5 Habits Of People That Hide Depression

Hidden depression is a condition in which the sufferer does not show typical symptoms of depression, but other patterns and traits under which they hide the depression. The first to overlook this situation is the one who suffers from it. They do that to push their pain into the background.

This process of trying to hide or embellish their symptoms of depression is unconscious or almost unconscious. It’s not that the person intentionally wants to pretend that he or she doesn’t feel anything.

Hiding is a way of defending themselves against the pain they may feel unable to cope with. Hiding your problems from yourself and others is not positive at all. On the contrary, sometimes this only makes the problems worse.

Five signs people are hiding their depression

1. They are obsessively social

People with hidden depression don’t want to be alone because they don’t like spending time in solitude. When they are not around people, their acute feelings of sadness surface more easily.

This is why they tend to be obsessively social. They are always looking for ways to organize meetings and other social events. If they fail to do so, they simply call their family, friend or colleagues. In fact, they don’t want to be alone because the loneliness forces them to think.

2. They exaggerate how well they’re doing

This exaggerated behavior is usually an attempt to compensate for the fact that they feel awful. People with hidden depression tend to brag about their perceived well-being.

If you ask them how they’re doing, they won’t say it’s just going well, but instead it’s going “great” or “great.”

As we have noted, this is an unconscious form of compensation. Not only that, it’s almost an attempt to convince themselves, like others, how “great” they feel. It’s a smokescreen to ward off their discomfort and keep their depression at bay.

3. They often talk about the past

In hidden depression, just like in any other form of depression, the past plays a major role. That’s why people with hidden depression often talk to others about the past. While they may jokingly address these issues, they often do.

Not being able to let go of the past is a sign that they have unresolved problems. That past could have been positive or negative, it doesn’t matter. The problem is that they relive what they have already experienced every time they talk about it. They are strongly attached to their past and have not been able to let it go.

4. Eating Disorders

These disorders are always indicators of some kind of emotional discomfort, especially if the appetite changes are not transient, but permanent, becoming even more apparent as time goes by. These habits can include:

• eat less than usual
• eating more than usual
• anarchic food

Sometimes people with hidden depression don’t stop eating or eat more than usual, but instead show their disgust for certain foods or often have digestive problems.

Some people with hidden depression also become obsessed with eating something in particular or eating a certain way.

5. They can’t sleep well

As with eating, people who hide depression suffer from sleep disturbances that can manifest themselves in different ways. Usually they don’t sleep, or sleep too little or too much. Occasionally, other behavior is also visible, such as:

• wake up at night and sleep during the day
• having trouble sleeping in a bed in a horizontal position
• having interrupted dreams

All these indicators must be carefully evaluated. Depression is more than a state of sadness or disguised denial. Thus, it is a condition that should be assessed by well-trained experts.