Depressed? Are you sure?
I’m really happy today.
Sounds so basic right?
But let me tell you how this happiness feels. I’m dancing alone in my study to music that sings to my soul. I’m laughing as I do it because I just look like a dickhead. I’m enjoying music played in fruit stores and singing along unabashedly. I’m smiling at every human, dog and rock under my mask. My goodwill has extended beyond my physical proximity to social media, where I’m starting to feel for and support others through their stories, be they happy or sad.
I’m feeling so good in my body. So happy to be who I am. I’m enjoying little things again.
Why is this such a big deal? Because I have not felt this way for the last 5 years. Because the way I feel today, right now, is the authentic me who used to inhabit my body.
For a number of months this year, I was a zombie. I was alive, sure, but I might as well have been dead. I woke up at 14:00 and lay in bed till 17:00. Sometimes later. I got out of bed as the sun went down and only for one purpose - dinner. Once I got up, like a humpback whale honing in on the Equator for their season of mating, my mind honed in on one thought from that point - getting back under that blanket tonight. A warm shower never hurt, and then yours truly would call it a day. How productive.
I had lost the motivation to cook, to groom myself, to speak to anyone. Let’s not even talk about motivation for work. I dragged myself to our daily morning video meetings, half of me still in bed, the other half putting on a grumpy front for the benefit of the team. The very thought of facing these people and these menial tasks each day ripped my soul apart. Yes, a little dramatic, I know. 😂
I felt stuck. I felt like my life was pointless. I felt…. well, depressed.
Yet depression is hard to pinpoint. When you live alone and have no real close relationships, no one is there to help you pick it out. No one notices a change in your demeanour. You have to rely on your own judgement.
And again, I shouldn’t need to tell you that depressed people are full of self-doubt. It’s hard to trust your own judgement when your brain is lost in that black fog.
Here’s the most important lesson I’ve learned. You have to trust your inner self. When you feel like you are depressed, don’t dismiss it. Don’t ask yourself, “Are you sure?” Don’t tell yourself that you are imagining it, that it is just a lazy phase, that you are just deficient in some nutrient, that you are actually okay and just need to toughen up.
I’d done that for over a decade. I looked for all sorts of remedies for how I felt. I tried upping my dose of fish oil, I tried supplements like SAMe, I tried exercise. And hey, these aren’t negative on their own. But if you really are suffering from depression, these are hardly going to make a difference.
What ended up happening for me was multiple occurences of burst blood eye vessels from ingesting too much fish oil. And zero changes to my mood.
Here’s how I got better. Anti-depressants. A medical doctor whom I trusted and felt comfortable confiding in. And counselling.
Before I got better, I had to admit that I had a problem. I had to accept what my inner self already knew. I had to love myself enough to believe my inner self. That I was sick. And that it was not something that could be fixed with a few positive affirmations, meditation and journaling.
Not even counselling alone could fix it. I tried. I’ve had a few false starts on talk therapy. I never took to it fully because I never felt understood.
I was ashamed that I had depression. I did not want to be someone that people associated with whinging, with negative energy, with being a Dementor. I know a few people like that myself, and they suck the life out of the room with their martyrdom. No, that’s not me. I’m not like that.
I wanted to be that winner, that positive energy that all these cool kids are drawn to. Forget cool kids, my own closest friends are drawn to lively and successful people. If I wanted to keep them, I would have to be who they wanted me to be.
And that’s easy enough to do when I am hiding from them through text messages.
But inside, I felt dead. And it’s worse than feeling sad. Because I could not emote anymore. I could not relieve myself by crying. I could not ease the discomfort. I just felt empty. What do you do with that?
My brain was very helpful in these times. It made reasons up for me. “Of course you feel empty. You are almost 40, and look where you are in life. You’re not depressed. You are unhappy because your life sucks and you need to do something about it. You need to change your life, take control. You need to just stop being a loser. Come on, get up off your arse and DO SOMETHING ALREADY!”
But you cannot help yourself until you heal yourself first.
I’d asked for help for depression a few times over the course of my life. I always knew I had it. It sat pressed up against my chest since I was 10. And I’ve dismissed it since then. Everyone I’d brought it up to has too. I am now 39.
Each time I sought help, I’d get better on my own after a few months and tell myself that I’m out of it now. That it was situational.
But today, I am convinced that depression is real. That your brain can be physically sick from it. And that in order to heal, you need to believe what your inner self is telling you. Don’t dismiss him / her /them. Please.
