Experiencing depression after a divorce is all too common. Going through a divorce can take an incredible toll on your mental health, and if you start to show signs of depression, you can find yourself struggling to accomplish even minor tasks.

But while the experience of depression after a divorce is common, it doesn’t have to be permanent. There are several different evidence-based methods for helping people recover from depression that can help you get back on your feet and live life as you see fit.

Why Depression Happens After a Divorce

A divorce can quickly lead to a monumental shift in your daily life. Regardless of the reason for your marriage ending, the sequence of events that happens before and after divorce proceedings can cause a substantial change in the quality of your mental health and may ultimately lead to a diagnosis of depression.

There are a few common challenges that people experience after a divorce that can contribute to the development of depression.

Stress

Stress is almost always both a consequence and a precursor of marital separation. The stress of divorce can last for months or even years, leaving a toll on both your body and your mind. When stress is left unresolved in this way for long periods, psychologists refer to it as chronic stress, which has been repeatedly linked to the development of depression.

While stress is a natural part of life, most stressors are small enough to be relieved with a little bit of space, rest, or relaxation. But divorce stress can be constant, daily, and pervasive, making it hard to ever feel like you can wind down and relax.

Furthermore, the stress from divorce can quickly become compounded by other consequences of your separation, adding to your overall mental health burden. When these stressors become too much to handle, it’s common for people to start showing signs of depression.

Financial Difficulties

Financial stress is one of the most commonly reported causes of divorce and can quickly escalate after a divorce takes place. Divorce proceedings can be very expensive, including costs such as attorney fees, division of assets, filing fees, and court fees.

The aftermath of divorce can also include alimony or child maintenance payments or moving from a two-income household to just one. All of this can lead to financial stress, adding to the already high level of stress you’re experiencing, which can again increase your risk of depression.

Lifestyle Changes

A divorce is a huge shift in lifestyle for most people. It could include dramatic changes to how you go about your day-to-day life, including:

  • Moving to a new home or city
  • Adjusting to single life
  • Changes in your financial status
  • Changes in important friendships
  • Transitioning to self-reliance

Divorce can change your life in ways you never expected, and making these adjustments can be both tiring and stressful. If you don’t hit the ground running in creating a healthy and positive environment for yourself after your divorce, you can quickly develop depressive symptoms.

Custody Issues

The challenges of divorce are significantly amplified if you have children. Custody battles can go on for years, having your children split time between different houses can be exhausting, and your children themselves can be experiencing their own set of challenges with the divorce that are incredibly hard to deal with as a parent.

Symptoms of Depression

All of these factors listed above can contribute to depression after a divorce, but what does depression really feel like?

People can often go untreated for extended periods despite experiencing serious consequences. They might feel like they aren’t truly depressed or that they’ll feel better soon. They could even be unaware that the way they are feeling is exactly what depression treatment is meant to help with.

As such, it’s important to recognize the symptoms of depression and how it can affect your daily life. As outlined in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the defining symptoms of depression include:

  • Feeling sad, hopeless, or empty for most of the day, almost every day
  • Reduced interest or pleasure in activities that used to be enjoyable
  • Unintentional weight loss or weight gain
  • Sleeping abnormally less than normal (insomnia) or more than normal (hypersomnia)
  • An increase in unconscious physical activity, such as fidgeting, or being visibly slowed in your movements
  • Difficulty focusing or concentrating
  • Feeling excessive guilt or worthlessness
  • Thoughts of death or suicide

When you experience five or more of these symptoms over a period of two weeks, and they lead to substantial impairment in other areas of your life, it’s likely that you meet the criteria for a major depressive episode. This typically signifies that seeking out depression treatment is the best course of action to restore your mental health and start feeling better as soon as possible.

What You Can Do to Recover From Depression After a Divorce

Recovering from depression after a divorce looks different for different people. It’s important to recognize that recovery doesn’t happen all at once and that making the change toward better mental health takes time, effort, and dedication.

However, there are changes you can make today to help start you down that path. This includes both lifestyle changes, which can help you build healthier habits that serve to protect you from the symptoms of depression, and direct treatment methods that treat the cause of your depression at the source.

Find a Support Group

Divorce support groups are a place where people going through a similar set of challenges meet together to help one another feel better. Not only can these groups introduce you to a group of people who truly understand how you feel, but they can provide actionable tools for you to use.

Start an Exercise Routine

Physical exercise has decades of research showing its beneficial effects at both preventing the onset of depression and helping people with depression reduce their symptoms.

