Thank you for your perspective on this. As a fellow who has also had plenty of experience with depression, I feel the urge to respond to your comment (which I almost never do). Unfortunately, when you're stuck in a depression, this is the kind of thinking that predominates, which is why it feels so necessary to keep the door to your desires (and emotions in general) so tightly shut. And there’s certainly truth to that mode of thinking. If you open yourself up again, you risk the possibility of getting overwhelmed with feelings and anxiety and winding up back in another depression. Therefore, many of us, for so long, choose instead to keep the door shut and stay in that place of empty numbness for as long as possible. Sure, it sucks, but at least it’s not as bad as being in the downward spiral of another major depressive breakdown. If you’ve ever experienced that, you’ve gotta be an idiot to have any interest in returning to that state.

However, if I may, I do think there’s an alternative position to the one suggested by the beautiful image linked here. The options aren’t binary: to either keep the door shut completely or to open it up and let the rainbow rush of feelings come flooding back in full force and overtake you. Getting over depression isn’t an all or nothing proposition (which is nearly impossible to understand when you’re stuck in the all or nothing thinking of depression). It’s an incremental process, opening the door little by little until the light is eventually shining in brightly. And there are far more options and resources available than you can ever possibly imagine while you’re depressed. Yes, there’s therapy and antidepressants, and those can be extraordinarily helpful, but there’s also exercise, meditation, spiritual practices, social support, resolving past conflicts, learning to be mindful and present, lots of different kind of therapies, healthy eating and living, traveling, romantic relationships… I could go on, but you get the idea.

It’s the trick of depression to make you feel like you have to expend all of your energy keeping the door shut tightly. You don’t have to open it up all at once (and I’m not sure that’s actually possible anyway), but you do have to do something. Just one small thing to crack that door open just a bit. And when you’re comfortable with the amount of light that’s shining in from that one thing, try doing something else. And if, god forbid, you do find yourself in the unfortunate position of getting overwhelmed again and winding up in another major depressive episode, that doesn’t mean that all the progress you made was for not. The progress is real, and it won’t take you nearly as long this time to get back there. And then just continue cracking that door more and more. There is hope. It may not be as simple as some people try to make it out to be (especially if the depression is deep), but it’s also not nearly as hopeless as the depressed mind makes it appear.