Because this sickness of the mind is bandied around like a joke sometimes. People think that depression is an excuse that people use to take sick days off work when they lack motivation. They think that people say it to get attention. They think that people say it because they are spoilt by life’s excesses and can’t be happy with less. And hey, if you are surrounded by people who don’t think like that, then you are already winning. Because that social support is so important.
But I’m here to tell you that it’s also doable on your own. That once you admit you have a sickness and are committed to getting help, you can do it. It’s not immediate. I’ve been reading and listening to self-help and psychology books for years. I started this bout of counselling from last year’s depression episode. I’ve gone in for a good year. I thought it was helping me. It was a relief to talk through things and bring to the surface wounds that lay hidden. It was a relief to unburden, and to no longer need to do that to my friends. Keep the happy self for the friends, and let the unhappy self talk during therapy. But when I hit my new episode this year, I felt like going in was a waste of time. My brain was knotted. Nothing anyone said could untwist it.
But my counsellor did something very important for me. She recognised the depression symptoms in me, even as I doubted myself. She validated my inner self, while I was still dismissing her. She recommended anti-depressants. I was always against the idea, especially given the long-term treatment plan. I thought depression was due to thought patterns, and surely I can change my own thought patterns. Why would I need outside help?
So here’s how I worked out whether I needed medication. I looked back on my life, and thought of a time when I felt happy. I thought of a time when I felt excitement and interest in activities and people. How long ago was that? I went back 12 years to look at myself then. And then I examined my younger self - how she felt, how she looked, how she spoke.
I asked myself, “Now compare how you are right now to how you were then. What would it take for you to get that back there? How big is that gap? Are you feeling like her but just down on an emotional wave? Or are you feeling like a totally different person altogether, and not able to get back to her?”
That answered the question for me. The chasm was insurmountable.
And here’s the funny thing. It may be social conditioning (or just my own negative thinking) but I’d come to believe that I should be feeling the way I feel these days because I am ageing. I mean, of course I wouldn’t feel the way a 25 year old would feel, right? She had her whole life in front of her. I’m older. I have less to look forward to. I’m maturing. I’m being broken down by life experiences. Everybody goes through it, and it’s just part of life. A bit of us gets chipped away every year until we fall into our graves, depleted and done for this earth.
Not true. I’m here to share that I am feeling like the young woman I was 12 years ago again. Because she never left me. I had been repressing her light all this time because I wanted so much to be accepted by society, to be liked by the ones I admired, and mainly because I was sick.
I’d come to accept the shadow of myself as my new identity. This grinchy, people-hating, bitter woman who felt ashamed to even just be. And that is what chronic, long-term depression does to you. It takes away from the authenticity of your being. Of your soul, for lack of a better word.
And if you don’t treat it, you hurt those around you as well. I could’ve been a better person at work. I could’ve been less snappy and spread more joy. I could’ve been less self-absorbed. I could’ve been me, as I am today. As I was 12 years ago. The inner self who beamed her light with no filter.
And I’m proud to say that I’ve become her again. Ironically, closing in on 40, I’m learning that my 27 year old self was the wiser one. More importantly, I’m learning to really love and accept myself for who I am.
I am resilient. I am kind. I love to make people laugh. I am hilarious (I really am!) and annoying to some. I am friendly, sometimes friendly to the point that I scare people off — nothing to be ashamed of, my intentions are pure. 😃 These are the qualities that define me.
I am also someone who was sick with an invisible illness for a long time. I still am. I know it will be there with me for the rest of my life, but I am no longer going to deny it and be ashamed, or worry about those who roll their eyes at that term. They haven’t lived through it. I have. And so have many others.
And I just want to put this out there, so that people who are going through what I went through know that things can get better. And they will. And the most important realisation a lot of us need is that it doesn’t have to get worse as you get older. I am hurtling towards middle age, and I had been fearing it for ages. I now realise that the dread I felt inside was not to do with ageing at all. It was to do with living out those years drenched in depression. And now that I am being treated for it, my age no longer defines me. I am who I am, regardless of how old I am. My light will always shine through.
Yours will too. It all starts with self-love and self-acceptance. And listening to that voice within.
Bless. 💚 ✌🏼 💙
PS - I am not advocating anti-depressants for everyone who suffers from depression. I’m advocating accepting it as a sickness and actively seeking help from a medical professional, instead of dismissing it.