Depressed and okay.

Hello. I have depression. 

Most of you already know that. It's no secret. For those of you who didn't, don't be afraid, saying all of this is a good thing. It helps, everyone, I believe.

I've accepted my illness, I've accepted that it blurs the lines between who I am and the ways in which I struggle. I've accepted that I'm going to have to live my life in a way that continually tries to cope with this, and that that's okay. What I'm finding hard to accept is how I'm still coming across people who refuse to see past the fact that on the surface I am a confident, happy person who enjoys life, and yet can also have depression; People that haven't experienced a mental illness and therefore refuse to believe that it can be anywhere near as bad as I (and many others) describe it to be. 

I'm taking some time off right now: I've finally accepted that I need it to recover, that I should listen to the advice that I would give another person. Continuing on with the theme of visibility from my last post, I feel I have to expand on a much more personal level. Again, this is for me, but also anyone else who needs it.

I feel that it needs to be made clear that yes, I'm a person who smiles and laughs and acts like a fool. I'm a person who spends hours (ridiculous I know) on her make up. I'm a person who can be the life and soul of the party. A person who shows enthusiasm. A person who shows love. Who can get up on stage and perform, who can be really motivated and productive, who can be creative, expressive.
But none of that takes away the fact that I'm also a person whose thoughts sometimes race around at a pace I can't keep up with, that can't always fully focus on a conversation because her brain is intent on concerning her with what the other person must be thinking. A person who often feels like they're walking around in a fog. A person who sometimes experiences stress in an inappropriately impactful way. That really struggles to be in a room where there's a lot of noise. That struggles to retain information because her brain is intent on worrying about trivial things that usually amount to nothing instead. That I'm a person whose mood sometimes goes from content to intensely irritable then to tearful in an hour. The fact that sometimes I have this ball of dread in my stomach, tingling in my legs, beads of sweat dripping down my back (nice) for no reason. That sometimes my brain tells me I'm useless, that life is hopeless and I try so hard to fight with these thoughts because I know it isn't true. That sometimes I don't know what to say or how to express anything. That being in a group of (especially new) people turns me into a quiet little weirdo because my brain keeps telling me they won't like me, even though I know that's not true either. That I want to say "sorry, I know I'm coming across as weird, quiet, apathetic, a bit useless, I just have depression." 

That all of this is only sometimes. That it's okay for me to not be okay. That it's okay for me to be both depressed and okay.

That I struggle almost every day on the inside. That I have no control over this, only coping methods. That probably 90% of these struggles are invisible.

Depression is much more than "sadness". Depression is also sometimes much less than lying on a heap on the floor. No matter whether it affects my life in a big or a small way that day, it's there.

It's okay not to understand, in fact in a way it's great: I'm so glad that you haven't had to feel this, but that doesn't mean it isn't valid for me, and every other person who lives with an invisible illness. You can never fully know what another person has gone through. Never forget that. Never take that away from anyone. Respect their experience, ask them about it, listen to what they need, be there, support them. That's all.

I've thought a lot about what "recovery" actually means for me, and what I intend to spend my time off doing in order to return to things feeling better. I came to the decision that during this time of recovery I want to focus my life around four themes: I want to do things that make me feel happy, feel hopeful, feel good about myself and that address my problems. Even better if I can cover all four themes at once. I'm going to try the best that I can, each day at a time to do that. Wish me luck.

I'm sorry if that was rant-y, and non-cohesive but I published the words as they came out and I'm okay with it.

Superboy and the Invisible Girl.

This blog wasn't (and still isn't) intended to be solely about mental health, but the closer I get to becoming a qualified mental health nurse, the more time I spend studying mental health, meeting people affected by mental illness and of course, living with depression myself, the more it permeates my life. Since this blog is intended to be about what's going on my head, I guess that's what I'm going to write about.

The reason I haven't written here for 7 months is mainly down to depression; as I've said before, it tends to blunt my drive to be creative, and the medication I'm on leaves me quite emotionless at times. I just haven't had the same physical and mental energy for a few months now, but I'm trying.

I suppose I just wanted to write something tonight, for myself, and for anyone else who needs it. 
I wanted to say something that addresses an issue that has become quite a central theme in my life in recent months: the topic of visibility in relation to mental illness. (I can only really comment on my own experiences, so this will mostly address depression/anxiety, but the message translates throughout all mental illnesses I believe.)

