Depression is hard to live with. When someone has this illness they can feel tired, isolate themselves, and loose enjoyment in the things they once did.
For me, I have been living with it since I was nine.
I don’t know if I still have it or if it is just winter blues, but when I do feel this way it can mess me up in school, in my social life, in me trying to better myself.
The one thing that is huge with depression is the mental battle that comes with it. When you have depression your brain can tell you a bunch of different things that may not be true.
For almost twelve years I have had to battle with understanding what my relationship with depression is. Is my depression apart of me? Is it my enemy with which I have to constantly fight? Or is it something that exists in my head but isn’t a part of me?
All of these questions are things that I have believed during one part of my life. It has been frustrating to understand what my relationship with depression is, but I am confident in what that relationship is now. I’m sure it will change, but I will still warn that I am not a professional and this is my own experience. If you are in need of help, please seek professional advice.
My Depression is a part of me
Depression can have the effect of making you forget different parts of your life and when they happened. I don’t know when I developed this mindset, but I can tell you that this was a confusing one for me.
I have always had the mindset that my depression was a part of my personality and that it and me were one and the same.
This was confusing as depression conflicts with every single one of my personality traits. I am usually a happy, creative, and passionate person but when I get depressed I feel sad, a lack of enjoyment in my usual activities and no longer want to be around people that I like.
This conflict also messed up my ability to function. Whenever I thought to myself that my depression was apart of me, I would use that as an excuse to not do any work. I was letting myself get more and more depressed because it was just who I was.
It got to the point where I no longer enjoyed anything that I use to and I wasn’t myself. I remember going camping with a bunch of girls in my neighborhood after the fourth of July.
On that fourth of July I had gone to bed early because fireworks were no longer beautiful; they were loud and annoying. That was my depression talking. So, when I went on this camp out, I wasn’t enjoying myself and I’m sure I took a lot of naps.
One night we were sitting around the campfire talking about what we learned and enjoyed about the week we had and I was feeling like I didn’t want to be there.
I stopped listening and started to look around me trying to find something to fill my mind. I decided to look up.
As I saw the twinkling of a sky that can’t be seen from a city I realized how much I had been missing out on. I had stopped enjoying and living my own life.
Tears started rolling down my face as I looked back on what my depression had taken from me. I almost didn’t love the stars. My wonder for the world had disappeared for a time and I was ready to be done with that.
At the time I thought that I would be done with depression, that I would kick it out of my system as easy as writing words on a paper.
But my depression didn’t go away that fast. In fact, I changed my mindset to “depression is my enemy”.
My depression is my enemy
After I found out what depression had done to me, I felt as though I had been betrayed.
I decided that my depression was not apart of me but instead my enemy. If I saw depression take hold of me then I fought back and pushed it away. What I was actually doing was detaching myself from my own feelings and pretending they didn’t exist.
And I kept on doing this until I decided that I should see a therapist around last year. During this time, we talked about depression. We talked about how my depression actually wasn’t my enemy.
Sitting across from me, she stared me in the eyes and asked, “How have you benefited from having depression?”
My brain stumbled over itself. I couldn’t come up with any answers. Before my mind gave up on what I thought was a trick question, I finally realized what I already knew but wouldn’t admit.
“I have been able to empathize more with people. If I didn’t have depression, I couldn’t have helped others and be able to understand what they are going through.”
“I have been able to learn how to organize myself better. If I didn’t have depression, I wouldn’t have had to work so hard to be able to function.”
It was through talking to her about these benefits that I learned that my depression isn’t my enemy, but at the same time I realized that I couldn’t see it as a friend.
I had to come up with a whole new relationship with my depression that I had never thought about before and I had to be careful about it, too. I didn’t want to push down my feelings, but I also didn’t want to excuse them and let them get worse.
I thought to myself after this therapy session, “what else could there be?”
My depression isn’t who I am
That brings us to now. Now, I have figured out something that really does work for me. I have decided that my depression isn’t who I am, but is something that is trying to prevent me from being who I am.
During this time, I figured out who I am. I am a happy person. I love writing and I dabble in painting. I hope to be a better interviewer and meet new people with interesting stories that can inspire other people. I want to be there for people and help them to be their best selves.
As for my depression, it is still hard. I know how to take care of myself and I am getting better at acknowledging my feelings, but I can still slip into those negative feelings and forget for a time that I have control over my life.
And though that happens I don’t lose who I am or what I love doing. I still keep on trying to do those things, but when I am depressed and I tell myself I don’t love it anymore, I acknowledge those feelings and tell myself that I may lose enjoyment in what I love.
I just try to remember. Remember who I am and what I love to do. This is what depression is trying to teach me. That it’s not who I am and it isn’t my enemy. Depression is something that happens but shouldn’t be something that gets in the way of me being me.
I hope that this has been helpful and that you have learned more about depression. Next week I will talk more about depression and how it affects us. If you enjoyed this please leave a comment about your own story with how you have seen depression or share with someone who might need this advice. Again, I am not a professional and I don’t know about how you can help your own depression. If you need help, please talk to a professional. Thanks, and I’ll see you next week.