By Renata Fulawka, Registered Psychotherapist

Depression is not only about sadness. It often includes emotional numbness, painful self criticism, cognitive distortions, and deep internalized shame. In Part 2 of this series, we explore the internal patterns that keep depression active.

Cognitive Distortions That Intensify Depression

Depression changes the way you think, often without you realizing it. Cognitive Distortions are thought patterns that make emotional pain feel heavier and more permanent, think of it as faulty thinking patterns.

Common distortions include:

All or nothing thinking

Viewing experiences as complete success or total failure.
More info:

Harvard article: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-recognize-and-tame-your-cognitive-distortions-202205042738

Positive Psychology: https://positivepsychology.com/cognitive-distortions/

VeryWellMind:  https://www.verywellmind.com/all-or-nothing-thinking-2584173

Overgeneralizing

Believing one negative experience predicts a negative future.

Emotional reasoning

Assuming feelings are facts.

Personalization

Taking responsibility for things outside your control.

These patterns are learned responses to stress and emotional overwhelm. They are not flaws.

Emotional Numbness and Shutdown

For many people, depression feels less like sadness and more like emptiness. This numbness is often a sign of nervous system shutdown.

According to research on the freeze response, the body sometimes protects itself by reducing emotional intensity as a survival mechanism.
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/fight-flight-freeze

Numbness is not a lack of feeling.

It is too much feeling that has nowhere to go.

Internalized Shame

One of the deepest layers of depression is internalized shame. Shame often shows up as:

  • “I am not good enough”
  • “I am a burden”
  • “Everyone else is doing better than me”
  • “There is something wrong with me”

Shame is often rooted in earlier experiences where emotional needs were ignored or criticized.

Healing depression means unlearning old narratives that never belonged to you.

→ Brene Brown on Guilt & Shame: https://youtu.be/k4i60xcrIvQ?si=hRsIEQjBIHJiX6N-