We live in a society that is very accepting of what they can see, but is pretty sceptical or even completely disbelieving in what they cannot. Someone with a broken leg, immediately gets the acceptance, the empathy; this person is in pain, this person can't do what they normally could, this person needs time to recover. Someone with depression, is often doubted, told to shake themselves, told that they "don't look depressed" before anything else. This is deeply frustrating and hurtful, to say the very least. In fact, this attitude has been detrimental and even dangerous to my recovery. The problem is ignorance, and sometimes it isn't even people's fault that they are so misled and misinformed about what it actually means to be mentally ill. Mental illness is constantly trivialised by those who don't understand it, to the point where they don't even know how ignorant they sound. People still assume that depression means feeling really sad and that there is always a reason, that anxiety means having panic attacks, that if you seen a person with mental health problems in the street, you'd know. I can promise you that about 90% of the time, that isn't the case. The word depressed is used to describe feeling sad, the term "OCD" is used to describe liking things to be ordered. The trope about being a "psycho" girlfriend, and the eery glamorisation of depression, self-harm and suicide that pop up on social media so often. All of this perpetuates this idea that mental illness is something not to be taken seriously, and belittles people's experiences. 

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing what you are taught, I get that. Assumptions are easy to make, but so is checking yourself, reminding yourself not to judge someone until you've walked in their shoes. I can't stress that enough. 

What does depression and anxiety look like? Is it someone who sits in the corner of the room, someone who can't leave the house, someone who looks dishevelled, who cries all the time? Sometimes. It's also someone who rarely misses work, who leaves the house with a full face of make-up on, who comes across as confident and happy most of the time. Depression can be completely invisible, I can guarantee that to you.

I manage life. Most of the time. It's just difficult sometimes. Most of that difficulty is private, hidden. It takes more effort than is normal to get out of bed, to make food, to shower, to walk into a room full of people. I need to psych myself up for mostly everything. I fight my own thoughts, the ones that tell me people don't like me, that I'm useless, that remind me I'm going to die anyway and make me feel terrified of living. I fight the weird fog that comes over my brain sometimes, and try to think through it as best I can. I try to combat the intense irritability. I rationalise with a brain that makes me feel like there's something to dread, even when everything is going well. I constantly remind myself that just because I think something, doesn't mean it's true. I push myself to reply to people, to tell them what I'm feeling, to bear with me. I try so hard to be confident, speak up and just be myself, even when my head tries to stop me. I cry sometimes because I'm absolutely overwhelmed by life, but I just keep trying to live.

I have to take time alone, to recalibrate. I have to actively remind myself of what's good about me, and my life or I forget, and the negativity starts to swallow me up.

I'm not trying to make myself sound like a brave soldier or anything, I'm just trying to be honest about what my (and many others') life is actually like, despite how it appears. This is depression. How much of that is noticeable?

You might be surprised to hear this considering how much I've spoken about it online, but I feel like I'm finally taking my own depression more seriously. I suppose that's down to a combination of what I've learnt on my course and to the fact that my illness isn't as episodic as it was in the beginning. I've recognised the many different ways in which it affects my life, and I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with that. I guess the main thing I'm doing is quite simple, but most effective: not giving up. It sounds cliched but it's probably the most important piece of advice I would give to anyone who is struggling. Keep going, as much as you can. Keep trying. The second most important piece of advice would be: talk. Talk to people you trust about how you're feeling. Talk to your family, your friends, a professional, talk to me if you want. (Slide into those DMs.)(Sorry.) Talking helps immeasurably.

This is all I have to say for today. It wasn't all completely cohesive, but I expressed myself, and that is progress. Thank you please goodbye. 

P.S I have been listening to Next To Normal a lot recently (hence the title of this post). It's a musical about mental illness (it's like it was made for me) and its beautiful and if you like that sort of thing I would highly recommend it.

Let's talk about Depression. (Don't be afraid.)

I began writing this a few months ago, but didn't feel quite ready to post it until now.

I've wanted to write about this for a long time, but I think it always felt too personal before. However, my feelings have changed, and although it is still deeply personal, I'm no longer ashamed, and feel like sharing would be a positive step, for the greater good an' all that.

(It is World Mental Health Day today, so I can't think of a better time to finally talk about this.)

It's strange how I feel like I've been "in the closet" in some way. I'm sure many people who have suffered from any form of Mental Illness can relate to this. 

Telling someone you have the flu, or a broken arm, has a pretty standard sympathetic response. They can physically see that you are suffering. Telling someone you have depression, is a lot more difficult. It's often met with awkwardness. Avoidance. No one knows the right thing to say, to ask. Simply through lack of understanding. Fear of what they don't know. Fear of saying the wrong thing. 

It's not deemed acceptable to say "I need to stay home today, my brain feels ill." 

 I was 18, I'd gone through huge changes, in a very short space of time, with little time to take it all in. Everything that I thought made me who I was: my town, my house, my friends, my family. All of it changed. (That's the short story anyway.) I lost my identity completely, which is a difficult thing to understand unless it has happened to you.

