Depression is so unique to everyone who encounters it. Each persons feelings, symptom’s and thought processes are valid but because of the difference in peoples experiences its such a difficult thing to try and understand from an outsiders point of view. The way I experienced depression included intrusive thoughts, no motivation, exhaustion, anxiety, low self worth, struggling to sleep, critical thinking, over eating, hopelessness and suicidal thoughts but have read it can manifest in so many ways including self harm, addiction, loss of appetite, and can even include physical pains and symptoms. Admitting I had a problem was super difficult and took a long time because I believed it made me a bad person/parent. When I think back to the beginning, I remember feeling embarrassment, fear, anger and boy did I give myself a hard time. Every single time depression hit, I was my own worst enemy. Things like “you should have done more with the kids today, you’re so lazy, they deserve better” or “you have really let yourself go lately, you look so fat and I bet everyone is talking about it” would whirl through my mind daily and when you are already in your own head, this is not helpful. Trigger warning for suicide: It got to a point where I was giving myself a hard time because I wasn’t brave enough to kill myself properly. I had thought about it and even had a plan in my mind but when it came to it, I would get scared and spend the next 24 hours telling myself I am so pathetic and cant even get that right. What a failure. Some of my worst nights were spent in bed, when my family were asleep and I would imagine my heart just stopping and not having to wake up ever again. I would wish for it so hard that I believed I was manifesting it to happen one day. I would then hate myself for thinking such things when my daughter didn’t ask for a body that was failing but I had a perfectly good one and didn’t deserve it. What kind of mother was I? See the pattern? This went on for months before I was ready to talk about it but to the outside world you wouldn’t know. I don’t socialise and have always been a private person so it went unnoticed. I would have been mortified if people knew I wasn’t living up to their standards. My wife knew something was wrong but whenever she would try to talk to me, I would get defensive and come up with an excuse for being tired and irritable. Our marriage was suffering because I wasn’t contributing. Its like being on autopilot. Doing the bare minimum to just survive. We live a stressful life so its not hard to come up with reasons as to why I would be absent. Her patience with me over those months, gave me the time I needed to realise this was depression and not me being a terrible person but I often think about how hard it must have been for her. I continue to try and make up for lost time, even now. If you can relate to anything I have said and you are looking for answers yourself, start researching, google symptoms, look for others who have experienced similar thoughts and feelings. Knowledge is power. When I eventually told my wife what was going on in my head, I felt a sense of relief almost immediately. There was finally a word for what was happening to me and someone to tell me that I am not all the things I have been thinking. This was the beginning of my journey. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t just wake up one morning and feel better but I had something to work with. A tiny grain of hope. First step was a doctors appointment. I filled out a form about my mental health and was called later that day by my GP to be offered some antidepressants and advised to contact a company called italk. There was not a chance in hell I was taking any sort of pills without looking them up first because I have heard of some pretty nasty side effects and in some cases had even read it had made situations far worse (FYI I am not crazy, I just don’t like taking medication unless I absolutely have to). After looking online, it was pretty clear there was a huge amount of information about depression and the ways to control it that I hadn’t looked at before. I made the decision to go the natural route, forget the pills and contacted italk. They were useless. Told me I needed therapy but waiting lists were long and if I needed immediate help to contact the Samaritans. This was not something I was prepared to do because in my mind, there was probably someone out there that needed them way more then I did. Stupid considering my situation but made sense to me at the time. The only option I felt I had at the time was reading. Looking back now, I still don’t know why I felt so ashamed to talk about depression. So many people deal with these things alone and confused because some sort of stigma has been added to the diagnosis of depression like its dirty. The more we talk about it, the more people can understand it and find help sooner. When I started reading online articles and looking for social media accounts with success stories to try and fuel my desire to fix things for myself, surprisingly there wasn’t that many people talking about their experiences and even less with actual advice for what worked for them. So here I am. Talking shit and hoping I can get through to people who are just like me (stubborn af!). Depression is not dirty.
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