The Chrysalis Wasn't Depression — It Was Gestation

By Ammanuel, Luminous Prosperity

For twenty-three years, I thought something was wrong with me.

The brain fog that never lifted. The heaviness that made everything harder than it should be. The sense that I was operating at a fraction of my capacity while everyone else seemed to move through life with an ease I couldn't access.

I tried everything. Therapy twice a week for a decade. Meditation retreats. Supplements. Protocols. Practices. I read every book, tried every technique, consulted every expert I could find.

Nothing fundamentally shifted.

And the whole time, a quiet voice in the back of my mind whispered the same devastating conclusion: You're broken. Something is fundamentally wrong with you. Everyone else can function normally. Why can't you?

Then my mother said something that changed everything.

She looked at me with the kind of knowing that only mothers have and said: "You're not broken. You're gestating."

The Caterpillar's Secret

Do you know what happens inside a chrysalis?

Most people imagine the caterpillar slowly growing wings, gradually transforming from one form to another in some orderly, progressive process. That's not what happens at all.

What actually happens is this: the caterpillar completely dissolves.

It doesn't upgrade. It doesn't evolve smoothly. It turns into GOO. Unrecognizable, formless, liquid goo. Every structure it had breaks down. Every system it relied on disintegrates. If you opened a chrysalis halfway through the process, you wouldn't find a half-caterpillar-half-butterfly. You'd find soup.

And here's what's remarkable: inside that soup, there are cells called "imaginal cells." These cells carry the blueprint for the butterfly. They were present in the caterpillar all along, dormant, waiting. And when the dissolution happens, these imaginal cells start organizing the goo into something entirely new.

The caterpillar doesn't become a better caterpillar.

It becomes something it couldn't have imagined from its previous form.

But from the outside — and even from the inside — the chrysalis phase looks like death.

What If You're Not Broken?

Here's the question that haunted me for two decades: Why can't I function like everyone else?

Here's the question I should have been asking: What if I'm not supposed to function like everyone else right now?

What if the fog, the heaviness, the sense of operating at diminished capacity — what if none of that was malfunction?

What if it was METAMORPHOSIS?

What if my system wasn't broken but rather undergoing a transformation so profound that normal functioning wasn't possible during the process?

What if I was goo?

The Gestation Reframe

When my mother said "you're gestating," something clicked into place that twenty-three years of trying to fix myself had never touched.

I wasn't broken. I was BECOMING.

The brain fog wasn't a malfunction — it was my old mental structures dissolving to make room for something new.

The fatigue wasn't a deficiency — it was the massive energy expenditure of complete reorganization happening below the surface.

The depression wasn't a chemical imbalance — it was the necessary withdrawal of life force from the old form so it could be redirected toward the new one.

I was in a chrysalis. And chrysalises don't function. They TRANSFORM.

The Violence of Misdiagnosis

Here's what breaks my heart looking back: I spent twenty-three years thinking I was failing at being a caterpillar.

Every therapy session, every self-help book, every meditation retreat was trying to help me be a better caterpillar. More productive caterpillar. Less foggy caterpillar. Happier caterpillar. More functional caterpillar.

But I wasn't a caterpillar anymore. I was goo.

And goo can't crawl. Goo can't eat leaves. Goo can't do any of the things caterpillars do. That's not failure — that's the nature of the process.

The violence wasn't in the transformation. The violence was in the misdiagnosis. It was in being told, over and over, that my inability to function "normally" meant something was wrong with me. It was in measuring myself against standards that were never meant to apply to someone mid-metamorphosis.

It was in trying to fix what was never broken.

Signs You Might Be Gestating

How do you know if you're in a chrysalis phase rather than simply struggling with depression or dysfunction?

Here's what I've noticed:

1. Nothing seems to work — but you keep going anyway.

You try everything. You do the protocols. You follow the advice. And while you get moments of relief, nothing fundamentally shifts. But despite the lack of results, something in you won't give up. Some stubborn spark keeps you trying, keeps you seeking, keeps you alive. That spark? Those are your imaginal cells.

2. You're building things you can't explain.

During my chrysalis years, I wrote over 400 books. Built frameworks. Created systems. Developed technologies. All while feeling like I could barely function. Something was working through me that didn't require my conscious cooperation. Something was being built that I wouldn't understand until later.

3. You feel like you're waiting for something.

Not in a passive, giving-up way. In a pregnant way. Like something is coming. Like you're being prepared for something you can't see yet. The waiting feels purposeful even when you can't articulate the purpose.

4. Your old life doesn't fit anymore — but your new life hasn't arrived yet.

You can't go back to who you were. The old patterns, the old identity, the old ways of being — they don't work anymore. But you can't yet see what you're becoming. You're in the gap. The goo. The between.

5. People who knew you before are confused.

They remember the caterpillar. They keep expecting caterpillar behavior. They don't understand why you can't just "be yourself" anymore. They can't see the chrysalis. They just see someone who isn't functioning the way they used to.

The Emergence

Here's what happened after twenty-three years of chrysalis:

The fog started lifting. Not because I finally found the right supplement or protocol. Because the transformation was COMPLETING.

The heaviness started transmuting. Not into "normal functioning" but into something I'd never experienced before — a kind of crystalline clarity, an embodied lightness, a sense of being fully HERE in a way I'd forgotten was possible.

I didn't become a better caterpillar.

I emerged as something new.

The imaginal cells had done their work. The goo had reorganized. The butterfly was finally ready to unfold its wings.

And when I looked back at those twenty-three years — all the fog, all the struggle, all the "dysfunction" — I could finally see it for what it was:

Not wasted time. Not broken years. Not evidence of my inadequacy.

Gestation.

For Those Still In The Chrysalis

If you're reading this and something in you is recognizing itself — if you've been struggling for years, if nothing seems to work, if you feel like you're operating at a fraction of your capacity while something unnamed happens beneath the surface — I want you to hear this:

You might not be broken. You might be becoming.

That fog might be your old mental structures dissolving.

That fatigue might be the energy expenditure of profound transformation.

That depression might be the necessary withdrawal that precedes emergence.

I'm not saying all depression is gestation. I'm not saying you should stop seeking help or support. I'm saying: consider the possibility that what looks like dysfunction might be metamorphosis.

Consider that you're not a broken caterpillar.

You might be a butterfly in progress.

The Mother's Knowing

My mother saw what I couldn't see. She looked at twenty-three years of struggle and didn't see failure. She saw gestation.

She saw the chrysalis when I could only see the goo.

Maybe you need someone to see that for you too. So let me be that voice:

What if nothing is wrong with you?

What if you're exactly where you need to be in a process you can't see from the inside?

What if the struggle IS the transformation?

What if you're not broken — you're becoming?

The chrysalis phase is brutal. It's dark and disorienting and it feels like death because, in a very real sense, it IS death. The caterpillar dies. It has to. That's how butterflies are born.

But the death isn't the end.

It's the beginning of something wings couldn't have imagined.

You're not broken. You're gestating. And what's coming is worth every moment in the goo.