Wednesday 7 March 2018

Things I'd Tell My Early 2017 Severely Depressed Self: 2/2

This is a continuation of my previous post which can be found here.

3/ Who you are when depressed IS NOT YOU.
When people are physically ill they generally can become pretty moody and easily irritable, don't feel like getting out of bed, their appetite goes down, and being social is the last thing thing on their minds even if they are usually the exact opposite most of the time. However, the person who is physically ill knows in their head that that how they are at that moment is because they are sick, that it has nothing to do with them as a person, and that all these symptoms listed previously are just temporary until they get better.

When people are mentally ill with depression many of the side effects are the same: they generally can become pretty moody and easily irritable, don't feel like getting out of bed, their appetite goes down, and being social is the last thing thing on their minds even if they are usually the exact opposite most of the time.  However, the biggest difference in how physical and mental illnesses are processed by the individual, at least in my own experience, is that those are physically ill are able to separate these symptoms from themselves (attributing them to the illness itself) while those mentally ill are not. Instead, for individuals with depression or any other mental illness, they start seeing these symptoms as a part of who they are -- believing that it is their fault for being that way -- are as opposed to realizing what these symptoms actually are: manifestations of their mental illness itself.

This is a vitally important realization to make because as soon as you start believing that who you are in your most depressed state is who you really are, your sense of reality is greatly altered and hope seems to be even farther away from your grasp. This is probably one of the worst lies of depression, which leads me to the last and most important thing.

4/ There is hope; With help, you can and will get through this.
There was a point when I thought that my depression was something I would never be able to shake or overcome. I felt as though I was continually hitting the bottom of a bottomless pit with no chance of every making back up to ground level.

At my worst, I felt so helpless and hopeless that death was the only way to escape depression. While I was never actively suicidal, passive thoughts of death worked their way into my mind and I remember thinking that perhaps death would be the only way to actually get some sort of respite from the struggle. (That's how much depression had fucked with my thinking.)

Thankfully, despite the severity of my depression, I was able to realize that this line of thinking was 100% not normal and that I needed to get help (if not for my own sake, but for the sake of my husband and two daughters who didn't deserve to have a wife/mom thinking these types of thoughts which were far from being healthy or productive).

While reaching out for help was a huge internal struggle, once I did everything changed. I began to feel hopeful again and knowing that I wasn't trying to do things all on my own anymore made the helplessness fade away as the community that God raised up around me consisting of my GP, my therapist, my husband, and a few good friends, spoke truth and love into my life.

Despite my resistance to getting help, I fully realize that I couldn't have gotten to where I am now on my own; my downward spiral deeper and deeper into depression is evidence of that. However, with help I was able to do what once seemed nothing less than impossible: I got through depression and reached the other side.

.....
To read more about my journey with depression, read this post.

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