When Depression is in your bed

Take a Step: How to Work With the Biology of Depression and Disconnection to Create Real Change

• Trish Sanders, LCSW • Season 1 • Episode 16

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Depression creates a profound disconnect in relationships that can feel impossible to bridge. The path from where you are to where you want to be might seem unclear or overwhelming—but what if crossing that distance requires just one step at a time?

In this illuminating episode, I share the invitation that concludes each of my podcasts—an invitation many listeners may miss but that contains the most transformative message for anyone impacted by depression. By understanding how our nervous systems function during depression, we can break free from the harmful "just try harder" mentality that keeps us stuck.

I reveal how the dorsal vagal state—our body's shutdown response—operates through slower, unmyelinated nerves that make emerging from depression biologically challenging. This isn't a character flaw; it's neuroscience. By asking a simple question—"Do I need rest, or do I need to take one small step?"—we can honor what our nervous systems truly need rather than forcing action that feels threatening.

For those supporting partners with depression, I offer guidance on recognizing and celebrating microscopic progress. Those tiny steps, acknowledged with genuine pride rather than dismissed as insignificant, build momentum toward healing. When we stop beating ourselves up for being "too slow" and start working with our nervous systems instead of against them, we create space for authentic change.

Whether depression affects you personally or someone you love, this episode provides a compassionate framework for moving forward when everything feels stuck. The journey doesn't require giant leaps—just one step, any size, in any direction. Your nervous system already knows what it needs; learning to listen to that wisdom might be the most powerful step you can take.

Subscribe and share this episode with anyone navigating the challenges of depression in relationships. Remember: getting to a place of greater connection is possible, even when depression is in your bed.

- If you are looking to take the first step towards improving your connection and communication with your partner, check out this FREE monthly webinar on "Becoming a Conscious Couple,".

- If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the when Depression is in your Bed podcast. Do you experience times of disconnection in your relationship that stretch on longer than you'd like them to? Or perhaps you're someone who gets frustrated with yourself or your partner when one of you gets stuck in a depressive episode? If you're searching for ways to reconnect with your partner and create a better feeling relationship together, keep listening. In today's episode, you will learn how to tap into the brilliance of your own nervous system to guide you and your partner in creating a path from where you are today to the place where you really want to be, one step at a time. I'm your host, trish Sanders. Let's get started.

Speaker 1:

In today's episode, I'm going to talk about the invitation that I share in the outro at the end of each one of my episodes. Now, if you are a new listener, of course, you're not going to be familiar with the invitation that I share, but I also know that, even if you've listened to other episodes before, you may also not be familiar with the invitation that I include, because I am totally aware that when the perceived valuable content in a podcast seems to be over, people often stop listening, and that makes total sense. You do not necessarily need to hear me week after week ask you to subscribe and review my podcast and follow me on Instagram or social media. While I do include those requests in my outro and I do encourage you if it makes sense to do those things I include something in there in addition, and to me it feels really important and it's a part of the message that I consciously have chosen to share, and I wanted to make sure that, if you are choosing to tune out at the very end of the podcast, that you still get to hear the valuable invitation that I offer, and so that's why I'm making this episode for you today. So the invitation that I share is to take a step, and this is the best invitation that I think that I could offer someone who is a listener of my podcast, because the story I tell myself is that if you have chosen to listen to a podcast that's called when Depression Is In your Bed, you probably either live with depression yourself or your partner lives with depression.

Speaker 1:

Perhaps both of you, which is, of course, the case for myself and my partner, or someone else that you love in your life lives with depression, and you may be curious about how you can help your partner or your loved one or yourself or improve your relationship in some way. And even if you're not living with full-blown, diagnosable depression, there are a lot of relationships out there that have a consistent disconnect and a frequent dissatisfaction with the relationship because of that disconnection and I think that this applies in those instances as well even when there's not a full diagnosis. So when you're in that kind of situation, you know that you don't want to be there anymore. Right, you know that where you are is no longer satisfying. It doesn't feel good, it's not the relationship that you envisioned for yourself. But you may not know how to get where you want to be. Or maybe you don't even know where you want to go, maybe there's not clarity around what something different would even look like. But the truth is that if you know that you don't want to be where you are, then what you actually need to do is take a step and you will create your path to where you want to be, one step at a time. And this is why I really chose to focus on this message, because there's a lot of things that I hope to convey through sharing this podcast. But I myself have repeatedly needed to be reminded and often still do need to be reminded that I need to just take one step. So I started to really use this idea with myself and I found it helpful and that's why I wanted to share it with you.

