2026-08-14 - Covert Depression
For months, I thought the tension in my marriage was about unmet needs, conflict, and disconnection. Then a book on my shelf offered another possibility: maybe I was depressed. This is a reflection on covert depression, the anger that concealed it, and what changed when I finally named what I was feeling.
Transcript:
Back in March, Jerry and I began a season of growth in our marriage.
What this started to look like was more and more conflict. We were disagreeing more often. We weren’t communicating well. We were misaligned. There was certainly dissonance and disconnection in our relationship, and this lasted a few months.
In some ways, it felt like a test.
We were preparing for our vow renewal, where we were going to recommit to each other and recommit to our marriage. But leading up to it, we were just not seeing each other.
And that felt scary for me.
I felt anxious and nervous around it. I also found myself in this place of victimhood, where I wanted to blame him. I wanted to be angry and resentful toward him for the things he had done and the ways he behaved toward me.
Of course, this came with a lot of hard conversations.
From March until July, right before our vow renewal, we began exploring some of our younger parts and how they show up in moments of conflict.
For me, a seven-year-old self started to come in. Well, he does come in when conflict arises between us.
And that seven-year-old wants to shut down, stay quiet, flee, and get away.
In the past, that has triggered something in Jerry. He would start to feel like I was abandoning him or that I didn’t care.
Over these last few months, as we started bringing our inner-child work into our marriage, we began communicating better.
I made a joke in bed that didn’t quite land. I think it’s a generational thing. I said, “It kind of feels like we’re cosplaying as our younger selves here.”
In moments of conflict, I tend to throw a silent tantrum. I become cold.
That is the seven-year-old in me. When he didn’t get his way, he would throw a passive tantrum, become cold, and turn away.
And that’s not what the marriage needed.
It’s not what the marriage needs.
Over the last few months, I’ve been exploring what was happening inside me when Jerry and I got into these conflicts.
I went down all these rabbit holes, exploring, trying to find an answer, and trying to solve the problem.
The clearest answer seemed to be that my needs weren’t being met by him, and his needs weren’t being met by me.
Then, a few weeks ago, I was putting a book away on our bookshelf when I saw I Don’t Want to Talk About It by Terry Real.
He wrote the book in 1997, I think. It’s pretty dated, but the information is still very relevant. It was one of my favorite books of 2025.
Seeing it hit me like a fucking slap in the face.
Oh. Maybe I’m depressed.
Maybe what I’m experiencing is what Terry Real calls covert depression.
On the other side of covert depression is overt depression, which includes the classic symptoms we might associate with depression: not wanting to get out of bed, feeling sad, or having very little energy.
But the depression I was experiencing is common in men. It can manifest as isolation, anger, frustration, and even rage.
It can manifest as impatience.
The moment I saw that book and started to turn inward and ask, “Is this depression?” I immediately began to feel lighter.
There was almost a sense of relief. A lightbulb went off in my head.
Oh my fucking God.
I know what overt depression feels like. I’ve experienced it. I experienced it a lot growing up.
But I was surprised that I hadn’t been able to recognize that what I was feeling might also be depression, and that I might have been trying to hide it.
Not long after that, I went to Jerry and shared what I thought was happening inside me.
He listened.
He told me he understood.
And he held me. He hugged me.
Since then, the clouds of depression have lifted.
I still find myself feeling impatient, irritable, and resentful. I do. It happened this morning, actually.
But I think I have more capacity for those feelings because I was able to name and acknowledge them.
What has been supporting me is that when I notice myself becoming irritable, short, or impatient with Jerry, I don’t shame myself or make myself feel guilty.
Instead, I allow myself to notice it.
Maybe I even let myself feel it a little. I feel the anger, and then I feel the depression underneath it.
As I do that, I notice that I build more capacity for the moments when we’re in conflict and I want to shut down or become angry.
Rather than shutting down or lashing out, I plant my feet on the ground.
I feel my body.
And I try to be as present as possible.
Jerry and I have also talked about agreements. One of the agreements I asked for is that when I’m feeling activated, or when I feel myself about to shut down, I might ask to step away.
Stepping away doesn’t mean I’m rejecting him.
It doesn’t mean I don’t care.
It means I need to take care of myself before I can begin supporting him in whatever he’s experiencing.
And that has been working.
All of this is exploration, right?
All of this is a practice.
As I sit here, I’m noticing how light I feel. I’m also noticing how excited I am to continue exploring these parts of myself.
I’m calling these Living Letters now. Thank you, David, for the inspiration.
Moving forward, these letters will be reflections on the things I’m thinking about, things that have to do with the body, relationships, and what it means to be fully alive.
Thanks for listening.
