Learning to Feel Again – Part 1: When the Darkness Set In

About five years into my marriage, I fell into a deep depression. I remember telling my husband how bad it was — that almost every day, driving home in traffic, I imagined yanking the steering wheel into oncoming traffic. It wasn’t that I wanted to die; it was that I couldn’t see a way to keep living like that. Everything felt too heavy, too endless. He brushed it off, thought it was no big deal. That dismissal made the loneliness sharper than the depression itself.

Thankfully, I found my way to a therapist and a doctor who helped me get on medication. But those first six months were brutal. It was the beginning of COVID, and I was supposed to be working from home. Most days, the best I could do was turn on my computer, check email, and force myself to respond only when absolutely necessary. I was barely functioning.

Around that same time, I started fostering dogs for a rescue. My first foster — who quickly became a foster fail — saved me. She came to me timid and unsure, but she loved me fiercely. She could sense how broken I was and stayed close, curling up beside me as if she knew I needed her more than she needed me. Her quiet presence was the first thing that made me feel tethered to life again.

The first medication I tried made things worse, but eventually I was switched to one that helped, and I had a therapist who listened. Still, clawing my way out of depression wasn’t easy. It was a years‑long process, and only recently have I begun to decrease my medication. I share this because I know how lonely and shameful depression can feel. I couldn’t talk about what was happening in my marriage, and I certainly couldn’t talk about the darkness that had swallowed me whole.

What I’ve been discovering now, as I come off medication, is that somewhere along the way I stopped feeling. Through the separation and divorce, I didn’t cry. I stayed focused on the checklist — the logistics, the paperwork, the next step. I thought that meant I was strong. But as I’ve reduced my medication, I’ve started feeling again. At first, I was terrified that it meant the depression was returning. The truth was simpler and harder: there were emotions I hadn’t allowed myself to feel for years.

Part of my becoming is learning to be human again — to feel things, to be present, to let the tears come when they need to. It’s uncomfortable and sometimes frightening, but it’s also a kind of rebirth. I’m learning that healing isn’t just surviving; it’s remembering how to feel.