Speaker 1:

Taking a step can be really tricky for a person who is living with depression or whose nervous system is in that dorsal state of shutdown, withdrawal, collapse, disconnect, and that's because doing something is the opposite of shutting down, and if our nervous system feels like we have to shut down for protection, then doing something and taking action can really feel like danger and we can really avoid doing it. So I have figured out again in myself what has been helpful for me in shifting this process, and that's where the invitation to take a step came from. I also want to name that people who deal with depression are often told to just do something. Or why can't you just do something? Or you're not doing enough, or they themselves sit with a lot of self-judgment and shame around, not being able to do the things that they themselves may very well want to do, or feeling the burden of the shame and judgment and criticism from loved ones who maybe are very well intentioned because they want the depressed person to feel better. But the way they're conveying that message is in this like what's wrong with you? Why can't you just do something? It's not that hard sort of message and the invitation to take a step is different than those kinds of messages because it's not about what you should do or what you have to do.

Speaker 1:

It really takes into account how the nervous system functions. When I started to work with my nervous system instead of against it, I really had a lot better results in what I was able to do and accomplish and how I was able to feel about myself and how I was able to feel about myself. In my own experience. I know what it feels like to want to be somewhere different, but also feel very incapable, very powerless and stuck and not really know how to actually move forward. When I started to loosen my grasp on thoughts like there's something obviously wrong with me, I'm defective, that I can't do these things that are seemingly so simple or these things that I wanna do or things that other people seem to be able to do without a problem, when I started to kind of move away from that and just recognize like okay, that's a thought that is connected to my nervous system experience and it's not necessarily true or it's not necessarily the reality I started to be able to open up some new possibilities and also my relationship. It's a very similar process. Instead of feeling hopeless and powerless and thinking that I couldn't do anything to make my relationship better and I had no other options, I started going into a very black or white way of looking at things, which is part of a survival response. When I started to be able to loosen my grip and know that that was the story that was connected to my nervous system state, again new possibilities became possible for me.

Speaker 1:

So I started to tune into my nervous system and really think about what did my nervous system need? What was it trying to communicate to me? When our nervous system goes into a survival state which is either sympathetic, mobilized, fight or flight, something is threatening me, so I have to do something about it. I have to attack or run, fight or flight, right? Or there's something so overwhelming and I need to protect myself by disappearing or withdrawing or collapsing. It's communicating that it's feeling a threat of some kind, right? So I started to think about that and I started to tune in and when I was going into that very avoidant shut down dorsal state. So I started asking myself this very simple question that was just an either, or. What do you need this or this kind of question?

Speaker 1:

Because I knew that when my nervous system was in dorsal shutdown, it either went into that shutdown state because I had no more resources, I was depleted and I needed rest and restoration, or it wasn't about my energetic needs, like I didn't have enough energy to do what needed to be done. It was a task that felt too big or overwhelming. I didn't know where to start. And those two different experiences that would often be cues of danger for me and could very easily trigger my nervous system to go into dorsal response led to this either or decision. So in the first case, if I was depleted, I knew that I needed rest. That's what my nervous system was trying to tell me, and so it became okay, do you need rest? Or, in the case when I felt really overwhelmed and I just didn't know what to do, I broke down this big, overwhelming mountain of things that felt like too much for me and I just said, hey, would it feel better to just take one little step towards figuring this out? So my simple choice began with do you need to take a step towards rest or do you need to take a small step towards action? And I started to notice that when I asked myself this really simple question, I started getting answers. And I also started to notice that when my nervous system legitimately said I need rest and I was able to honor that For example, I got the flu twice this flu season and both times my nervous system needed rest there was no chance that I was going to be able to be productive and go through items on my to-do list.

