During this week, I found myself working activly against my depression again. I read two wonderful books and started thinking about how I want to handle the relationship with my father. In this journal I don´t want to share my story in detail as I have before, but rather want to offer you help and a piece of advise. Just now, a really wonderful piece of art showed up on my dash and I want to share it with you because I think it has a really powerful message. Please take a little bit of time to read the description of the artist as well.
DestinyBlue wrote a very illustrative text about what depression is like and how society deals with it. The piece of art also offers you a portal to discuss your stories and feelings and read about how other people handled their problems. I highly recommend you to read it.
The important message I want to give you is the following:
1) You feelings are legit and it doesn´t mean you are lazy or weak.
The ugly thing about depression is, that it´s quiet and unobtrusive. It´s something you don´t know is there because so many people keep it a secret. Because most people don´t even realise it´s there... inside of them... inside of others. Especially when it´s inside of you, you develop thousands of ways not to deal with it, to conceal it, to ignore it, to trivialize it. Things like "I´m just lazy", "I´m just pessimistic", "I´m just a realist!" or "Others may have depression, but not me. I´m just a little unhappy" are a typical thing to say for depressed people. And of course, it is hard to accept you´re not doing well. To accept you have an illness. Especially one that is so stigmatized like depression. Because people say "man up!" and "if you feel down just stop feeling down!" or "it´s your own fault for doing xxx or not doing xxx". Because it´s a scary thought to consider yourself "sick" or "ill". Because you fear you´ll never get well again. Because you´re scared of what people might think. Because you´re afraid of appearing weak.
This is a very normal behaviour for people who suffer from depression. A negative worldview, fear of the future, "pessimistic" and self-loathing thoughts, not being able to do even the littlest things like standing up in the morning, going outside or even doing the laundry. The important thing is: depression doesn´t start when all the before mentioned parts play together. That´s just the heaviest form of depression. Depression starts with your thoughts poisoning your mind and your body. When you´re feeling sick, nauseated and afraid every time you think about the future. When you don´t want to go outside because you´re afraid of so many things. When even your hobbies are too much work for you. When life doesn´t make sense to you any more. When eveything seems blank and meaningless.
That is depression.
It doesn´t mean you´re a lazy ass or a couchpotato (a couchpotato enjoys being inside, not feels down or hopeless). It doesn´t mean you´re weak or "had it coming". It means your body, your mind, your very soul is begging for help. It´s begging you to stop ignoring your problems and feelings. It´s begging for you to take a rest, to stop running up a hill while your leg is broken. It means you need to stop doing what you´re doing and keep working to get better. To accept you´re hurting yourself with your thoughts and actions and that you need help. Either from yourself, from books or from a therapist. But as long as you treat yourself like a machine that has to function no matter what, you´re digging your own grave.
2) The first and hardest but most important step is to learn how to accept yourself.
Almost everyone of us experienced things in their lives that hurt us, that are hard to swallow. May it be withhold love of your parents (physically or mentally), may it be mobbing in school because of your looks or your behaviour, the pressure of school and life to find your way and earn money in a brutal capitalist market. All these things hurt you but you swallowed them down and thought they would disappear in doing so. But they didn´t, they´re still inside of you, poisoning you. All your problems are like little packages you carry on your back, weighting you down. And the older you get, the more packages you get. If you never turned around looking how to organise these packages, by time... you feel like you´re unable to carry that weight anymore. You never look back to decide if you still want to carry some packages, you simply think you have to carry them. You never stop to take a break. You never stop to open up a package to see what´s inside. You even forget some packages because you think they´re not there anymore. Even though they are. And they´re weighing you down. Until you can´t walk anymore and break down. This breakdown doesn´t have to be physically. It can be a suicial moment, it can be a wave of tears washing over your face, it can be a day when you feel so bad you don´t even leave the bed.
In therapy I learned a very important thing. That my main problem, and the problem most depressed people face, is that I don´t accept myself for who I am and that I think so lowly of myself, that I don´t take care of myself properly. That I don´t think I´m worth the effort worth the attention, worth the loving words. That I yearn for being accepted, for being loved and always searching for someone to give that to me. Because I was not shown enough love from my parents and my family and my friends. But others can never fill the void entirely. And the only person who may always love you... is yourself. And if you don´t love yourself... you will always feel empty, incomplete and inferior.
I treated myself like shit. Whenever I accomplished something, I said to myself: "still not good enough". I compared myself to others and felt inferior. When someone complimented my work, I didn´t believe them. I think they were just being nice. I didn´t think I could do anything right. I thought I wasn´t worth the praise. I thought something was wrong with me. And that I had to "earn" the love of others. Because I didn´t think I was loveable just the way I am. I never granted myself a minute of rest, always working and working and trying to be a better person. Because I thought only then people could love me. I never even thought about that I could love myself and that I wasn´t dependend on the love of others. Even at the times I granted myself a rest doing Yoga, I was hurting my body and wanted to achieve even more and more. I treated myself badly. And I didn´t even realise.
Then, I understood how I could feel better and what I had to do to beat my depression. To accept who I was, who I am. With all my failures, my weaknesses, my strenghts and my life choices. To treat myself the way I want to be treated and not being depended on the love of others. To be gentle with myself, to forgive mistakes and to smile at myself every day telling me that I´m worth living and I´m a wonderful human being just the way I am. This was the hardest and most absurd part of all. Looking in a mirror and talking to yourself? Telling yourself you look good and you´re a sweet person? It seemed like a lie and like I was kidding myself. But it was important. It was the most important step. Because if you´re not able to tell yourself you´re lovely, you´re telling yourself you´re not worthy of love. And your bad feelings and your hopelessness deepen and you´re even more depended on the love of other people. That is the most important and hardest step of all: to accept yourself as your friend. To be your own best friend. And not your enemy.
So these are the most important things I learned in the past months. I´m still working on my depression and I know now that I have to be open about it. I want to reach out to you people. The ones who think depression is a joke or not existant. And the ones of you who feel worthless and hopeless and who are afraid of seeking out help. I want this journal to be a safe space for you to share your stories and thoughts. I want to give you a hand, if you want. And I want to tell you: please stop and have the courage to look back at all the packages you carry. Of course it is scary, it might even paralize you for a time. But if you´re in good therapeutic help, you´ll get through it. And I promise you, I really do promise you: If you work on your problems, even the ones you thought were long gone, you´ll feel better. You´ll learn to appreciate life and be happy again. I promise.
More art about depression:
<da:thumb id="328058813"/>
