What Depression Actually Feels Like. And Why Nutrition Is Part of My Recovery Story.

Last week, the brilliant Ruby Wax posted a reel about what depression really feels like. And she described it so accurately that I had to share it. She very kindly reposted my story in return. You can check out the post I've made about it by clicking here.

I don't take that lightly. Ruby has spent years fighting stigma around mental illness at a time when almost nobody in the public eye was willing to do that. So this blog is partly a thank you to her, and partly me continuing the conversation she started, because it is one worth having again and again as long as the stigma is present.

🧠 It is not a bad day

I think the biggest misunderstanding around depression is that people imagine it as an intensified version of ordinary sadness. A really bad day. A prolonged low mood, etc.. Something you could, if you just tried hard enough, think your way out of.

It is not that. It’s not even close to that.

Trigger warning- suicidal ideation. 

When I experienced suicidal depression, twice in my life, severe enough I had been in hospital, I could describe it as a kind of demonic possession. Your personality disappears, and your capacity for joy disappears too. The person you know yourself to be becomes completely inaccessible, and in her place is something dark, relentless, and exhausting beyond description. Ruby described this perfectly.

It is a living death. The dread becomes so entrenched you can barely breathe. You feel so far from who you are that recovery feels genuinely inconceivable, and the cruelest bit is that you look to the outside world, absolutely “fine”. You don't have a visible broken leg, there is nothing for people to point at, which makes the dismissiveness of "just pull yourself together" not just unhelpful but genuinely harmful. We would never say that to someone running on a broken leg. The brain is an organ, so when it is severely unwell, it needs treatment, not willpower.

If you have ever had depression's terrifying companion, anxiety, you will know that the two love to co-exist and compound each other into something almost unbearable. Racing thoughts, dread, physical pain. All invisible to the people around you.

A little of my story

I planned to end my life. I am sharing that plainly because I think it matters to say it clearly rather than dance around it. I had been hospitalised, I was as far from myself as it is possible to be.

And I made it through.

The irony, which I genuinely feel every day, is that my life now is extraordinarily full. The gratitude I have for being here is something I couldn't have imagined from inside that darkness. There is something that happens when you have come that close to the edge that makes ordinary life feel precious in a way that is hard to describe. I don't want others to have to go through that to find their way to it, though. That is a large part of one of the reasons I do the work I do.

🌱 Recovery is not one thing

There are many routes to recovery from depression and none of them is wrong is right. Medication has a place, and so does therapy. Time, human connection, rest, movement, creativity, getting outside - all of it matters.

But I want to talk about nutrition and functional medicine, because they are consistently the most overlooked parts of the whole thing, and they are the parts I feel most qualified and most passionate to address.

Depression is not a character flaw, and it is not weakness. 

At a biological level it involves neuroinflammation, disrupted neurotransmitter function, often a gut microbiome that is significantly imbalanced, frequently profound micronutrient deficiencies, and sometimes genetic factors that affect how the brain processes mood-regulating chemicals.

My family carries significant mental illness across generations, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and understanding my own genetic situation has been a fundamental part of managing my health.

The gut-brain axis, the constant two-way communication between gut and brain via the vagus nerve, means that what you eat directly influences your brain chemistry. Around 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut. An imbalanced microbiome drives neuroinflammation. Low omega-3 levels are consistently associated with depression. Magnesium, B vitamins, zinc, vitamin D, iron: these are all nutrients that influence neurotransmitter production and are frequently depleted in people experiencing mental illness. Nutrigenomics, which is the study of how nutrients affect how our individual genes are expressed, adds another layer that is rarely if ever explored in conventional care.

Lab testing can reveal root causes that would otherwise go completely unaddressed. I have seen this change lives.

This doesn't mean nutrition replaces other forms of support. But it is a serious, evidence-based pillar of brain health that deserves to be treated as such rather than dismissed as an afterthought.

💙 Be kind. It is everything.

If someone you love is struggling with depression, the most important thing is not to fix it. It is to believe them. To not ask them to explain it in a way that makes sense to you. To resist the urge to offer silver linings or suggest they try harder.

Just stay, and just believe that what they are experiencing is very much real, even when it is invisible.

And if you are the one struggling, please know that recovery is possible even when it feels categorically impossible. I know that because I lived it, and I live it still.

If you are in crisis right now, please reach out to the Samaritans on 116 123, available 24 hours a day, every day. You don't have to be in immediate danger to call.

If you would like to explore the nutritional and functional medicine side of your mental health, I would love to work with you. Click here to book a chat.

This post is dedicated to everyone who has sat in that darkness. You are not alone, and you are not broken beyond repair!