Depression can change the way you see things.

Not necessarily in the sense of seeing things that aren't there. Your circumstances may be completely real. The difficult relationship is real. The rejection happened. You really are exhausted. The work really is piling up. The interesting question is what happens to the meaning we give those things when we are in a depressed state.

A missed message can become, They don't want to talk to me.

A mistake can become, I can't do anything right.

A difficult week can become, My life is always like this.

And sometimes a thought like I'm failing stops feeling like a thought at all.

It starts feeling like a fact.

The mind doesn't just receive information We tend to imagine perception as something fairly straightforward. Something happens, and we notice it. But our minds don't work quite that way. We are constantly deciding what to pay attention to, what something means, what deserves to be remembered and what it says about us. Research on depression has found differences in several of these processes, including attention, memory, interpretation and the way we process information about ourselves. A review published in Clinical Psychology Review describes negative biases across these areas and discusses how they can contribute to maintaining depressed mood. 

One particularly interesting part is interpretation.

Imagine someone you care about sends you a message: "Can we talk later?"

There are plenty of possible explanations.

Maybe they're busy. Maybe something happened. Maybe they want your opinion about something. Maybe they're upset with you.

The words themselves don't tell you which one is true.

Our minds fill in the gap.

And when we are depressed, research suggests that ambiguous information can be more likely to receive a negative interpretation, particularly when the information is connected to ourselves. A large meta-analysis found an association between depression and negative interpretation bias while also pointing out that the strength of the finding depends on how these biases are measured.

More recent research has found something even more specific: in people with higher levels of depression, negative interpretations of ambiguous information were more pronounced when that information was processed as being about the self. The researchers were careful to say that their study could not establish whether this bias causes depressive symptoms. The impact of self-referential processing on depression-linked negative interpretive bias.

That little detail matters.

Because it brings us to a much more interesting question.

Which came first?

Did depression change the way you see yourself?

Or did certain ways of seeing yourself contribute to the depression?

It may not always be possible to separate the two.

Maybe someone spends years believing they are inadequate, and eventually that way of seeing themselves becomes part of a depressive episode. Maybe depression arrives through biology, circumstances, loss, stress or some combination of things, and then begins changing the way the person interprets themselves and the world around them. Maybe both happen at once.

A person becomes exhausted. Because they are exhausted, they stop doing things. Because they stop doing things, they have fewer experiences that make them feel capable or connected. Those experiences reinforce the belief that something is wrong with them. That belief changes how the next experience is interpreted.

And around it goes.

There is research that describes depression in terms of these kinds of self-reinforcing cognitive processes. One proposed model suggests that negative expectations can make negative outcomes feel more likely, while contradictory evidence may be given less weight. But we don't need to decide that this is the explanation for depression.

It isn't.

Depression is not simply a bad attitude. It isn't something you think yourself into, and changing your perspective is not a substitute for treatment. Depression has biological, psychological and social dimensions, and different people can arrive at it through very different paths. 

The point is smaller.

And perhaps more useful.

Perspective can become part of the experience.

When an interpretation starts looking like reality, there is something strange that happens when we repeatedly see ourselves in the same way.

At first, it might sound like:

"I think I'm bad at this."

Eventually:

"I'm bad at this."

And eventually, perhaps:

"That's just who I am."

The distance between "I am thinking this about myself" and "this is simply true about me" can become very small.

That distance matters.

Because a thought can be questioned.

A fact usually can't.

This doesn't mean every negative thought is false. Sometimes our thoughts are telling us something worth paying attention to. The point is simply that we don't always notice when an interpretation has quietly become our default way of looking.

And depression may make that harder.

Research has found that self-referential processing is particularly relevant to depression. In other words, information can be processed differently when it is connected directly to me, my life, my worth, my future. Depressive cognition: self-reference and depth of processing.

Which gives us another question:

What happens when the person looking at themselves is also the person being judged?

Maybe the goal isn't to think positively

This is where things can get a little uncomfortable.

If depression can affect perspective, the obvious response might be: So we should just change our perspective. But that can become another burden. You are already struggling, and now you're supposed to think differently too?

"Just be positive" doesn't help much when your brain isn't cooperating.

And there is a subtler problem with trying to replace every negative thought with a positive one. Sometimes the healthier question isn't: "What is the positive way to look at this?" It might be: "What are the different ways I could look at this?"

Those are very different questions.

If you believe "I'm a failure," you don't necessarily need to jump immediately to "I'm amazing." You might simply pause.

I'm having a very strong feeling that I'm a failure. PAUSE.

• What happened today?

• What am I assuming it means?

• Would I interpret this the same way if it happened to someone I loved?

• Is there another explanation I haven't considered?

Not because the alternative explanation is automatically correct.

Just because the first explanation isn't automatically the only one.

Seeing yourself from more than one place

Perhaps this is one of the quieter things depression can take away: the feeling that there are multiple ways of being you. When you're doing well, you might know yourself as ambitious, playful, patient, curious, capable, affectionate, stubborn, creative, tired, generous, difficult, funny, uncertain. You contain contradictions.

Then depression can make one particular version feel disproportionately convincing. The tired version. The hopeless version. The version that doesn't want to get out of bed. The version that thinks everyone would be better without them.

That version is real too. But it may not be the whole person.

And perhaps there is value in learning to notice the difference.

Not to argue with yourself or to force yourself into optimism. But to notice: This is one way I am experiencing myself right now.

That sentence leaves a little room around the experience. And sometimes, a little room is where curiosity can begin.

So, is depression a problem of perspective?

Maybe partly. Maybe sometimes. Maybe perspective is one of the things depression changes. Maybe certain patterns of perspective also help maintain it. Maybe, for one person, perspective plays a much larger role than it does for another.

There probably isn't one answer that fits everyone. What we can say is that depression doesn't only affect what we experience. Research suggests that it can also affect aspects of how we process and interpret what we experience, particularly when it comes to information about ourselves.  And that raises a question worth sitting with: If there are different ways of seeing ourselves, how many of them do we actually get to meet? Maybe self-understanding isn't always about finding the one correct version of yourself.

Maybe sometimes it begins with noticing that there is more than one way to look in the mirror.

If you're on your journey of discovering such a part about yourself it may behove you to read 21 Mirrors. 21 Mirrors is a framework for self-reflection. It is not a treatment for depression or a substitute for professional mental-health care but it provides you with the much needed validation of being felt and seen.

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If you're experiencing persistent symptoms of depression, especially if they're interfering with everyday life, talking with a qualified mental-health professional can be a good place to start. And if you're in immediate danger or thinking about harming yourself, please seek urgent local help or emergency care rather than trying to work through it alone.