For too long, I’ve lived with the impression that I was clinically depressed.
The weight on my chest was real.
The mornings were heavy.
Every task, no matter how mundane, felt like dragging a boulder uphill.
But one quiet evening, armed with nothing but a piece of paper and a pen, I sat down to confront the fog.
What I discovered wasn’t a diagnosis—it was clarity.
First, I wrote out my circumstances, and the list was sobering:
I was in the middle of a divorce, navigating the emotional debris of a broken partnership.
My job, while lucrative, was isolating; I spent 90% of my workday alone, with no colleagues to share a laugh or commiserate over coffee.
My schedule was airtight: between parenting, working out, and pursuing personal passions like reading and writing, there wasn’t a spare moment for friends or dating.
When I looked at the stark truth laid out before me, I realized something profound: I wasn’t clinically depressed.
I wasn’t drowning in chemical imbalances or neurochemical deficiencies.
I was simply living a shitty life.
The Line in the Sand.
It’s easy to conflate the two.
Both can leave you feeling hopeless, drained, and disconnected.
But there’s a crucial distinction:
Clinical Depression is an internal condition, often independent of circumstance.
It’s your brain playing tricks on you, whispering that nothing will ever change even if, objectively, everything in your life is fine.
A Shitty Life, on the other hand, is situational.
It’s the sum total of poor circumstances, restrictive schedules, and social isolation.
And while it feels just as heavy, it’s something you can change by altering the environment or the choices you make.
I wasn’t broken—I was boxed in.
The act of writing things down felt revolutionary.
By externalizing my problems, I saw them for what they were: circumstantial hurdles, not immutable truths.
That moment of objectivity shattered the illusion that I was helpless.
It reminded me of something simple but profound: when you articulate a problem on paper, half its power dissipates.
I also realized that many of us live in similar traps.
We don’t pause to examine the systems we’ve built around us.
We don’t ask whether our schedules, jobs, or relationships are supporting our well-being.
Instead, we blame ourselves, labeling our exhaustion and discontent as evidence of personal failure or mental illness.
That evening marked the beginning of my reconstruction.
I decided to step out of the corner I’d painted myself into.
First, I made space for social connection: lunch with a colleague, coffee with an old friend, and a tentative dip back into dating.
Each small step felt monumental.
I also took a closer look at my work-life balance.
Did I need to work so many hours, or was I hiding behind productivity to avoid facing my loneliness?
Could I carve out time to pursue new hobbies or revisit old passions?
Bit by bit, the pieces of my life began to shift.
The heaviness lifted, not overnight but gradually, as I reshaped the context of my days.
The line between clinical depression and a shitty life isn’t always clear, and it’s crucial to approach this distinction with compassion.
Some people truly need therapy, medication, and professional support—and there’s no shame in that.
But for others, the answer lies in the mirror, the notepad, or the honest conversation they’ve been avoiding.
Ask yourself:
Is your life structured in a way that fosters joy, connection, and purpose?
Are your routines and relationships feeding your spirit or draining it?
When was the last time you looked at your life objectively, not through the lens of exhaustion or fear?
Sometimes, the hardest truth to confront is that we hold the keys to our own cage.
But once you see the bars, you can start unlocking them.
So, let’s build ourselves up.
Let’s make friends, carve out joy, and open the door to new experiences.
With love, yours truly, Cristian, in collaboration with ChatGPT.