grow accustomed to certain discomforts. Think of the dirty dishes piling up in the sink or realizing that it’s been weeks that, then, become months since we’ve gone out with friends. When we’re depressed, we start to lower our standards—for the amount of joy we take in and for how well we take care of ourselves and our space. 

Suicide and suicidality

Suicide is, of course, the most terrible harm. Being suicidal too, even if one never acts on it, is a terrifying, fraught, and all-consuming way of being in the world. It is scary and very often lonely. Overriding suicidal thoughts takes tremendous and serious work.