Speaker 1:

It just wasn't available to me. So I actually let myself rest. I wasn't paying attention to all the things that I wasn't doing or feeling stressed out about the clients that I had to cancel or my kids show that I was missing. I didn't have a choice. I had the flu, I needed to be home resting and I allowed my rest to be restorative.

Speaker 1:

So often when people are depressed certainly this has been my experience time and time again when we take that break that dorsal gives us, it's actually one of the gifts of dorsal. It's why it exists in our nervous system to help us replenish and renew and restore. But when we take a break in an avoidant way. It doesn't feel very good. It doesn't feel like rest and restoration. It feels like I'm hiding. I'm holding on for dear life, hoping that everything is going to be okay when I stop hiding, but the thing that I'm not doing is hanging over my head and draining me and depleting me, even when I'm trying to avoid it. So it's not a very helpful strategy in the long term. But my nervous system is just doing what nervous systems do and I needed to start thinking about this more with my conscious brain. What do I really want to have happen here? So I started to use this simple question and I started noticing that when I gave myself rest that was actually restful. When I gave myself a break, I was actually resting, was done, resting.

Speaker 1:

When I felt restored, I actually felt so much more ready to take on whatever I needed to take on. And very often, when I said what is the one small step of action that I want to take, I was able to identify something that felt accessible. Like, maybe on my to-do list I'd have 10 things to do. My to-do list usually feels like it has hundreds of things to do, but I would just look at a few. What needs to be done right now, prioritize what needs to happen. And maybe I felt like I was not ready to take on three or four of the items on my to-do list, so I would just pick the one that felt like, oh okay, my nervous system said, yeah, I can do that, that seems manageable and I would do that.

Speaker 1:

Even if it seemed like it was the tiniest little thing, like maybe just depositing checks into my business account, I would allow myself to feel proud of taking that step, instead of shaming myself and saying like, oh, but it wasn't such a big deal, or it just took two minutes, or I could have done that last week. I waited so long. Or other people deposit checks all the time, no problem, this really isn't such a big deal. I actually said, you know what? Maybe it is a simple step, but for me and for my nervous system in this moment, it didn't feel simple, and so I felt really proud of myself that I was able to take action and it started to really feel like self-care. And occasionally I was able to string together a few steps like, okay, what's the next thing on my to-do list that feels like I can do it? And when I felt like I couldn't do anymore. I asked myself okay, do I need rest or do I need to do something different?

Speaker 1:

As I started to move from this simple either or choice, I started to widen my question and ask my nervous system if what I needed was to take a step towards rest or if I needed to take a step towards self-care, connection movement of some sort or what I would consider manageable action or accessible action, like doing something on my to-do list that felt like I could do it For me. These were the categories that I sort of noticed were themes in the kinds of action and the kinds of steps that felt really nourishing to my nervous system. These choices may also feel nourishing to your system, but I encourage you to check in and really think about what themes come up for you, because there might be something very unique that is different than what my nervous system needs and what feels nourishing. And a really cool thing that I started to notice is that when I asked myself these questions first of all, it was pretty amazing because my nervous system would answer, and I found that to be pretty amazing.

Speaker 1:

When I dropped out of my head and really checked in and attuned to my nervous system. I got really good information, which was really helpful, and I also started to notice that I've had a feeling of like, well, I would like to take a step towards resuming my regular exercise routine, for example, but part of me said, oh, I want that, but it just doesn't feel totally accessible. Now I was able to either break that down into a smaller step and maybe just do some stretching or go for a walk around the block, or I was able to use the tool of visualization and actually imagine times when I've been able to exercise regularly and bring that experience into my current nervous system and let that wake up and become alive and actually see myself doing something that I've done before, I have figured out how to do it before, and I allow that experience of ease and what I refer to as flow, my flow state when I can take action and it feels easy or easier because, as somebody who is a dorsal dweller which is a Deb Dana term, by the way, and it totally resonates with my own experience as somebody who can frequently be stuck in dorsal taking action sometimes feels impossible, even when it's something that I cognitively know is something I'm capable of doing, and I think that part of this is probably my ADHD brain as well, but I started to notice that my ADHD type symptoms that really felt like they were getting in the way of my functioning were worse when I was stuck in dorsal. And if I had some ventral energy that I could pull in and anchor in, then some of the things that felt really hard being scattered or not being able to take action or follow through on a step or getting distracted or only wanting to do fun and exciting things sometimes that feels a little bit easier when I'm rooted in ventral. So that's a whole other episode, but just a little note. So the more I asked myself these questions, the more I was able to really take action. And when I felt like I needed that true rest, I would actually take a break, I would take a nap, or I would go do something that felt more fun if that's what I felt like I needed, or I would go for a walk around the block or I would reach out to my sister or my cousin or a friend or another family member if I felt like I really needed connection. And I started to notice probably not surprisingly, although it felt really surprising to me that when I responded to my nervous system's needs. I felt better and my functioning was significantly better.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you're somebody who does not experience this stuckness in dorsal, you might be listening and thinking what is she talking about? If I want to do something, I just do it, and if that's where you're at, that is so awesome. And sometimes I definitely have that feeling that, oh, I want to do that. Yeah, I'm just going to do it. But for so much of my life that has not been easily accessible to me. So I really have to consciously remind myself that taking a step is really truly good enough. And even if it feels like it's a little tiny step, I really started to notice how proud I felt of myself and I consciously allowed myself to feel proud and celebrate each step that I took. And I found and this is also not shocking, perhaps but the more proud I allowed myself to feel of what I was doing, the more it encouraged me to continue taking more steps.

Speaker 1:

And, as I've mentioned, I have a very long history of protecting myself by going into dorsal and by avoiding things and, as a result, I have some real life consequences that have happened, like my closets and my garage are way more cluttered than I'd like them to be, it's true, and my financesets and my garage are way more cluttered than I'd like them to be, it's true, and my finances are not pristine. I have not always been the best steward of money, which is also very related to my nervous system dysregulation. And so sometimes, when I think about taking a step to sort of clean up the messes that I have made over many years from being dysregulated so often, it can feel really overwhelming and that can also make me get dysregulated and make me want to go into a more avoidant state. And so I've also really been able to shift and I'm still working on this, but I've really had a lot of success.

Speaker 1:

So, instead of beating myself up for being imperfect and making mistakes and not always making the very best choices, I started being able to cultivate some compassion. So in my nervous system communicated to me that what I really needed was to take an action towards dealing with some of the mistakes I've made or the missteps where I was able to say you know what? I know I've made mistakes in the past and I know it's because I was dysregulated. And that makes me feel sad and upset and I wish that I would have been at a place where I could have done things differently, but I'm really excited that I'm where I am now and I can't wait until my closets are organized and my garage is all cleared out and I feel really empowered about my finances and I started being able to take steps towards doing things that have historically gotten me overwhelmed very quickly and kept me in an avoidant state to try to protect myself. Taking these steps actually started to feel much safer more of the time, and that was pretty amazing. And the more I take steps that feel like they're in alignment with who I am and what I really want in the life that I really want to create for myself, the more capable I feel and the more empowered I feel to take more steps, and I keep reminding myself that it's a journey and I don't have to get to the end. I just have to take a step every day that's in alignment with what my nervous system truly needs.

Speaker 1:

I also really want to share with you a little bit more about polyvagal theory. I'm going to get a little sciencey here for a second. It's something that I have found so cool and has been so helpful in allowing me to have even greater self-compassion for being human, for making mistakes, for having spent a lot of my time in dorsal, shutdown and feeling like I'm behind. I should be further ahead in life. If only I had been able to do this stuff sooner, all of those kinds of things which I can sometimes get a little bit stuck in.

