In college, I read The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway, and there’s a line that has followed me ever since. Someone asks a character how he went bankrupt, and he answers, “Gradually and then suddenly.”
That’s what depression feels like to me.
It doesn’t crash into you all at once. It comes quietly, like water seeping under a door. At first, you don’t even notice. The days begin to lose their edges. The air feels heavier. You stop answering texts, then stop opening them. The dishes pile up, and the laundry sits unfolded. Your world contracts. You get tired, then numb, until tired and numb blur into the same colorless state. And then one day, without being able to say when it started, you realize you’ve been gone from yourself for a while now.
A couple of years ago, I completed a course of TMS, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and it worked. Slowly, it brought me back. I laughed without forcing it. I could sit outside and actually notice the warmth of the sun on my face. I could cook dinner and enjoy the smell of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove instead of just counting the minutes until I could lie down. I answered texts the same day they came in. I could make plans without calculating the energy cost.
A couple of months ago, it happened again. A relapse. The walls began to cave in the way they had before, quietly and without fanfare. Now I’m in my second round of TMS, hopeful it will work again. Every morning, I sit in the chair and feel the rhythmic tapping against my skull, a steady practice where science meets the quiet, stubborn hope of feeling relief. I think about the first time, how healing snuck up on me, how one day I realized I was not only surviving but living. That memory is the bridge between where I am and where I know I can return.
It’s still hard to be gentle with yourself in moments like this. Hard to remember that depression is an illness and not a personal failing. Some part of me still wants to believe I should be able to outthink it, that enough discipline or gratitude could have kept it away. I know better. And still, I blame myself.
But what I’ve learned, what I’m still learning, is that healing works the same way as “the falling.” Slowly, then all at once. At first, recovery is clumsy and raw. You drag yourself forward with no faith that it will matter.
The victories are microscopic: answering a text, opening the curtains, taking a shower. You don’t feel “better,” not yet. But something stubborn in you insists on trying.
And then, without warning, there’s a shift. You laugh before remembering you’re supposed to feel heavy. You catch yourself humming while making coffee. You wake up and, without realizing it, just… get out of bed. No negotiations, no bribes to yourself. You don’t notice the exact moment you crossed back over, only that you’ve returned in pieces, and the pieces have begun to fit again.
The same way I fall, I rise. Gradually, then suddenly. And each time, I return carrying something from the dark I’ve walked through, not as a burden, but as proof. Proof that I’ve been here before, that I’ve found my way out, and that I can again.
Depression has a way of making us feel incredibly isolated. We’re here to remind you of the truth that you are not alone. We encourage you to use TWLOHA’s FIND HELP Tool to locate professional help and to read more stories like this one here. If you reside outside of the US, please browse our growing International Resources database. You can also text TWLOHA to 741741 to be connected for free, 24/7 to a trained Crisis Text Line counselor. If it’s encouragement or a listening ear that you need, email our team at [email protected].