The Great Deception: When Your Depression Goes Shopping for Excuses

Unintended Consequences of Being Logical creatures:

You know what's interesting about the human mind? We absolutely need reasons for everything. We cannot tolerate the idea that our suffering might be meaningless, random, or self-generated. There has to be a culprit. There has to be a story. There has to be someone or something we can point to and say, "You did this to me."

I'm depressed because of what she said. I'm depressed because of the way my son spoke to me. I'm depressed because of how my father insulted me. See? There it is. A nice, clean justification. Cause and effect. The world did something, and I am reacting to it.

And anxiety works the same way. I'm anxious because of that event tomorrow. I don't know how I'll perform. I'm anxious because of something I did months ago that might come back to haunt me. Again, a reason. A perfectly logical explanation for the turmoil inside.

Now, let me be clear about something. For most of us, in our day-to-day lives, this makes perfect sense. If you're not chronically depressed, if you're not chronically anxious, these are just normal human experiences. Something happens between a husband and wife, and one person feels depressed because they need to process it, take stock, figure out where the communication broke down. That depression serves a purpose. It's a strategy your mind uses to force you to recalibrate.

Anxiety does the same thing. It shows up before a big event and says, "Hey, pay attention. Plan better. Don't repeat past mistakes." It's a tool. It's your mind's way of helping you navigate the world.

But here's where things get complicated. What happens when depression stops being an occasional visitor and becomes a permanent resident? What happens when anxiety stops being a tool and becomes the lens through which you see everything?

This is where we need to look deeper.

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The Bipolar Case That Changed Everything

I've been working with someone who had an extraordinary ability. Despite being bipolar, despite experiencing both the manic highs and the depressive lows, despite being on heavy medications, he wanted to understand. He didn't just want to manage his symptoms. He wanted to know why they happened and what he could actually do about it.

So we started probing together. Over about a year and a half, he slowly and carefully began reducing his medications under proper supervision. And eventually, he reached a point where he stopped taking them entirely. His own psychotherapist and psychologist now consider him out of danger.

What made the difference?

It wasn't the counseling. It wasn't me guiding him. It wasn't some external support system replacing the drugs. It was something he realized through his own observation.

And that realization was this: It wasn't the outside world pushing him into mania. And it wasn't the outside world pushing him into depression.

Let me explain what we discovered.

When mania hit, it came from within. There was an intrinsic imbalance, a surge of neurotransmitters, a change in how his neural circuits fired. And when that happened, he started feeling incredibly good. But here's the crucial part: then he started looking at everything outside as positive. His outlook changed because the mania was already there. The mania came first, and then it went shopping for beautiful things to look at.

The world didn't make him happy. His brain chemistry shifted, and suddenly the world looked happy.

Now, what happens when that manic phase starts to crash? Because it always does. When there's too much of a good thing, when the circuits have exhausted their neurotransmitters, when the receptors become saturated and down-regulate their sensitivity, the fall begins.

And the higher you went, the harder you fall.

But watch what happens during that descent. As he started to fall, as the neurochemical balance shifted toward depression, his mind began searching for reasons. His wife said something. His child did something. And suddenly he had an explanation: They caused this. They made me fall.

But had they really changed the way they interacted with him? Probably not. They had likely been saying similar things all along. The difference was that now, with depression already taking hold, his perception had changed. He was seeing everything through a different filter.

And this is the insight that changed everything for him: The depression didn't come because of what they said. The depression came first, and then it went looking for evidence to justify its existence.

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Depression Goes Shopping

Think about that for a moment. When you're starting to have a bad day, one small event can feel manageable. But then more negative things seem to happen, and you're in a free fall. But is it really that more negative things are happening? Or is it that your mind, now in free fall, is actively scanning for anything that can justify how terrible you feel?

Your wife says something. It hurts more than it should. Your father says something. That hurts even more. A friend makes an offhand comment, and suddenly you realize there's nobody for you.

