An Unpopular Opinion About Depression (That Could Change the Way You See Yourself—And Others)

In honor of Suicide Prevention Month, I'm sharing a perspective on depression that could shift the way we view it—both personally and as a society.

My Story

One of the darkest periods of my life was a summer in college. From the outside, very few people knew I was struggling (even now).

It felt like someone else had taken over my body. Even on perfect Maine summer days when the sun was shining and everyone else seemed carefree, I felt like I was living in another world. Everything was heavy, cloudy, and grey.

Normally the cheerful, even-keeled one, I frequently cried over “nothing” or lost my temper and said things I regretted. Even as it was happening, I’d think, “Why am I acting like this? This isn’t me.” But the emotions were so big I felt out of control.

I needed help, but I felt confused, embarrassed, and alone. I felt caught between so many conflicting feelings:

• I didn’t want to be alone, but I also didn’t want people around me.
• I was comfortable being the helper, not the one who asked for help.
• I wanted to explain what was happening inside me, but because it didn’t make sense to me, it felt impossible to explain to others.

I wasn’t fun to be around, which meant the people I was closest to were pushed away. 

When you don’t feel like yourself, don’t understand why, and the people you love react to your emotions in ways that cause more pain and isolation, it’s a very dark place to be.

Eventually, I discovered the culprit: my birth control pill had been switched to a generic. Despite being told it “shouldn’t cause changes,” switching to a different option helped me feel like myself again.

But there were deeper wounds I didn’t fully heal until a couple of years ago.

That summer confirmed my belief that if I let my guard down and showed emotions, bad things would happen to me. That’s a devastating belief to carry—and yet the message that big emotions are “bad” or weak is still so prevalent in our society.

It’s so normalized we barely notice:

• turning to alcohol, comfort food, screens, or pills to avoid big feelings after a stressful day
• telling kids, “You’re okay—don’t cry”
• calling an assertive woman a “bitch” or “hormonal"
• labeling a crying man “weak”

Looking back, it’s no surprise I later burned out as a veterinarian who was a pro at compartmentalizing. Those low points—feeling depressed and burning out—are why I’m so passionate about changing how we view our bodies and approach mental and physical health.

Suicide happens when you feel hopeless, alone, and out of options. We can save lives by changing our approach.

A Different Perspective

From my perspective now, depression (and burnout) is a nervous system in overwhelm—stuck in freeze or “shut down.”

If your body perceives a threat and Plan A (fight or flight) doesn’t bring you back to safety, it tries Plan B: shut down, “playing possum,” in an attempt to minimize pain.

In this state, you may feel drained, hopeless, numb, foggy, or disconnected. It’s your nervous system’s way of saying: “Something—physical, mental, or emotional—feels like too much.”

But instead of listening, we’re taught to judge:

• Hustle culture calls it “lazy” and says you should try harder.
• Medicine pathologizes it and patches it with a pill.
• Workplaces assume it means an employee “doesn’t care.”

But this nervous system state isn’t a weakness or flaw — it’s a signal. It’s designed to protect you. 

To be clear: I’m not anti-medication or anti-diagnosis. Both can be important and lifesaving.

But I am pro recognizing that our bodies are beautifully complex, intelligent systems.

And I am pro normalizing and exploring feelings instead of pathologizing them based on some pre-determined idea of how long is “too long” to feel that way.

Our bodies are the only thing completely devoted to taking care of us.

When something feels off, what if we saw it as a signal to respect and explore, rather than something to push through or patch over?

And when depression becomes a label —“I have depression”—it becomes an identity that feels heavy and permanent. Reframing it as “I’m feeling depressed” reminds us it’s a state, not a life sentence.

It’s scary to think that if I hadn’t pushed to switch birth control pills, I easily could have been prescribed another medication to “fix” my symptoms—without addressing the root cause. In my case, less medication was needed, not more.

This is why I believe we need to adopt the 3 C’s—Compassion, Curiosity, and Connection—in our own lives, workplaces, healthcare, and society.

Compassion

I was hurt by loved ones that summer not because they didn’t care, but because they didn’t understand. Their own nervous system went into reactive mode, which is a normal nervous system reaction to someone else in survival mode.

With the current polarization and division in our world right now, it's clear this reactivity is rampant.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

With practice, we can train our brains to recognize survival mode patterns and respond by offering safety and support, rather than reacting as if we’re facing a threat.

This starts with noticing signs of a stress response in our own bodies and the way we treat ourselves —uninstalling the malware of hustle and diet culture that tells us our bodies can’t be trusted and to push through and ignore our needs.

These are the 4 nervous system stress responses that everyone should be able to immediately recognize: 

• Fight: irritability, anger, snapping.
• Flight: anxiety, busyness, perfectionism.
• Freeze: lack of energy or motivation, brain fog, feeling numb or hopeless.
• Fawn: people-pleasing or putting everyone else first.

Recognizing these signs tells us someone is overwhelmed from their body's perspective. We don’t need to know why—it’s enough to respect that and meet it with compassion instead of labels.

This approach isn’t altruistic - it’s more comfortable for you. When you can recognize stress response patterns it allows you to observe what is happening rather than being in the middle of it — protecting you from absorbing their stress or negative energy. It allows you to keep the part of your brain that can think rationally (your prefrontal cortex) so that your next steps are proactive and thought out rather than reactive and controlled by your amygdala (leading to actions you may regret).

And this isn’t just a personal skill—it’s a leadership imperative. Leaders who can recognize and respond to stress patterns create workplaces that are calmer, more resilient, and more sustainable. Without it, reactivity spreads, trust erodes, and burnout becomes the norm.

Curiosity (Instead of Judgment)

Compassion stops the judgment. Curiosity helps us find the next step forward.

Many people I talk to who feel depressed are frustrated and confused because they don't think they should feel that way. They list out all the reasons their life “isn't that bad.”

Gratitude is important, but not when it gaslights you. Judging prevents us from seeing and acknowledging what’s feeling hard.

Compassionate curiosity is key.

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” try asking: “Why is it understandable that I feel this way?”

When I explore this with clients, there are always very good reasons they are feeling the way they do.

This matters because judgment adds pressure—and pressure keeps people stuck.

When someone is in shutdown, that means that their nervous system is already overwhelmed. Judgment adds even more stress and pressure, which only keeps them in the freeze/shut down state (no matter how much they may want to change that).  

And when they begin to “thaw” out of freeze, they often start feeling big fight/flight emotions. If those emotions (ex: anxiety or anger) are judged or suppressed, the nervous system gets shoved right back into shutdown.

Judgment leads to dead-ends. Curiosity opens doors.

Connection

Everything in the body is connected, even though healthcare often treats the body more like a robot with separate parts. Mental and physical health aren’t separate.

For example, chronic inflammation changes the behavior of an immune cell in the brain called microglia cells. Normally they protect and take care of neurons, but under chronic inflammation (like from chronic stress, poor sleep, infections, trauma, or ultra-processed foods), they become destructive. That change in their behavior is linked to cognitive changes like depression, anxiety, OCD, and more. 

The good news: these changes can often be reversed by addressing root causes (check out The Angel and the Assassin: The Tiny Brain Cell That Changed The Course of Medicine by Donna Jackson Nakazawa for more).

When we step back, it’s rarely just one thing causing overwhelm—it’s an accumulation of stressors (physical, mental, and emotional) that add up. Recognizing this helps us move away from blame and toward compassion and solutions.

This is also where traditional approaches can fall short. Therapy can be powerful—but it isn’t always holistic or trauma-informed. Talking about painful memories without addressing physical contributors (like sleep, nutrition, or inflammation), or without tools to shift the nervous system, can leave people feeling stuck—or even defeated, like they’re “doing the work” but not getting better.

I know, because I experienced it myself. Revisiting painful memories in therapy without regulation tools left me worse off, as if the wounds had been reopened. It wasn’t until I learned integrative change work and memory reconsolidation that I was able to heal those old wounds—recalling memories while creating a new emotional experience, so the brain rewires and the memory no longer carries the same pain. Today, it's one of the key tools I use to help clients create deep, lasting shifts.

This kind of nuance is often missing in mainstream conversations about depression, burnout, anxiety, and healing. And it’s why embracing Compassion, Curiosity, and Connection are so crucial—so we don’t just cope, we actually get to the root.

The nervous system also connects us to each other. These are human states we’ve all experienced, no matter how different we may seem. At the root, we all want the same thing: to feel safe and to belong—we just have different perspectives on how to get there.

