- Sadness that does not abate
The passive person is often sad in part because they do not actively grieve their missed opportunities, sabotaged relationships, passed over for promotions and much more. When depression is not bio-chemical it is usually brought about by repressed and denied emotions that continually build into full-blown depression.
- Loss of interest in activities previously enjoyed
When people feel like they are not going to succeed, or have been told since a young age that they can’t succeed, eventually they withdraw from social, sports, and recreational activities and become more and more sedentary.
- Unintentional weight gain or weight loss
The more they withdraw, the more their weight becomes a problem, and the more their weight becomes a problem, the more they withdraw. Passivity is a real Catch-22. Comfort food—which is packed with calories and sugar—becomes increasingly important. Sugar is a contributing factor in depression and passivity.
- Difficulty sleeping, or continual oversleeping
Insomnia plagues the passive person. As lethargy sets in, sugar intake increases, sleep cycles get out of whack. Many passive people find the only time they are comfortable is when they sleep and sleep and sleep.
- Energy loss
All of the above ends up in energy loss. They feel tired and drained and since energy is the key to active engaging of life they feel life as abandoned them. The feelings of worthlessness increases, they become irritable and hard to be around. They lose interest in sex and become constant complainers with unexplained ailments and excuses as to why they cannot be more engaging.
Because those around the passive person eventually becomes frustrated with the passive person who usually has so much unrealized potential they also become uninterested and eventually avoids the passive person. As Edrita Fried, author of the book, Active/Passive, points out, this includes the therapeutic community who withdraws from treatment and refers their clients to other clinicians.
The passive person who is depressed finally receives some help from non-therapy psychiatrists or personal physicians in the way of anti-depressants that mostly mask the real problem sometimes for decades.
If a person is living a half-lived life, not achieving, not engaging life, experiencing little or no success in career, relationship, or creative endeavors how could they not be depressed. If the passive person is going to therapy say one hour per week and taking a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor once a day but are living their waking life with a less than satisfying relationship, going to work that holds little or no passion, wanting to be something they feel forever alludes them, how could they not be depressed by the passivity that plagues them?