I am utterly convinced that a leading cause of depression is inflammation.

Now there are books about this, I’ll drop some links in the comments, but also, I’ll tell you a story. This is a thing that has happened to me a few times, but this is the most recent and clear.

Wednesday evening, I’m starting to feel a bit of a sore throat coming on. I drink some water and try to get some sleep. At about 2am I wake up hot and with body aches, but I was woken up because I was having racing very dark thoughts. I woke up because I was suddenly in a depressive episode! Now this isn’t my first rodeo, so I knew what was happening and I also knew it was caused by the inflammation raging in my body. At first I tried some meditation and some breathing exercises. But it didn’t make a dent, the thoughts raced. You know the ones, “you’re a horrible person”, “nothing will work out”, “your life won’t be anything but suffering”, on and on.

When my initial strategies failed I woke my husband up and told him what was going on and asked him to help. He went and got me some Ibuprofen, I took it, had some more water, waiting a bit. Things calmed down. I went back to sleep. I woke up Thursday morning still sick, but without the racing thoughts.

Do any of you experience this at the start of an illness?