.

My Post-Depression Story

YES YOU READ IT CORRECTLY! - POST DEPRESSION! IT IS POSSIBLE TO ESCAPE THE NEVER ENDING DARKNESS!  I’ve had a good fair share of depression in my 19 years on earth.  Some people like to argue with me and say “I’m too young to have experienced such intense emotions” but I disagree with them.  Looking back over my life, even when I didn’t consider myself to have depression, I think I have pretty much always felt lonely. I’ve never felt good enough and like I was always making mistakes. 

I first self-harmed at the age of 14, I remember the reason was because I had accidently spilt ink on my boyfriend of the times work. The reason for self-harming may seem small, however, this tipped an ice-burg of emotions for me. I was feeling frustrated with myself it felt as if I couldn't do anything right and like my existence was worthless. However, despite this, I only self-harmed once more in this year and managed to carry on with my life as normal.

The real butt-kick of my depression began when myself and my boyfriend of 2 and a half years split. It was a messy split and I don’t need to go into details but this affected my mental health and views of myself greatly. NB. I do not blame my ex-boyfriend for anything that happened during our break up and I also do not hate or loath him for breaking up with me.  However, at the time I took the split personally. As if I wasn’t good enough. I feel as though all the emotions of self-hatred I had suppressed over my whole entire life as much as I could burst into a spiral of deep depression. I blamed myself for everything that had happened and I couldn’t escape. At the same time as dealing with these feelings, which in the beginning i dealt with better, I fell out with someone who I considered a friend.  They lied and tried to turn my friends against me and this didn’t help my mental health.  NB. Again I do not blame this person, I forgive them for everything they did towards me, even though I would not personally like to be friends with this person again I still hope one day they can see where they went wrong and find happiness rather than blaming others.  This was another factor that kicked my depression up another notch. I cried most if not every night. I started looking at other schools to go to just to escape. My already poor attendance suffered even more because of these things. I hated myself. I blamed myself for everything that was happening to me. The lies told about me and names I was called I began to believe and I became unstable. To get to sleep at night I used to lie in bed and think about the ways I would commit suicide. It helped me to sleep. Thinking about ending my life helped me relax. Like I would finally be free of the pain I was suffering from.   This was during AS year, and yet I still managed to get AAB in my AS results, mainly because I threw myself into my work as a distraction.  However, my worst year I consider would be my final A level year.  I wanted to apply to do medicine at university but I couldn’t find any motivation to write any of my personal statement as I could not think of any good things about myself as a person. I felt defeated. My head of sixth form helped me write my statement and I sent it off on the deadline date for medicine applications.  AS to A2 in terms of content to me seemed like a much bigger jump than GCSE - AS and I found my confidence suffered even more from this. One thing I had always relied upon was my work, I could focus on it to help me feel productive and better about myself, but as the work got harder I found it harder to focus and instead I shut down and didn’t do any.  A2 was my worst year - the things that had happened the year before had affected me so much as a person it affected all my future relationships with people.  I wasn’t the kindest of people in A2 year and definitely not very nice to be around.  My depression made me needy of attention. And although I would not class it as attention-seeking, more like begging for someone to see the pain I was going through emotionally, I know some people saw my actions as attention seeking.  I clung to the people I trusted, however, I also depended on them. I feel that I unmeaningfully manipulated them to give me the reassurance I needed to stay alive. Eventually they got tired, and although they did not leave me and I knew they were still there for me, I noticed the distance and it scared me. Again I felt the feelings of worthlessness and fear and pain and so I clung as much as I could but it just ended pushing them further away as the pressure I was forcing on them was unfair.  I eventually made a massive massive mistake, out of fear of losing the person, I lied to someone I trusted and they had trusted me and as a result, when I came clean, I lost them. I do not think this was a irrational decision I believe it was the right one for them as well as the wake-up call for myself that I needed to do something about the way I was feeling.  Unfortunately, my first thought wasn't to try to improve my emotional state but instead destroy myself as a form of punishment for what I had done and lost. I  was suicidal and self-harming often. I felt like the worst human being in the world.  It took for my friends to TRICK me into seeing my GP before I got help.  When I walked into the GP surgery I couldn’t speak, my friends had to speak for me and my doctor would ask me questions I could nod or shake my head too. He was lovely and I will be forever grateful for his understanding nature.  He prescribed me fluoxetine (an anti-depressant) and suggested CBT and councilling. He also got me in touch with the crisis team who came to visit me a few days after my GP meeting. I will not say that anti-depressants are a quick or a definite cure. However, I believe in my personal experience they have helped keep me level headed. And the actual act of getting help in the first place and accepting it I believe was the first big, major step to improving my mental health.  I have still had bouts of self harm, and I still cry and I still have had suicidal thoughts whilst on anti-depressants. However, on a day I would consider to be “normal/average” - with help alongside my counsellor and help from my university- I believe together the treatments have helped me find a coping mechanism.  After coming through depression, I am actual thankful for it.  After experiencing such a low I never would have imagined I could have felt peace. 

Its been rough and tough but I got there and Im so proud of myself and I thank everyone who has ever helped me and supported me in any way. 

If depression taught me anything, it is that you don't need a reason to be depressed. I think a common misconception is there needs to be a reason, but sometimes there isn't. And it is not WHY you are depressed that matters, its just the fact thats how you are feeling and WHY you are depressed shouldnt affect the amount of sympathy felt for a person. Because if you wanna kill yourself, or harm yourself you are feeling some deep emotions - whether you feel you have a reason to feel the way you do or not.  The way I escaped the black hole eventually was learning the gift of acceptance. Of my past, of the present and of the future.  I forgave myself for my mistakes and learnt from them.  I try not to worry about tomorrow when there is nothing i can do to stop it coming, so why worry? Learning to accept and love yourself is one of the most important things you can ever learn. And one of the most facinating things you can ever do is to love and accept others and help support them through their tough times.