I live with depression
I didn’t enjoy anything of what I used to enjoy, I couldn’t do the simple things like cleaning my room, wash the dishes or wash my own clothes. Every time my phone rang, the anxiety took over and I couldn’t pick up the phone. All these weird things, combined with a complete darkness surrounded my days. I felt trapped within my own body, and the only thing I dreamt about was to go back and hike in the mountains, because that was the last place where I could remembered feeling happy and free.
In September of 2015 everything turned dark and I had to seek help. I searched the internet for answers and then I scheduled an appointment with a professional.
When I first got help I felt like a complete failure. Yet again I had failed in life, and I was frustrated and angry with myself for not being able to cope with life like everyone else. I despised myself for being sick and different from the rest of the world.
I took me 5 weeks to start seeing things differently, 5 weeks of everyday reminding myself that I was sick and a failure, and the only thing I could feel was self-hatred. I couldn’t really see how these meaningless exercises would help me to get rid of my depression and I was dead set on having to live with depression for the rest of my life.
Then I stumbled over a Ted Talk by Joshua Walters called “On being just crazy enough” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruvWiXowiZ8
After watching Joshua’s talk something happened, I slowly started forgiving myself and realizing that I needed to become friends with whom I am and that I’m different. I had to start to embrace myself and stop caring about what other people thought of me.
Because that’s my biggest problem, I’ve always felt awkward and I’ve had this feeling that no-one could like me for who I am. I’ve always tried to adjust my personality to someone of I thought the people around me wanted me to be. A constant change to try to fit in and be liked. And somewhere along the way I lost who I really was.
Living with depression is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I think there’s going to be times where I relapse into self-doubt, but at least now I will have some tools to help me get through it and stop me from ending up in a depression. I’m also aware of the fact that I found a way to deal with my depression only a few weeks into my treatment, and for other people it’s maybe not as simple.
One of those tools is to make daily videos. Videos where I share my life.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpO1xBLxQBAQ8PFKKBjB8qSZiL9tBmklI
All of this, only because I wanted to be liked.
