If I had to describe my depression at its lowest, when I kept how suffocated I was feeling to myself, I would describe it as if I was standing in a circle of my family and friends. It’s dark and their faces are blurry. I’m spinning frantically looking from blurry face to blurry face, desperately seeking someone who could help me. Someone who would reach out to me. My experience has taught me that sometimes you also have to reach out to people too.
Asking for help has been both the most scariest and worthwhile action I have ever taken in my life. At first I was all alone in my experience of depression and anxiety. I was terrified of my family and friends finding out just how much I was struggling and being disappointed in me. In my mind I had to be perfect 110% of the time. I worked, I went to uni, I trained often and I tried to keep a social life. I knew I’d started to reach my breaking point when I was using “maladaptive coping practices” (as my therapist so eloquently put it — aka, self-harm), and I was falling to my knees sobbing on the floor of my bathroom daily. Big aching sobs racking my body as my mind raced with thoughts of ending the daily fight that was my mind with itself.
[Ed. note – I just LOVE “The Mighty” website….check it out, there is a lot there!!]