At that point you can't move on, you can't see solutions and it's hard to believe that anything except the darkness you are in exists. I remember my sister saying to me once that she was concerned about me because I still seemed pretty focussed on a break-up that had happened many months before. At the time I thought she was being insensitive and just didn't understand. I thought that it was normal to feel the way I did and truthfully I didn't know any other way to cope. In that instance I didn't move on from the feelings, but I did shut up about them. I guess this just shows the vicious circle of depression. Bad things happen and you feel down which means you can't deal with the bad things, so you feel worse, so you really can't deal so you feel even worse etc.... For me medication at least stopped the circle and let me deal.
I see now how difficult depression really is. It's hard for people who care to do anything because the depressed person really has to come to themselves. For me that was a terrible process. Accepting that I had depression, finding hope somewhere that medication would work and be worth the side effects. Accepting that the hard work and the awful moments of dealing with my stuff would be worth it in the end. It was hard for sure. I understand why people stay stuck in that bad place.
What can we do? I don't know if I really have any answers. The things that eventually helped me were:
- having a safe place to go when I was feeling really down
- knowing that the people around me were in my corner
- having people who had been through it encourage me to explore the medication option - as they could see what was going on with me and they had experienced the benefits
- writing has been huge
- feeling safe to talk about depression
- having people who are in a healthy place around me
- having a good friend who was on the same journey and talking to her about things
No comments:
Post a Comment