Speaker 1:

I learned about myelinated and unmyelinated nerves. If hearing me say myelinated and unmyelinated just made you check out and you're like, oh, I don't know if I want to listen anymore, please, I invite you to just stay with me for a moment If you find yourself feeling stuck a lot of the time in dorsal and you find yourself beating yourself up for being depressed or feeling powerless or not being able to do the things that you want to do. So here we go. Essentially, a myelinated nerve you can imagine as a nerve that has insulation around it, and an unmyelinated nerve is a nerve that does not have insulation around it, so to speak, and the insulation helps messages and signals get transmitted faster in myelinated nerves. And in unmyelinated nerves, which don't have that insulation, messages travel much slower.

Speaker 1:

The dorsal vagal state was the first of our three nervous system states to emerge. It came into existence 500 million years ago. The dorsal vagal state was the first of our three nervous system states to emerge. It came into existence 500 million years ago, so we're talking about pretty primitive functioning right, and that is part of the reason why a lot of our dorsal vagal system is made up of unmyelinated nerves, or again, if you can imagine, nerves without insulation, and this slows down the transmission of signals. So what does this mean? It means that it's actually harder for us to get out of the dorsal vagal state. It's a slower process, and we can find ourselves really caught in this cycle where we think we should be able to do something quickly or easily and then we can't because our unmyelinated nerves are just busy being themselves and transmitting signals in the slower way than perhaps we'd like them to.

Speaker 1:

But our biology is just doing what it does. And then we feel frustrated and upset with ourselves or perhaps other people or the world, and we end up going back into shutdown because we're like, forget it, I tried and it didn't work, or I didn't get as far as I thought I could or as far as I wanted to, and we go back into feeling threatened and we go back into dorsal shutdown and then it might take a while for us to build up the resource to be able to say, okay, let me try again, and then we might try again, and we have this big goal and often we fall short and then we feel bad about ourselves or others or the world, and then we fall back into dorsal and it can become this incredibly debilitating cycle, and I would say that's really at the core of people who are living with moderate to severe depression, that kind of cycle that keeps us stuck in a dorsal bagel state. This is amazing information because what it means is that our nervous system needs time. It doesn't mean that we're not good enough or we're defective or we're a failure, which are all thoughts that I have embraced about myself very wholly over the years and instead it's like oh, our nervous system is just behaving the way nervous systems behave and it's not a me problem. It's just things are not able to move along as quickly as we hope they would.

Speaker 1:

And I think that there's so much information out there about depression and depressed people that is shaming and judgmental and critical, and even people that we love can come off with these messages that are so negative and harmful and hurtful. And, of course, as a depressed person. I'm aware that we ourselves can think these shaming, judgmental, critical messages and it really keeps us stuck. So the idea of taking a step and really attuning to our nervous system and saying what feels like it's possible today, what does it feel like I need today, and being able to take that step, can be absolutely transformative. And knowing that maybe you can't take 10 steps today, maybe the transmission is slow, maybe we need to take a step towards rest so we can gather our resources, so that we can do the things that we really want to do, and we do not live in a society that honors the slowdown.

Speaker 1:

We generally live in a society that values the hustle, the push yourself, the pull yourself up by your bootstraps, the don't pay attention to your body, mind over matter. And that push, that pressure, that striving, can be absolutely detrimental to any of us. But when you're a depressed person that feels threatening, terrifying and scary so much of the time, and so of course we're going to keep hiding under a rock the idea of being able to shift that and allow ourselves a step, to know that a step is enough, can be exactly the thing that starts to open up enough space for true change to emerge and to know that it might take a little bit of time. And that's okay, because if you start taking one little step today, you will in fact, be somewhere different in a few days, a few weeks and a few months, because if you know you don't want to be where you are anymore, then you have to take a step to go somewhere new.

