If you’re staying in bed and avoiding everything, it may initially feel good to rest. But then you start to feel paralyzed, like you’re in quicksand. If you’re robotically clawing through the day, you might feel like Data from Star Trek or Sheldon from Big Bang Theory and maybe people are starting to notice. If you’re a life-of-the-party person, you’re like many celebrity comedians who are funny, witty, and charismatic in an effort to escape the suffering and emptiness. Either no one knows you’re depressed or you’re so good at joking about it that no one really worries about you.

Regardless, there are often some reliable themes. You relentlessly judge yourself, feel like an impostor or a burden, doubt that you matter to anyone, think you’re unworthy of love or success, and/or think you are failing as a partner/parent/friend/employee. You might question your life and feel like “poofing” out of existence would be easier. But you press on because that’s not what you really want; you just don’t want to feel miserable. Plus, you don’t want to hurt anyone. Questioning your existence makes sense when your energy and joy are being sucked out and everything you’ve tried has seemingly failed. Every rejection, setback, bad day, or conflict with someone seems to confirm your unworthiness. Maybe you follow social media influencers who say we should love ourselves as we are, flaws and all, and expect others to treat us that way too. But you’re also thinking, “What does that even mean…realistically?”