Hopelessness: How My Nervous System Shaped My Perspective
Dealing with Depression and other mental health issues in relation to Nervous system dysregulation.
Hopelessness has never been just a feeling for me. It’s a pattern. An undercurrent that rises at certain moments, making everything feel like it’s slipping through my fingers. For years, I thought of it as just a mental or emotional state, something to “think” my way out of. But the more I observed myself, the more I realized that hopelessness isn’t just in my mind; it’s in my body.
I’ve realized that my feelings of hopelessness didn’t appear from out of nowhere. They tend to surface when I’ve overextended myself and my body is exhausted. Whenever I have tried something new like a treatment, sometimes I’ll experience a brief sense of improvement, but I tend to crash again. This cycle makes progress feel like an illusion.
Lately, I’ve been trying to go back into the past and see where the hopelessness all began. I can recall feeling much of it throughout high school. It felt more permanent and fixed at that point. Hard wired. I did fall off a bunk bed when I was little, 2 years old, and fell while I was asleep. When I think back on the fact that I had so many problems sleeping as a child, never really falling fully asleep on an on-and-off basis, something was already going on. I wasn’t able to get into deep sleep to repair, heal or rest. I do believe that these were early signs of nervous system dysregulation.
For me, thoughts of hopelessness can trigger physical sensations. It encourages deep, heavy fatigue that makes movement feel impossible. A tight, clenched feeling in my chest and gut, like my body is preparing for defeat. A sense of collapse, where my muscles feel weak, and my brain struggles to process. It’s almost as if my nervous system is shutting down. It took me a long time to get to this place of this level of awareness with the confusion with my body.
I used to think I had to fight my hopelessness. But the more I understood what was going on with my body, the more I could see that the real work isn’t fighting or forcing. It’s recognizing the loop before it fully takes over. Easier said than done.
We’re all navigating this in our own way, but we don’t have to do it alone. Healing starts when we notice the patterns and help each other find the clues. I was lucky, I found a lot of amazing people who helped me. I am now looking to fine the healing within myself but I never have forgotten the people who helped to get me here.
Links:
Depression affects autonomic system of the body? Yes, it does! – PMC