That means instead of getting lost in the details, we can focus on what matters at the root: re-establishing safety and helping people to feel seen and supported when they feel overwhelmed (sometimes even before they are consciously aware of it).

In daily life, this means behaviors that look ‘difficult’ on the surface often point to deeper overwhelm and opportunities that can ultimately strengthen relationships.

Take a client who’s upset about prices. They are really saying, "this conversation about finances is feeling too overwhelming for me". Often, it’s not the price but their experience with it and the conversation that matters. From that lens, there are many opportunities to pause and help them to feel more supported. Have you made your positive intention clear? Do they understand the value? Were they kept informed or is the bill a surprise? 

Or the employee who repeatedly shows up late and seems "lazy" at work. What they are really saying is "something in my life is draining too much energy". Instead of warnings that add pressure, ask: Is there psychological safety for them to speak up? Could a small shift in schedule or resources (like access to healthy food) make work more sustainable? Is there a task at work that causes anxiety and they could use additional training or support?

Or the partner who never asks for help but then complains that they have to do everything. What they are really saying is, "I wish you would help me without me having to ask, because asking doesn't feel safe to me" or "This feels like too much on my plate, but it also feels unsafe to release control". 

Different scenarios, same truth: what looks like conflict, laziness, or nagging is often just overwhelm asking to be seen.

Recognizing behaviors as signals instead of flaws helps us connect instead of divide. That’s how we build relationships, workplaces, healthcare systems, and communities that are proactive—not reactive—where people can thrive.

What I’ve Learned Since

These everyday examples show how much power we have to shift culture when we choose to see signals instead of flaws. And it starts within ourselves.

Even now, having done so much deep healing, repairing my relationship with my body, and creating a life aligned with my values, I sometimes have days—or a week—when I feel down, unmotivated, or defeated.

That’s normal. No matter how good life is or successful you are, these human emotions and nervous system states are a part of the human experience.

Instead of fighting or judging it, I greet the familiar signal. I hear my body saying, “It’s time to slow down and recharge.” 

And I meet that with compassion, curiosity, and connection by asking, “Why is it understandable that I feel this way?” There’s always a reason—a series of long days, stepping outside my comfort zone, or little stressors adding up from my life and the world.

When I listen and slow down—by meeting basic needs, creating more space, and resting—my body shifts back into the parasympathetic state where it can heal and recharge.

That shift—from judgment to compassion, curiosity, and connection —has changed everything.

Changing the Narrative

In veterinary medicine—and in the world—we are quick to judge.

In a profession already burdened by burnout and suicide, it MUST be safe for anyone to share how they’re feeling or set boundaries without fear of judgment or needing it to make sense to someone else.

When colleagues judge others for saying no to surgery or asking for fewer hours, it often comes from their own stress.

But this is exactly why we need a universal nervous system language: so we can all prioritize respecting signals of overwhelm rather than seeing it as a zero-sum game, where one person’s boundaries mean someone else must self-sacrifice

Respecting signals is how we create resilience and sustainable success. It allows us to identify early warning signs before it becomes too late. It allows us to pause and reflect on what is contributing, so that something can be adjusted.

This isn’t just for well-being—it’s also good business.

If we want to move forward, we must uninstall the malware of hustle culture and start seeing our bodies as wise, valuable partners, not enemies.

Compassion, Curiosity, and Connection aren’t just nice ideas. They are the antidote to burnout, division, and hopelessness.

Final Thoughts

As a coach, I’m not a replacement for a therapist or doctor—those are so important. But I do offer an additional perspective: one that doesn’t pathologize, but instead helps you to put puzzle pieces together so you can understand what your body is telling you and move forward.

I’m not anti-medication. I’m pro compassion, curiosity, and connecting the dots—so you always have a path forward.

This shift isn’t just personal—it’s cultural. It changes how we show up as colleagues, leaders, and humans.

✨If you’re craving a space where it’s okay to feel however you’re feeling—and where that’s met with compassion, curiosity, and connection—the Aligned Success Reboot welcomes you. It’s where people tired of broken systems come together—not just for deep healing, but to gain the skills to become the leaders our world desperately needs, in a space primed for collaboration, innovation, and bold expansion.

If You’re Struggling

If you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide, you are not alone. In the U.S., dial 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. In veterinary medicine, NOMV (Not One More Vet) offers resources and community for support.