Hi Ryan
It's sounds like you're trying so hard to make sense of everything in relation to why you feel so low. It can be incredibly hard work at times and take a while to make sense of things, especially when there's a combination of factors involved.
While you mention running having been a part of your identity, it can take a lot of consideration while figuring out how you now want to identify yourself, in a way that gives you a similar high to who you used to be. If you're feeling lost in the process or are struggling to form some vision, that's completely understandable. Can take some time to figure out who we naturally are and how we naturally thrive. Btw, I couldn't help but wonder whether there's such a thing as 'chemical withdrawal from running'. Apparently, according to Google, it's a thing and can come with some depressing side effects. While running served you in many ways (physically, mentally and even in a soulful or liberating sense), the loss you're feeling makes sense.
With chemical changes to the brain, from a loss of the kind of chemistry that helped supercharge it (found in running), you have to be seriously commended for trying so hard to focus on study under the circumstances. My daughter's partner relies on running to create the kind of energy he thrives on, mental and physical. He feels the slump during the winter months where he doesn't run as much. I think that while the gym offers a basic degree of work up or work out of energy in motion (e-motion that can be felt), it's sounds like the running offered you far more than just 'basic'.
It took me some decades (I'm a 55yo gal) to finally come to see depression as 'a depression' or kind of deep well. We can have all the things in life that have us on a natural high, the things that ground us and then there are the factors that can take us below ground, into a depression. Whether it's a depressing lack of the right kind of physical/chemical energy we need, a lack of what's more than basically good in our life, a lack of solid vision regarding the way forward etc etc, a lack of all these things can be felt. With each lacking, it can feel like a step down. With each gain, it can feel like a step up. I'm wondering whether a visit to your GP might offer a step up, with you explaining the depressing side effects of no longer running. Whether he/she can offer a way to regain a natural high or offer a supplement (medication) to help regain some of that lost energy that running offered you, perhaps this is something worth wondering about. Btw, I'm wondering whether you're able to return to running in the future at some stage and this is a period that's forcing you to evolve in certain ways through having no choice.