Speaker 1:

As we move towards the end of this episode, I just want to say that obviously this was geared towards a person who is living with depression or living in that stuck, powerless, disconnected, collapsed experience, and if this experience resonates for you, then I hope that something that I shared today connects with you in some way, that you can think about how to take care of your nervous system and take just the right step for you. And if the person who's experiencing depression is not you, if it's your partner or another loved one, I hope that listening today about what can get someone stuck in that dorsal, depressed, shutdown experience has shed some light on what's happening and you have greater understanding and, hopefully, a bit more compassion for the person in your life. And I hope that listening to this episode enhances your empathy in some way, because it really is exhausting and depleting to be stuck in depression, and there's a reason why it's so hard to take action and I also know that if you're the loved one of somebody who's stuck in that place, it can also be really depleting and exhausting to figure out how to do it differently so you both get more of. What you need is the way towards creating a healthier, more satisfying, more connected, more joyfully alive relationship and life. As you think about how to move towards this much more satisfying, more enjoyable relationship that you wanna create with your partner, I do encourage you to think about how you can recognize the steps your partner is taking. They might seem microscopic. I talk about microscopic progress and a lot of the time in relationships, especially when you're dealing with somebody who is stuck in dorsal. A lot of the time the progress seems small at first, and recognizing it and celebrating it is so important and being genuinely proud of your partner for making the steps that they can make can be so incredibly helpful and motivating.

Speaker 1:

I also want to say that if your partner is the one living with depression, you may experience an urge to share this podcast with them, and if you want to do that, if that feels like it makes sense to you, then that's certainly a possible option. I recommend sharing with some compassion and love, perhaps explaining that you listened to a podcast that made you feel curious about what their experience was and you wondered if they were open to listening to this episode and seeing if they perhaps connect with any of it. And I also would encourage you and you'll know your partner, of course, better than I know your partner but I would encourage maybe telling them that this isn't a test or a book report or something that they feel that they're going to be graded on that. This is really just you wanting to share something that you thought potentially could be helpful and letting them know that you want to work with them in taking steps together to make your relationship feel better for both of you, because it can feel really pressuring when somebody says hey, I want to share this information with you and it's about how you can do better, be better, feel better. Even though it sounds nice and I do wish that people could receive helpful information Sometimes what seems quote unquote helpful is not experienced as helpful.

Speaker 1:

So, again, I recommend sharing this gently and with curiosity and openness, as opposed to sort of pushing it on your partner, even if you don't feel like you're pushing it on your partner, just be a little curious and wonder about what their experience of it might be. And you can also let them know that if they don't wanna listen to the podcast episode or they don't wanna listen to it yet, you are still interested in working together and figuring things out as a team, and sometimes just allowing them that space might create some openness. Perhaps they may say a week or two later, you know, hey, actually I am interested in that podcast or not. But if you successfully create a little bit more connection between the two of you, I would say that matters more than if they listen to this podcast. And if you think that any other different approach of using this information for yourself or for your partner would be helpful, then of course I support you and I'd love to hear about it. You can connect with me on Instagram, my other social media that is linked in the show notes below, but for now I will leave you with my outro, which maybe you'll listen to and maybe you won't, but either way, I hope that you and your partner do continue to take steps so that you can get from where you are today to where you want to be.

Speaker 1:

As our time comes to a close, I ask you to keep listening for just a few more moments, because I want to thank you for showing up today and I want to leave you with an invitation as you hit, stop and move back out into the world on your own unique wellness journey In order to move from where you are today to the place where you want to be. The path may seem long or unclear or unknown, and I want you to know that if that seems scary or daunting or downright terrifying or anything else, that is totally okay. Know that you do not have to create the whole way all at once. We don't travel a whole journey in one stride, and that is why my invitation to you today is to take a step, just one, any type, any size, in any direction. It can be an external step that can be observed or measured, or it could be a step you visualize taking in your mind. It can be a step towards action, or towards rest or connection or self-care or whatever step makes sense to you.

Speaker 1:

I invite you to take a step today, because getting to a place that feels better, more joyful, more connected than the place where you are today is possible for everyone, including you, and even when depression is in your bed. If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe so you can be notified when each weekly episode gets released. I encourage you to leave a review and reach out to me on social media at trishsanderslcsw. Your feedback will help guide future episodes and I love hearing from you. Also, please share this podcast with anyone who you think may be interested or who may get something from what I have shared. Until the next time we connect, take care of yourself and take a step.