Recently I have been feeling down, sluggish, tired (more than the usual tired) and I have been chalking it all up to a bit of depression and stress. The usual stress with co-parenting, work, lack of connection to peers etc. Come to find out through the gastroenterologist and the tests she ran that I may have Celiac disease and this could be contributing to my feeling of fatigue.

Now this is the hard part of suffering from chronic depression is that everything feels like depression when you are fatigued or sluggish. And sometimes there are other physical factors that are not just depression, but it still feels just like a bad bout of depression.

Two years ago I got the flu really bad over the holidays. I was confirmed it was the flu to rule out covid, so tests confirmed that the flu was actually what I had. I was sick for 2-3 weeks but the weird thing was I didn’t feel sick I just felt super depressed and sluggish. That’s where our minds can play tricks on us. Suffering from chronic depression can make us feel like anything physical going on with our bodies is just that same old depressed, sluggish, fatigued feeling. That’s because depression causes physical symptoms in people suffering from it the same way the flu and a myriad of other health conditions make us feel tired too.

This is what makes suffering from mental health diseases so hard sometimes- is it physical, is it mental, is it both? Is it stress induced or circumstances, is it mental only and our medicine just needs to be adjusted? It is hard to know sometimes. Mental health medications can cause a myriad of side effects is why some doctors write off my physical symptoms as nothing other than side effects which can be frustrating. Also many mental health medications cause weight gain and then doctors tend to associate any physical issues with the problem of obesity, but maybe it is more than just obesity or stress, maybe something is really wrong physically but most doctors won’t believe you because of your mental health diagnosis. The stigma that everything is just in your head with a mental health diagnosis and don’t believe everything on the internet has been said countless times to me by various health professionals and is frustrating to say the least.

I know my body and I can feel something isn’t right, more than just stress, more than being over weight (though I don’t deny losing weight would help me to feel better), and more than my mental health diagnosis which I am managing well. I am relieved this doctor is doing further tests to get to the bottom of my gastro symptoms.

I think depression makes everything harder right?! But sometimes knowing whether it is truly just depression getting you down or something more is hard too. I encourage all to seek medical help whenever something feels off either mentally or physically or both. Early detection saves lives and as far as mental health issues seeking help early gets us back to our best selves faster, to live our best lives longer with less suffering for ourselves and loved ones.