Depression and grief can feel quite similar, and figuring out how you’re really feeling can be a challenging process. But addressing grief and depression can look different in practice.

Perhaps there are a few specific situations that make you anxious. You might feel nervous when you think about flying on a plane, attending a social event, or giving a presentation.

If you’re suffering from depression, your symptoms might seem like insurmountable obstacles. Perhaps you’re having trouble holding down a job, keeping up in your classes, or even cleaning your living space.

When you feel anxious, you might experience a racing heart rate, sweaty palms, lightheadedness, an upset stomach, and persistent, negative thoughts.

Perhaps you’ve just started going to trauma therapy. You were hoping to experience relief early on. Instead, you’re struggling with lots of complex emotions coming up during sessions.

When you make a mistake, do you end up telling yourself that you’re doomed to make the same mistake over and over again?

If you’ve experienced trauma, you might be surprised to learn that excessive screen time and digital overload could actually interfere with your healing process. When you’ve lived through trauma, it can be hard to regulate your nervous system.

Countless women struggle with chronic stress. In these fast-paced times, chronic stress can feel unavoidable, especially for women who are juggling work, parenting, community engagement, and personal hobbies.

When you’re living with depression, making even basic decisions can feel like a burden. Sometimes, you might be too exhausted to summon the mental energy to decide what you want for breakfast, what you should wear today, or how you should respond to a specific work email.

If you’ve lived through trauma, you might be suffering from low self-worth. Trauma can cause you to question your own value as a person.

Maybe you’ve been struggling with a sense of disappointment, regret, and sadness that you can’t quite name. You might have given up on a long-time dream, or you may be processing the end of a relationship that wasn’t quite right for you.

Perhaps your feelings about your body have changed with the passage of time. When you were younger, you might have struggled with insecurities around your appearance.

If you suffer from anxiety, you might have difficulty concentrating. Perhaps you’re always losing track of things at work, and your forgetfulness leads to setbacks on projects or confusion with customers.

It’s easy to assume that love is all you need for a committed relationship. When you’re young, it can feel like the spark of romantic chemistry will keep you and your partner together forever.

Maybe you feel like you’re trapped in an endless cycle of negative thoughts. You dwell on the same thought patterns day in and day out.

If you’ve ever had to deal with misogyny in the workplace, you know how sexist incidents in professional settings can be demoralizing. You might be frustrated from working alongside coworkers who make prejudiced comments towards you.

Handling conflict is never easy. But when we respond to disagreements in unhelpful ways, we can unintentionally make it harder to find solutions.

Lots of women feel as though they need to be “perfect” in order to be loved and accepted. Deep down, we all know that perfection is an impossible standard. But starting in childhood, our culture teaches women that it’s their duty to strive for perfection.