Depression (and anxiety) seemed to slowly creep over me. It was like having a bag to carry, then another bag, then another, until I was just completely overwhelmed by luggage.

I'd wake up feeling like I'd just had a huge argument. Angry, anxious, upset, tired, like anything could send me over the edge. It was a black cloud that seemed to hang over me and everything that I did. I was still me, getting on with everything as normal, but with my thoughts and feelings clouded by this horrible dread and anxiety. I forgot who I was underneath it.

I distinctly remember losing the ability to look forward to anything. Nothing sparked my interest, or seemed worth it really. Minor tasks felt like mountains. There was an overwhelming sense of pointlessness to my entire being. I can remember my lowest point quite clearly. I can remember thinking "What is the point of me continuing to live? No one cares, I don't even care." Luckily, it didn't go any further than that thought. 

When I think of that person now, having those thoughts, my heart breaks; No one deserves to feel that they or their life are worth nothing. 

Visiting the doctor, and saying the word Depression out loud, was pretty traumatic. I was met by, more or less, apathy. I was prescribed antidepressants and told to seek a counsellor at college.

The antidepressants helped to stabilise me, which was what I needed at first, but after a certain point, I felt like they kept me too stable, and not able to be creative or expressive.
The counsellor basically sat in silence, whilst I skimmed over the details of my life, and for a while I felt like it was achieving nothing. My "epiphany" came one day, as I walked out of one of the sessions. I'd spent the last hour rambling, and suddenly the root of the problem really hit me. I went home and cried and cried, but it felt like relief more than anything. It may sound ridiculous, but in simple terms, I realised that I had to face the fact that everything had changed.
I truly made sense of what made me feel so awful in the first place, and then started to let it go. I stopped being in denial about my life, who I was, and accepted the changes. I had to learn to accept that things were never going to be the same, and adapt. It took a really long time.

I also have to mention that music, and musical theatre specifically, played a huge part, and still does, in helping me feel better. Music makes me feel that wee bit more alive. 
This song seemed to describe my feelings so accurately at that time, and still makes everything better. (I actually almost cried listening to it just now.) (I know, it's a bit cheesy. I don't care.)
Again, it may sound ridiculous, but the honest truth is that I find real solace in musical theatre. The musical RENT, and it's message, played a huge part in making me look at things differently, to see myself, and my life in a different light. 

I have to add admiration and appreciation to Jake, as without him, I'm not sure what would have happened. I don't really have the words to explain what he tolerated, and how he was there, but I will never forget.

While I feel like someone who is mostly mentally healthy now, I recognise that like with many illnesses, I still live with it and probably always will. 
I go through periods of feeling fabulous, confident and happy. Then others that are a real struggle. It's like I'm more vulnerable to big changes, or stress. It's a battle, but I know how to fight it now. I'm able to recognise that it is an illness, just like any other, and not who I am. 
I try never to let myself obsess over things in the way that I used to. I try not to let what other people think of me, affect me too much. I have to remind myself of what's actually important. It definitely opens your eyes, and makes you thankful for the small things.
Quite honestly, a part of me feels like it was a part of my life that had to happen, in order to make me realise how strong I actually am.

The reason I wanted to write this was because, I feel like if I'd have known how common depression was at the time, I would have felt better. If I'd have known that I wasn't weak, or abnormal, if my peers were discussing depression, if the doctor had shown some empathy, then maybe it would have been easier. If someone had told me "This isn't your fault" a lot sooner, it would have made all the difference.
I feel like it's my job, everyone's job, to talk about this. To be open. To not be ashamed. Which is why I am literally trying to make it my job. (I'm studying Mental Health Nursing.)

Depression is not always easily visible like you might think. 
I'm pretty certain that the only people that have had any clue about this, have been the people I have actively told. It's easy to hide. It's secretive. That's the worst thing about it. It doesn't get taken as seriously as a physical illness because it can't be seen. Some could argue that in a way that makes it worse than physical illness, because it pollutes the very person that you are, the brain, the thing that ultimately makes you, You. 

If you, (or someone you know) is suffering, please don't feel that you are alone. There will be people around you every day who have been affected by this. 
You aren't weak, or pathetic, or worthless. You don't deserve to feel that. This isn't your fault. Give yourself credit for the little steps that you are able to take, and give yourself credit for recognising that you need help, because that will make you feel more in control.
Also, talk to me. I'm no expert on this and the things that helped me, might do nothing for you, but I at least can understand and am willing to listen.
I hope that this can help anyone, in any small way.

If you have read all of this, thank you. Truly. I know it seems self-indulgent, but I felt like it had to come out. It took a lot of tears and anxiety to write this, and even more to press "Publish", but I feel better.