Depression and Emotions: What are Emotions Actually For?

Chanderbhan Psychological Services

When we think about depression, we typically think about sadness. While sadness is often a big  part of depression, many people who struggle with depression, and other mental health conditions like anxiety, or chronic stress,  also develop a difficult relationship with their emotions. They tend to judge them, ignore them, suppress them, fear them, or let them completely dictate their actions. 

Before we can learn healthier ways of responding to emotions, it’s important to understand what emotions are actually designed to do.

Why Do Emotions Matter?

In our practice, one of the biggest misconceptions we see is that emotions are either good or bad. They aren't. They are functional. Psychologists use that word a lot, but all it really means is that emotions evolved because they serve a purpose.

Like physical pain alerts us to an injury, emotions provide information about ourselves and the world around us. They help us notice when something feels safe or unsafe, when a relationship doesn't feel quite right, when we're excited about an opportunity, or when something important deserves our attention.

Emotions also help motivate behavior. They push us toward things that matter and away from things that may not be good for us. In many ways, they also give us clues about our values.

Have you ever walked away from a conversation thinking, "Something about that just didn't sit right with me?" That feeling may be telling you something important. Maybe someone crossed a boundary. Maybe something that was said conflicted with one of your deeply held values. Maybe there was simply something about the interaction that deserves a closer look.

The emotion doesn't tell you exactly what happened, but it invites you to become curious. It says, "Pay attention. Something here may be important." That's very different from saying your emotion is automatically correct.

What Emotions Can and Can’t Tell Us

One way to think about emotions is as a smoke alarm. When a smoke alarm goes off, it could be because there’s a grease fire or someone in your house is frying bacon. It tells you that you need to pay attention to something and investigate. You don't panic. You gather information. Our emotions work in a similar way. 

Feeling anxious doesn't automatically mean you're in danger. Feeling guilty doesn't necessarily mean you've done something wrong. Feeling angry doesn't automatically mean you've been treated unfairly. Feeling happy doesn't automatically mean you're making a wise decision. Our emotions aren’t  conclusions. They’re information.

Healthy decision-making comes from integrating our emotions with other sources of information, including the facts, our observations, our past experiences, and thoughtful reasoning. Sometimes our emotions point us toward something important. Sometimes they're reacting more to an old hurt than to what's happening in the present. The only way to know is to become curious rather than immediately believing or dismissing what we feel.

Developing a Healthier Relationship With Our Emotions

When we ignore our emotions entirely, we lose an important source of information. When we let our emotions alone dictate every decision, we risk reacting before we fully understand what's happening. Neither extreme leads to adaptive choices. Ultimately, the goal isn't to become less emotional. The goal is to develop a healthier relationship with our emotions so we can use them for what they were designed to do: help us better understand ourselves, our relationships, our values, make healthier choices.

Unfortunately, many of us were never taught this. Instead, many of us learned something very different about emotions.  In our clinical experience, one of the most common patterns we see is that people are doing the best they can with the emotional tools they learned earlier in life. The problem is that many of those tools were developed to help us survive difficult situations, not necessarily to help us thrive. Over time, these ways of coping can become so familiar that we mistake them for healthy ways of dealing with difficult emotions.

Why Does This Matter for Depression?

Some of you may be reading this and wondering, Why are we talking about emotions in a depression blog?

Conditions like depression are complex and have many contributing factors, including biology, genetics, life experiences, and patterns of thinking. But the way we understand and respond to our emotions is also an important part of emotional well-being. Avoiding emotions, as an example, can lead us to a life that is disconnected from pleasure and connection, which ultimately impacts our mood and our ability to build meaningful, enjoyable lives. Judging our emotions, as another example, can lead to shame, deep sadness, and even self-hatred, which impacts our ability to build meaningful, healthy relationships and can lead us to feel demotivated and disconnected from the world. People who are depressed often struggle with both these areas.

 Learning to have a healthier relationship with our emotions won't eliminate depression or anxiety, but it can become an important part of recovery, resilience, and building a life worth living. 

In our next blog post, we'll explore some of the most common unhealthy ways people learn to cope with emotions, why those strategies often make sense, and how they can keep us stuck.

Therapy for Depression in Laredo, TX

At Chanderbhan Psychological Services, we provide evidence-based depression therapy and counseling in Laredo, TX, as well as online therapy across South Texas. Our clinicians are trained in modalities of therapy, including ACT and CBT that have been proven to be effective in treating depression. In therapy we help clients understand the emotions they may be avoiding, unhealthy ways of relating to emotions, and learn new, healthier ways of dealing with their emotions.

If you're struggling with depression, support is available. You can reach out through the Contact Form on our website to learn more about therapy options.

• What are emotions actually for?

  Emotions are designed to provide information about ourselves and the world around us. They can alert us to potential threats, highlight what matters to us, strengthen our relationships, and motivate us to take action. Rather than being "good" or "bad," emotions serve important functions. While they don't always reflect reality accurately, they give us valuable information that deserves our attention and curiosity.

• Should I trust my emotions?

  Emotions are important, but they shouldn't be treated as unquestionable facts. Think of emotions like a smoke alarm; they signal that something may deserve your attention, but they don't tell you exactly what's happening. Healthy decision-making involves considering your emotions alongside the facts, your observations, past experiences, and thoughtful reasoning. This balanced approach can help you respond more effectively than simply reacting to or ignoring your feelings.

• Can avoiding emotions make depression worse?

  For a lot of people, yes. Avoiding difficult emotions may provide temporary relief, but over time it can lead to greater isolation, disconnection from meaningful activities, and fewer opportunities to experience pleasure and connection. These patterns can contribute to the cycle of depression. Learning healthier ways to understand and respond to emotions can be an important part of recovery.

• When should I seek professional help for depression or overwhelming emotions?

  Everyone experiences difficult emotions from time to time, but if sadness, hopelessness, emotional numbness, anxiety, or distress persist for more than a couple of weeks, interfere with your relationships, work, or daily life, or leave you feeling stuck, it may be time to seek professional support. A licensed mental health professional can help you better understand your emotions, identify patterns that may be keeping you stuck, and develop healthier ways of coping.