Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / if you're feeling depressed, this is for you.

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if you're feeling depressed, this is for you. · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

• 0:00
  I have struggled with depression for almost 7 years.
• 0:03
  I never got officially diagnosed but my therapist at the time was
• 0:07
  pretty much like yeah you have depression and it beat me down.
• 0:12
  I was stuck in my bed for months and months at a time.
• 0:16
  I was stagnant and to this day I still struggle.
• 0:20
  In fact, this week I have really been struggling with my
• 0:23
  depression every single day. It has been a fight to get out
• 0:27
  of bed. It has been a fight to do
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  anything. It has been a fight to record
• 0:31
  these podcast episodes. But the whole point of this
• 0:34
  podcast is to be real. The entire point of this podcast
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  is not to come at you like a professional who has studied
• 0:41
  this, but as somebody who has struggled and still is
• 0:44
  struggling to this day. So this episode is going to be a
• 0:49
  little bit different. It's going to be very real.
• 0:51
  I'm going to talk about depression.
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  I'm going to talk about how I'm struggling right now.
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  I'm kind of just going to rant. So thank you for being here.
• 0:59
  My name is Ethan Jewell, and welcome back to Feel Your
• 1:04
  Feelings. I sat here trying to figure out
• 1:08
  what I wanted to talk about today, and I felt immobilized by
• 1:13
  my depression, something that I've become very, very familiar
• 1:16
  with over the past nearly seven years.
• 1:20
  Depression sucks. And I think slowly more people
• 1:24
  are talking about mental health, more people are talking about
• 1:27
  mental illness. The stigma is slowly slipping
• 1:31
  away, but it's not gone. Because the truth is there is
• 1:35
  still a a big gap between the understanding that people have
• 1:40
  of depression in the actual experience of depression.
• 1:44
  One of the hardest things to hear when you're depressed is
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  somebody telling you to look around and see how beautiful
• 1:50
  everything is. You don't take things for
• 1:53
  granted, soak in the beauty of the world.
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  But that's the problem. I see the beauty, but I'm too
• 1:59
  depressed to feel good while looking at it.
• 2:02
  I'm too depressed. To go and experience it.
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  I'm too depressed. It's not about what's going on
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  around me, it's about what's going on inside of me.
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  And that's something that people who don't struggle with mental
• 2:15
  illness have a very hard time understanding.
• 2:17
  Yes, things can be good, the world can be beautiful, the
• 2:21
  circumstances in my life can be totally OK.
• 2:25
  But inside I'm still hurting and it's an invisible hurt and it's
• 2:30
  so hard to tell you about it. It's even hard to talk about it
• 2:34
  in this podcast. I often find myself avoiding
• 2:37
  personal stories, personal anecdotes, because it is hard to
• 2:42
  talk to a camera, to talk to a friend or a family member, even
• 2:47
  a professional. It is hard to talk about it,
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  especially people who don't understand, especially people
• 2:53
  who don't struggle with mental illness, because there's so many
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  little things, there's so many nuances that come with mental
• 2:59
  health struggles that make it so difficult to explain.
• 3:02
  Because it's not just a sadness, it's deeper than that.
• 3:07
  It's not always a feeling. Depression is a state of being.
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  Something that's hard to explain is the way that depression
• 3:16
  freezes you. You know, it's not even that
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  sadness, it's not that numbness. It's this experience of being
• 3:22
  completely and utterly frozen while the world keeps going on
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  around you. Depression, real depression,
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  freezes you in place. You watch other people make
• 3:32
  plans, start things, finish things, move cities, fall in
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  love, get promoted, take trips, build lives in your standing
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  completely still. Not because you don't want to
• 3:44
  move, you desperately want to. You want to do these things that
• 3:48
  other people are doing. And it's not because you're
• 3:50
  lazy, it's not because you don't care, but because something
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  invisible within you is just stopped.
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  And it's so hard to put into words.
• 4:00
  And the world just keeps moving. That's the part that gets me.
