Signs Of Disconnection In Depression And Tips To Reconnect

Anyone with a depression disorder, especially major depression, will understand what you mean when you say “disconnected”. The term refers to a range of medically recognized symptoms including emotional blunting, emotional detachment, feeling numb, and feeling disconnection from yourself or from others. For many of us, disconnection is a natural symptom of major depressive disorder. While a normal symptom, it can dramatically interfere with your ability to live a normal, happy life.  

If you feel disconnected, depressed, and emotionally cut off from the people and things you love, that’s a good sign you’re feeling disconnection. The following signs of disconnection are often symptoms of depression and there are real steps you can take to improve those symptoms so you can get back to your life.  

Inability to Enjoy Things  

If you find that you’re not enjoying things you used to, you might be struggling with disconnection or emotional blunting. Friends, family, hobbies, food, sex, and other activities should bring joy. Most of the things you love should activate the reward circuit to send a rush of serotonin through the brain, so that you feel pleasure. When you’re detached, you fail to experience that, normally because serotonin levels are too low (or too high) and you’re unable to correctly regulate the reward circuit. Instead of experiencing and enjoying the things you love, you move through life in a single haze of depression or even numbness.  

This symptom of disconnection is a strong sign that you need therapy and maybe even medical treatment. Breaking out of numbness might be a matter of changing perspective, getting new insight, and getting psychological help in doing so. It might also mean going to your doctor and eventually getting a prescription to improve how your brain regulated serotonin. For many people with depression, the answer is both. However, many types of depression are treatable using therapy and counseling only.  

You Feel Disconnected with Yourself  

The person in the mirror looks like a stranger. You often feel like a robot, not human, or like you’re watching yourself in third person. You feel like living is moving through water or nothing feels real. This type of disconnection is a major sign of depression as well as PTSD, Schizophrenia, and some other disorders. It’s also a major sign that you might need professional help.  

For many people, disconnection with the self is a result of stress, purposefully disconnecting to avoid feeling or dealing with emotions, and as a trauma response. For this reason, you should seek out professional help including therapy to help you cope with trauma, learn to manage and deal with emotions, and to manage stress. Taking stress management and personal regulation classes and courses may also help. For example, practices like yoga, meditation, and mindfulness have shown to help with disconnection, improving how people connect with themselves. Similarly, engaging in physical activities like sports where you are forced to connect with your body and do so in an active fashion can help you to reconnect with yourself.