The Depressed Coach

An Essay on Authenticity

This essay is based on my personal experience dealing with major depressive disorder (MDD). This is not medical advice and I am not a therapist. If you or a loved one is going through something similar I suggest you seek proper care from qualified mental health professionals.

I haven’t been in the fitness industry for decades. I don’t have years of experience coaching clients, writing programs, or running a gym. My experience lies with the incredible hardships I dealt with in life.

I grew up in an abusive household. My father suffered from bipolar disorder so he would have many angry fits, he would beat us and my mom. I remembered one time I was beat so bad my legs were covered in bruises and I couldn’t go to school. I grew up homeless due in part because my parents had me as teenagers so they weren’t the financially savviest around. We went from home to home, floor to floor, and shelter to shelter. For a good chunk of my life I didn’t have a home to call my own. When I was 17 years old I hugged my dad good night one day and next day he died in a truck accident. We had a very strained relationship but I still love him and will always love him.

So no, I am not Mr. Experienced personal trainer but I know what it is like to suffer, hurt, crawl, persevere, and ultimately conquer. I am not ashamed of the hardships I just shared with all of you and trust me there is more, but I am proud I went through those circumstances. Those circumstances made me a better person overall. I still lost over 100 pounds when I was morbidly obese. Even though my dad was a high school dropout I still graduated high school with honors. I took it even further, I graduated college with two bachelors degrees with honors. I am the first man in my family to have a college education. These accomplishments were in-between my own personal turmoil and struggles but as you can see nothing broke me… that was until the pandemic hit.

My coping mechanisms of hanging out with friends, working, going to the gym, and going to school were shut down. Due to COVID-19 I could no longer go to social gatherings, my job had to shut down, the gyms were closed, and school was now online. I personally hated to virtual learning environment, it was unmotivating and difficult for me to focus. I tried working out at home but the workouts just weren’t the same. Having facetime calls with your friends just isn’t the same as going to a party… Not to mention there was this assumption we could do more school work just because we are at home. All of this mounting pressure and stress compounded with little release. Eventually I felt a break, my mind shut down and depression set in.

Depression is not logical. It was more logical to get my school work done since I paid for my classes and want my degree but my depression felt like a mental lock resisting everything I attempted to do. It’s kind a like forgetting the password for your phone, no matter how many letters you put in you won’t crack through, you’re stuck on the lock screen. My brain felt like that, I just felt a general resistance to anything and everything. Some people have suicidal thoughts but I just felt a general apathy towards the world, nothing mattered to me not even myself.

You cannot reason with depression, fight it, or out discipline it unlike what the gurus tell you. Depression is a mental disorder. It often nudges you to be irritable, isolated, sad, apathetic, fatigued, and restless. Motivational quotes on Instagram do not solve it, it is something you have to face. We have this persistent lie we tell ourselves, we often tell ourselves we are okay and do not need help.

Why would I need therapy? I study psychology, nutrition, and fitness so I should have the tools to solve this funk! How could I have depression? I have went through objectively worse situations and came out of it unscathed. Why is this happening to me? It’s not my fault we are going through a global pandemic, it’s not fair I suffer because of it… no matter how I tried to address it or rationalize it I knew something was wrong. If I could solve this problem by myself than it wouldn't continue being a problem but it was.

I took the first step, I sought help from a therapist. It’s fair to assume an expert in their field might have answers to the problems you’re looking for. Turns out she did have some answers but I had to go further and seek help from a psychiatrist. Major depressive disorder isn’t an issue that can be explained purely by a chemical imbalance, but what we do know it is the interaction between environment and biology that can lead to mental illness.

I give a counterintuitive perspective when dealing with depression. No one is above developing depression, common lifestyle factors such as exercise can help but nothing is set in stone, accept you have a problem, seek social support (friends, family, etc.), try to go to therapy, and weigh out your medical options. Most of the time we can not “tough out” or “out discipline” depression, we have to actively manage it like any other chronic illness.

Here is a good video to put this into perspective: