I apologise for any rambling that ensues in this post, I’ve
had a sudden urge to write, late on a Sunday evening and so here it goes. At
the moment, I feel like I am in a really good place. I feel I have lots of
energy, like the only way to describe it is like a fire has been ignited inside
me. I feel effortlessly positive. I’ve got into the habit of acknowledging what
I’m grateful for and I finally feel like I’m starting to find myself. I’m
recognising what my values are and who I want to be. Well, I guess it’s who I
already am, but it’s actually being able to show everyone that ‘real self’.
This can easily be hidden by being the joker or being stupid, which I guess I
still do, but I also think that I’ve grown in ways where I recognise I am doing
this and can check myself.
I wouldn’t say anything has changed drastically in my life
to feel this way. I’ve just changed my mindset and mindset, I have found, is a
powerful thing. I’ve had certain things happen as of late, that I really could
have let get me down, but having this positive mindset and trying to see the
good in everything (not as easy as it sounds at times) has really helped me. It’s
brought me opportunities, it’s motivated me and I feel like having this mindset
also gives off an energy to other people and can inspire them. It’s all to do
with the Law of Attraction, but that’s something I can get into in another post
(type it into Google and there are TONS of videos on it). The basic concept is
like attracts like. If I’m positive, real and genuine with people, then these
are the types of people I will attract into my life. Being real and genuine can
be mean different things, to different people. To some people, it may mean
saying what you think when you think it and not being two-faced. To me, it
means being open and truly honest with yourself and others, by really knowing
what your values are and living by them. Not letting people sway or pressure me
to do things or think things that may divert me from living to my values. I’m
currently working on a plan to really live up to my values and it makes me
excited for the future and where I vision myself in a years’ time and even 5-10
years’ time.
The reason I wanted to bring up the reality of depression
through my experience is that in earlier posts I don’t feel I really went into
detail into how this really felt. Some people may feel sad and say they are
depressed, when they aren’t. Although there is a lot of information out these
days about depression, and in line with trying to stay real and live up to
my values, I wanted to be really honest about how it felt without trying to
sensationalise it.
When I think about the time I fell into my depression, it
felt like I was a different person. Thinking about it now, I felt like a fly on
my bedroom wall watching myself. Once I made the decision to leave university,
I came home and stayed in bed for two weeks with the curtains drawn. I don’t
think I showered for at least a week in this time. I would lie in bed under the
covers, with the TV for background noise. I wouldn’t even pay attention to it (Not
even Jeremy Kyle revealing the lie detector results so I could find out if the
guy who was accused of sleeping with his sister’s, best friend’s Mum was telling
the truth could make me concentrate), I’d just stare into space. My eyes were
sore from being tearful and crying a lot of the time. This would come on in
waves, and nothing in particular would set it off. I remember my Mum coming in
my room, to check if I was ok. She’d bring me drinks, suggest things for me to
do and made sure that I had taken the antidepressants I had been prescribed the
week before. I would just grunt and say ok, yet not move a muscle.
I feel like it must have been really frustrating for my
family to not know what to do to help me. At the time, I may not have shown it,
but knowing they were there if I needed them is probably one of the things that
helped me out of my depression. My Mum, by nature is a helper and I remember
her googling how to help someone who is depressed which showed me that she was
desperately trying to understand what I was going through.
My room became a cocoon, and the four walls surrounding me
became the end of my comfort zone. I’m trying to really find the right words to
describe how it felt just lying in bed for that length of time. I felt like a
zombie and numb. It was as if the inner me had shrunken right down to the size of
a thimble, and my body was a big, empty shell. One of those prominent memories,
that stays with me is when I finally ventured out of my bedroom after a week to
force myself to eat. I had eaten barely anything in days and anything I had
eaten was forced down me. I lost quite a lot of weight over a very short space
of time. This made me feel weaker and further worsened my mood. Any task I did
I felt like I was doing in slow motion as it took such effort. Anyway, I
decided, whilst everyone was out of the house I would attempt to make myself… spaghetti
on toast. Now, this doesn’t sound like a big deal at all, but for someone who
was depressed, it was like being told to run up a mountain without stopping. I
know this all sounds very dramatic, but this is how depression affected me.
I did successfully make the spaghetti on toast, and tried to
make it look presentable on the plate to encourage my appetite. I took two or
three mouthfuls, again even chewing my food seemed to take double the time
because I was so lethargic and slow. I put the knife and fork down on the
plate, and burst out crying. I felt pathetic, I couldn’t even eat a plate of
spaghetti on toast. I remember crying so hard at the table, and it even makes
me tear up now thinking about it as I just feel so sorry for that person. I
wish I could go back and tell myself that it was all going to be ok and that I
should be excited for what the future will hold. The food went in the bin and I
returned back to the safe place which was my bed. As gross as it sounds, I didn’t
wash for at least a week, barely brushed my teeth and trying to get dressed for
the day was an impossible task. When you’re depressed, none of that matters
anymore, you don’t care about your personal hygiene or how you look, because in my mind at the time, what was the point?
Towards the end of the second week, when the antidepressants
started to take effect, I started to see a very small glimmer of light at the
end of the tunnel. With a lot of encouragement from my Mum, who even offered to
wash my hair for me, I took a shower. After being holed up in my room, a shower
had never felt so good. I think I still had a cry whilst washing myself, but
looking back now, I truly felt this was the start of me coming out of my
depression. From then on, I gradually got out of bed more often, I watched some
motivational/inspiring videos on YouTube and I also kept a diary of how I was
feeling and what I thought about everyday. I still have that diary now, I feel
it’s therapeutic to reflect on how far I have come.
So there you have it. If anyone does read this who is going
through a depression, I truly mean it when I say that how you feel right now is
just temporary and you will get through it. It’s not easy, but it’s so worth it
when you do. A good thing about depression (I told you, it’s this positive
mindset) is that you experience how it feels inside to hit rock bottom. It gives
you the best possible opportunity to work on yourself. I don’t know about other
people, but I couldn’t hide behind a mask anymore when I was in the depths of
my depression. It’s a raw, profound feeling, but to get through it makes you so
much stronger. I think I’m about to burst into song now and start singing
Fighter by Christina Aguilera… It wouldn't be a proper blog post if I didn't insert a related GIF now would it?
Thanks for reading.
Lucy x