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  Everything keeps going by in my head, I'm still the same
• 4:08
  depressed 1718 year old that I was when I first started
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  struggling, and now I'm almost 24 and the world just kept
• 4:18
  moving. Meanwhile, my depression has
• 4:22
  done everything it can to freeze me, and that's something that
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  I've had a lot of trouble putting into words for a long
• 4:30
  time. I thought that's just how
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  everybody felt. I thought that that was a normal
• 4:35
  part of life. I had no idea that I was
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  suffering from a symptom of depression.
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  The cruelest part of being frozen and placed by your
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  depression is the awareness. You're not checked out, You're
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  not blissfully unaware of what's happening, just stuck in your
• 4:49
  own little depressed world. No, you see what's passing by.
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  You feel the gap widening. You see what you're out on and
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  it feels almost physically impossible to do anything about
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  it. That awareness, that fully
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  conscious experience of being frozen in your own mental
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  illness, watching the world pass you by is a horrible feeling
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  that I wouldn't wish upon anybody.
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  And I don't think it gets talked about very much.
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  So I'm talking about it today. You are not alone in that.
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  If you have felt frozen and while your life waited outside,
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  that is a real thing. That is a symptom.
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  It's not a character flaw and it does not mean that you are
• 5:30
  giving up. It means that you're unwell and
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  unwell people deserve care, not judgement, especially from
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  themselves. That is something that I also
• 5:39
  really struggle with. Depression is not judging
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  myself, is not talking down on myself.
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  That's always the first thing that I jump to.
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  You know, I had trouble getting out of bed today.
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  Something's wrong with me. I've been isolating myself from
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  my friends and family. How could I?
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  That's cruel of me. I'm not being a good friend.
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  I'm not being a good son. I am my own harshest critic.
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  And it's really, really hard when you're already struggling
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  with depression, but then you're also fighting yourself.
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  You're also talking down on yourself.
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  The the criticism is coming from within.
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  And this makes you start to be convinced that something is
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  seriously wrong with you. You start looking for evidence
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  that you are broken. You start looking for evidence
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  that you have flaws, that you're giving up, that you don't
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  deserve to heal. And that evidence is really,
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  really easy to find when you're struggling with depression.
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  You know, instead of saying, oh, I felt depressed today, I had
• 6:31
  trouble doing anything. Instead, it becomes proof that
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  you're lazy, that you're unmotivated.
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  Instead of that numb feeling being a symptom of depression,
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  it becomes proof that something's wrong.
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  And you keep proving to yourself over and over again that
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  something is wrong with you, instead of just accepting that
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  you're struggling with symptoms of mental illness.
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  And that is hard. That is something that I've
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  struggled with. Every single time that
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  depression makes its appearance in my life, every time it it
• 7:01
  flares up, every time that it gets worse, I have to remind
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  myself that I need to be my own best friend and I have to
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  actively support myself. I have to actively fight away
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  judgement and understand the fact that I'm struggling with
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  symptoms, symptoms that can be treated.
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  Mental illness is not some mystical, undefinable thing.
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  It's, it's real, it's tangible, it does exist.
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  And there are treatments, there are symptoms, there's
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  information about it that can be used.
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  So if you're struggling, if you're deep in it and it feels
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  like this just mystical thing that's floating around, I want
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  to remind you that mental illness is real and it's
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  tangible. It often feels so undefinable,
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  just feels like this thing that exists in your head, but other
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  people have struggled and there's real research and
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  there's real help out there for you.
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  So if you're struggling, you are not alone and you can learn, you
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  can grow, you can get professional help if you feel
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  like you need it. I personally will be signing
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  back up for therapy in the next week or two.
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  I've finally gotten to a point where I'm not handling this well
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  enough by myself. And there's no shame in that.
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  And you shouldn't feel shame in that either.
• 8:17
  Mental illness has symptoms, and those symptoms can be treated,
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  and you are allowed to care about yourself enough to treat
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  those symptoms seriously. If you had a broken arm, you
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  would immediately go to the doctor and you would rest and
• 8:33
  you would heal. So when you have a broken brain,
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  when you have a broken heart, treat it the same way.
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  You deserve to heal. I'm going to rant about a few
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  more parts of depression in my personal experience before I
• 8:45
  wrap this episode up, and one of the first ones is the exhaustion
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  of explaining what you feel all the time.