But they've been interacting with you the same way all along. The only thing that changed was your perception. The only thing that changed was that your depression went shopping for reasons to exist.

We are logical creatures. We need logic. We need explanations. And a problem as big as depression cannot exist without a reason. So depression itself provides the reason. It says, "You need a logical proof for my existence? Here it is. Look at what your wife said. Look at what your son did. Look at how your father treated you."

And we grab onto these excuses like lifelines because they make sense of our suffering. They give us someone to blame. They turn our internal chaos into an external story with clear villains and victims.

But the villains aren't the cause. They're just the excuse.

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When Anxiety Rides You

The same thing happens with chronic anxiety. When anxiety becomes your pattern, it's not that external events are making you anxious. It's that anxiety is riding you. It's manipulating you. It's making you look for justifications.

You become convinced that you're anxious because of tomorrow's presentation, or because of something you did months ago, or because of some risk you need to mitigate. And yes, sometimes that's true. But when anxiety is chronic, when it's your baseline, it's the other way around. The anxiety is already there, and it's reaching out into your memories, grabbing hold of anything that might explain why it exists.

It's like a parasite that needs a host story. And you keep supplying those stories.

Here's the thing about chronic anxiety and depression: there is absolutely no reason for them. They are senseless. They are just patterns, just habits, just circuits that have learned to fire in certain ways. But because we cannot accept senseless suffering, we keep giving them reasons. We keep feeding them.

And that's what makes them so powerful. That's what makes them grow.

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Cutting Off the Food Supply

The surprising thing that my client discovered was this: when you stop giving depression reasons, when you stop connecting your memories and your actions to the way you're feeling, when you experience the depressed state without playing the victim, without acting like a laborer giving depression exactly what it wants, something remarkable happens.

After some time, the depression starts to lose its power. The anxiety starts to fade.

Because here's the truth: a neural circuit cannot exist in isolation. The circuit of depression, the circuit of anxiety, they need to be fed. They need data streams to hold onto. They need you to keep connecting them to your life, your memories, your relationships, your fears. And that food is something we give them inadvertently every time we say, "I'm depressed because..."

When you cut off that food supply, when you stop giving the circuit something to latch onto, it has nothing to hold itself together with. It starts to dissolve. Not immediately. Not easily. But eventually.

The next time you feel depression creeping in, the next time anxiety starts to surge, pay attention to what happens next. Notice how your mind immediately starts searching for reasons. Notice how it grabs onto memories, onto things people said, onto fears about the future. Notice how it builds a case for why you should feel this way.

And then ask yourself: Did this feeling come because of those things? Or did this feeling come first, and now it's just looking for somewhere to park?

If you can catch it in that moment, if you can cut the connection between the feeling and the story, if you can refuse to feed the circuit, you might just watch it starve.

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The Key Realization

So here's what I want you to take away from this. When you feel depressed, and especially if you're one of those people who experiences the deep swings, the peaks and the valleys, you have to understand something fundamental.

It is not the outside world making you happy. It is not the outside world making you sad. It is your perception. And more importantly, it is your depression and anxiety that are shaping that perception, not the other way around.

The anxiety is riding you. You are not riding the anxiety. The depression is manipulating you into seeing enemies everywhere so that it can justify its own existence.

And when you realize this, when you truly understand that your chronic depression has no external cause, that your chronic anxiety has no logical reason, you can start to take back control. Not by fighting the feelings directly. Not by trying to think positive thoughts. But simply by refusing to feed them. By refusing to give them the stories they crave. By experiencing them without turning them into narratives about who wronged you and why you're a victim.

Because here's the liberating truth: when the circuit doesn't get fed, when it doesn't get those juicy external justifications to latch onto, it cannot survive. Not in the long run.

So next time you're justifying your depression, next time you're building a case for your anxiety, stop and remember. Remember that you're justifying it out of habit. Remember that it's the anxiety itself that's making you latch onto something and call it the cause. Remember that there is no reason, only a circuit looking for food.

And then starve the damn thing.