Discouragement versus Depression in Midlife Women

Under the flower, hidden from the sky or stretching to the sky? Permanent fail or temporary stall?

Discouragement versus depression in midlife women: The difference can shape how you understand your emotions and your healing path. Discouragement is a temporary emotional response to frustration or loss, while depression is a deeper withdrawal of vitality that signals psychological and spiritual distress. Knowing this difference helps you recognize when your struggle is part of ordinary discouragement—and when it has become depression that needs care.

Discouragement: A Temporary Shadow

Discouragement is part of being alive. It comes when effort meets resistance — when your hopes and reality collide. You may feel deflated when a project stalls, a relationship falters, or your energy falls short. Yet even in discouragement, you care. You still want to move forward, even if you need to rest first.

Discouragement usually lifts with time, understanding, or connection. A conversation with a trusted friend, a walk outdoors, or a new point of view can restore your balance. Life re-enters your body. (If you want more on exhaustion that doesn’t fix itself with a good night’s sleep, see Emotional Fatigue in Midlife Women.)

Depression: When Vitality Withdraws

Depression is different. It’s not about one disappointment — it colors everything. You may feel detached, fatigued, or hopeless, as if life has moved far away. You might sleep too much or too little, lose interest in what once brought joy, or wonder who you are now.

Depth psychology understands depression as a withdrawal of psychic energy — a retreat of the soul when the outer life no longer supports the inner truth. It isn’t weakness. It’s the psyche’s attempt to protect, regroup, and point toward change. (For a clinical description of common depression symptoms, you can read the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health’s overview of depression.)

This is often where midlife women say, quietly, “Something in me is shutting down.” That shutting down is more than sadness. It’s loss of vitality.

How to Tell the Difference Between Discouragement and Depression

Here is a way to sense where you are:

If low mood lasts more than two weeks, if daily functioning suffers, or if pleasure feels impossible, you may be moving from discouragement into depression. That shift — the difference between discouragement and depression in midlife women — is the point where it’s time to reach for help, not “push through.”

Emotional Companions: Envy, Jealousy, Sad Nostalgia

Discouragement and depression rarely travel alone. They bring other emotional states that can confuse you or shame you.

Envy
Envy can flare when you see someone thriving in a way you crave — creative work, intimacy, freedom. In discouragement, envy can sting but still points forward. It shows you what you long to live. In depression, envy can harden into self-blame: “I’ll never have that.”

Jealousy
Jealousy appears when you fear being replaced or forgotten. In discouragement, jealousy can motivate honest conversation and repair. In depression, jealousy often fades into numbness. You stop feeling worth protecting.

Sad nostalgia
Sad nostalgia looks backward. You long for a time when you felt more alive. In discouragement, nostalgia can warm you and remind you of possibility. In depression, it can lock you in the belief that life’s meaning is already behind you.

These emotions are not failures. They are signals.

Healing and Renewal

Discouragement calls for patience and perspective.
Depression calls for understanding and accompaniment.

Psychotherapy offers a space to explore what the depression is asking for — rest, truth, limits, change, grief, or an honest confrontation with how you’ve been living. For more about this approach, see Depth-Oriented Psychotherapy for Midlife Women.

If You Recognize Yourself Here

You don’t have to face this alone.

I offer depth-oriented psychotherapy for midlife and older women who want to understand the deeper roots of discouragement and depression and reclaim vitality, meaning, and inner authority. I work virtually with women in California, Arizona, Florida, and Oregon.

Learn more or schedule a free 20-minute consultation:
www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net.

FAQ

How can I tell if I’m depressed or just discouraged?
If your low mood is temporary and tied to a clear event, it’s likely discouragement. If it persists, numbs joy, and affects your daily life, depression may be present.

Can discouragement turn into depression?
Yes. When discouragement isn’t processed — when you keep pushing yourself instead of tending to your emotional needs — it can deepen into depression.

Does depression have a psychological purpose?
From a depth-psychological view, yes. Depression can signal that something in you requires transformation. The energy that feels gone is often gathering to return in a more honest form.

How does therapy help?
Therapy provides a steady, confidential space to uncover what the depression is asking for. Healing begins when your inner voice is heard, not dismissed.

Resources

 Websites/Articles

• Depth-Oriented Psychotherapy for Midlife Women: How It Works and Why It Matters
• Everyday Acts of Moral Courage and Non-Compliance
• Live Well Psychiatry. “Am I Depressed or Discouraged?” Published October 19, 2024. 
• Mayo Clinic. “Depression (major depressive disorder) – Symptoms & causes.” October 14, 2022. 

Books
Calhoun, Ada. Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis. Grove Press, 2020.
Burns, David D. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Harper, revised edition.

Joanna Poppink, MFT, is a depth-oriented psychotherapist specializing in midlife and older women's particular challenges, trauma integration, and healing from eating disorders. She offers virtual psychotherapy in California, Arizona, Florida, and Oregon. For a free telephone consultation, write toThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..