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  It is so tiring to have to keep explaining depression to people
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  who don't have it, you know? Somebody in my life asks me if
• 9:00
  I'm OK and I decided to open up and be honest and explain the
• 9:04
  fact that I struggle with depression.
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  And the responses, Oh my God, the responses.
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  They're like, have you tried going outside?
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  Yes. Have you tried exercise?
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  Yes. Have you tried to just, I don't
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  know, not think about it, move forward.
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  Yes. And that makes it worse.
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  And, and I genuinely know that most people are are trying, you
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  know, they're trying to be helpful.
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  They're not trying to be cruel. They just don't know.
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  They just don't get it. It is so hard for people who
• 9:32
  don't struggle with depression to understand depression and
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  what it does to you and how it controls you and how it sneaks
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  into your life. How it takes you over When
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  you're drowning and someone just hands you A to do list.
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  It doesn't feel helpful. It feels like they missed the
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  point entirely. What people with depression
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  really need in those moments is not a solution.
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  It is a witness. It is somebody to say, I see
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  you, I hear you, I feel for you, and you don't need to do
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  anything about this right now. And someone who can sit there
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  with you and that's it. That's often the whole thing.
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  You don't have to fix the depression.
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  You can just sit with it. OK?
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  I want to end this kind of like rant portion of the episode and
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  talk about what has actually helped me in my experience with
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  depression. And this is different for
• 10:22
  everybody. You know, I'm, I'm not going to
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  give you a guide. I'm not going to tell you
• 10:26
  exactly what you can do, but I'm going to encourage you to try to
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  take action, whether that's professional help.
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  But I want you to start with telling one person the truth.
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  You're not performing that, you're OK.
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  Just saying I'm not doing well. I don't need you to fix it.
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  I just needed to say it out loud.
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  That act alone, being witnessed, naming what the depression is
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  can shift something. Then I want you to lower the bar
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  radically for yourself and let today be enough, You know?
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  Don't try to achieve the same bar that you set when you were
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  doing really well. Fall back into the habits that
• 11:00
  are easier to do when you're struggling.
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  Let things like getting out of bed and drinking a glass of
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  water genuinely count. Start ridiculously small, lower
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  the bar, and then I recommend moving towards professional help
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  if you haven't already. And I want to look at you and
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  say that is what I am doing. There's no shame in it and I
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  know that that is less accessible to some people than
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  others. So I encourage you to explore
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  the resources that are out there to look into what options you
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  have. But I want to remind you, there
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  is no shame in getting help. It's not giving up.
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  It is supporting yourself. It is caring enough to say I
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  can't carry this on my own. And that is exactly what I will
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  be doing because we are in this together.
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  Depression is not a perspective problem, you know, It's not a
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  deficit of caring. It is a real, it is a real
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  tangible neurological condition that affects real people who are
• 11:57
  trying their hardest and can't always get there.
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  We like to treat it like this kind of mystical thing that just
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  floats around that's in your head.
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  But it's real and it hurts. And I personally have had a
• 12:09
  really long week and honestly month because of my struggle
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  with depression. So I want to remind you, you are
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  not alone. You deserve to heal, you deserve
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  self-care, you deserve to care for yourself without fear of
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  self judgement. Because you matter.
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  No matter what your depression tells you, you matter.
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  We're in this together and we have to just keep moving one day
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  at a time. That's going to wrap it up for
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  today's episode. Thank you so much for being
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  here. I know this was a little bit
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  different, it was a little bit rambly, it was a little Randy,
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  but honestly, I just needed to get this off of my chest today.
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  If you need help feeling your feelings, I make music out on
• 12:48
  all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewell and I almost
• 12:51
  guarantee it'll make you cry. Also, if you like this podcast,
• 12:55
  one of the best ways you can support me is by getting merch.
• 12:58
  I'll put a link in the description.
• 12:59
  So thank you so much for being here.
• 13:01
  Thank you for understanding that you are not alone in your
• 13:04
  depression and thank you for listening to my little rant.
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  And as always, thank you for feeling your feelings.
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  I'll see you next time.