Exercise releases endorphins within the brain. These are chemicals that provide stress relief, a reduction in anxiety, and a general improvement in well-being. A regular exercise routine can also help structure your day, preventing you from spending too much time dwelling on the difficulties of your divorce, which may only make your symptoms worse.

Meet With a Therapist

Talk therapy is one of the most time-tested and evidence-based approaches to helping people overcome a depressive disorder. Working with an individual therapist can help you understand how depression is affecting your life, what the root cause of your depression may be, and what strategies you can begin to implement.

A number of different therapeutic modalities are used in the treatment of depression. Two of the most common and effective approaches include:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) was designed specifically to help people overcome depression, though it has rapidly become an evidence-based practice for a number of different mental health challenges. CBT is based on a simple concept: that your thoughts, emotions, and actions all influence one another.

Learning to change the way you think can stop you from going down into depressive thought spirals, ruminating about the past, or making predictions about the future that can ultimately make you feel worse. CBT therapists describe these types of thought patterns as “cognitive distortions” and have a number of tools to help people challenge and change these patterns.

Learning to change your actions can influence your thoughts and emotions as well. Certain actions can exacerbate depression symptoms, such as substance use, overuse of social media, and overeating. In turn, certain actions can help ameliorate your symptoms, such as exercise or meditation.

CBT has a number of different tools and techniques to help shift your own perception of depression and help you move forward into recovery.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was built upon the same foundation as CBT but incorporates two critical new elements: mindfulness and acceptance. DBT recognizes that sometimes, you simply cannot control your thoughts or emotions. But you can learn to accept them without taking action that makes your symptoms worse when you use the techniques outlined in DBT.

Other important components of DBT include:

  • Mindfulness
  • Distress tolerance
  • Emotion regulation
  • Interpersonal effectiveness

These four components make up the core of DBT and can rapidly reduce depression symptoms.

Try Innovative Depression Treatments

Some people simply cannot find the results they hoped for with talk therapy alone. But with new treatment methods, you can find rapid relief from depression even if other treatment methods haven’t worked for you in the past. This includes options such as:

Ketamine-Assisted Healing

Ketamine is a dissociative psychedelic medication that has quickly gained a robust evidence base in treating mental health challenges. Treatment for depression with ketamine is one of the fastest-growing areas of interest, with some people achieving amazing reductions in symptoms after just a single session of ketamine-assisted healing.

Ketamine-assisted healing is relatively simple. First, you meet with your team of providers for a brief assessment, where they can determine whether ketamine treatment is right for you and answer any questions you may have about the process.

Next, a structured session is set up with you and a ketamine therapist. A small dose of ketamine is administered, and your therapist sits with you to talk you through the entire psychedelic experience. This allows people to break down mental barriers to overcoming depression and rapidly accelerate the talk therapy process.

While most people feel substantial results after just a single session, repeated ketamine sessions can further enhance your recovery and keep the symptoms of depression at bay.

Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS) is a neuroscience-informed approach to treating depressive disorders. dTMS uses a specialized cap and helmet that can deliver brief magnetic impulses deep into the regions of the brain that have been impacted by depression, increasing their baseline activity and helping people feel better.

In most depressive disorders, certain brain regions show reduced rates of electrical activity. They essentially fall dormant until people are able to achieve recovery. With dTMS, these brain regions are “jump-started,” which can lead to lasting symptom relief and often total remission of depressive disorders.

Depression Treatment With Plus by APN

At Plus by APN, we use every evidence-based tool available to help our clients overcome depression after a divorce. Whether that means talk therapy, medication management, neurofeedback, or ketamine-assisted healing, we leave no stone unturned in our mission to help people regain their mental health after dramatic life changes.

To get started with treatment at Plus by APN, fill out our confidential contact form online or call us at 424.644.6485. Our team can help you book an appointment, determine what treatment option is right for you, and guide you on the path to recovery to last a lifetime.

References

  • Richter-Levin, Gal, and Lin Xu. “How could stress lead to major depressive disorder?.” IBRO reports vol. 4 38-43. 22 Apr. 2018, doi:10.1016/j.ibror.2018.04.001
  • Tiwari, Sayali C, and Swati R Deshpande. “A study to assess the effect of stressful life events on psychological distress levels of participants living in an urban area.” Journal of family medicine and primary care vol. 9,6 2730-2735. 30 Jun. 2020, doi:10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_96_20