5 Ways A Depressed Person Struggles To Think Clearly! 💙

Today, I just want to go over five cognitive impairments that people with depression may have, and it's quite an overlooked area of depression. So I thought it'd be valuable to take a quick look at five areas where people's thinking and their cognitive skills are impaired by depression. 💙

So the first one is a difficulty with concentration and paying attention. So this can show up in the work environment where the depressed person will really struggle to focus and concentrate on any particular task and struggle to get their work done. 💙

It can also show up in social situations where a person will have difficulty following the flow of conversation or paying attention to a person for any given length of time.💙

Number two is a real difficulty with taking a different perspective. So this can show up in relationships where one person is trying to say they'd rather do something a different way or they understand something a different way and the depressed person just won't be able to take that perspective. 💙

That can be called black and white thinking that they're just busy focusing on the one aspect that they understand and they can't take on multiple points of view. That requires flexible thinking and that's really difficult in depression. 💙

Number three and related to number two is difficulty making decisions because you can't see the potential outcomes because you can't think that far ahead or that clearly. It becomes monumentally difficult to decide between A and B.💙

You can't see what the difference is. So how can you make the decision between the two? It becomes impossible. So making decisions is very difficult for people who are depressed. 💙

Number four is memory difficulties. It can be difficult to access memories. It can be difficult to hold them in mind and to follow them so it ties in with the inability to concentrate that when you remember something you have to remember it in sequence and you remember what was going on and you remember the context. 💙

those things are hard to hold, then it becomes difficult to recall memories and to work with them. So difficulty with memories is common in depression. 💙

And number five is that a depressed person can really struggle with the number of steps in a process.

This is why depressed people can find it so hard to like take a shower, because in addition to having a lack of energy, it's also overwhelming to try to think, I have to get a towel, I have to get a washcloth, I have to get soap, I have to turn the shower on, at what temperature is it? 💙

And it just becomes like, when you don't have depression, those things are done autopilot. When you do have depression, the autopilot isn't working and each step needs to be recalled from memory, which is hard, and then processed as a sequence, which is hard, and then the decisions have to be made at each point, which is hard, so it becomes just overwhelming to take a shower. 💙

So those are some of the cognitive difficulties, the thinking difficulties associated with depression. I hope you found that useful. 💙