CW : This diary contains mention of depression
I am not a private person. I am sure this is something that most people meeting me can observe within the first few minutes of our interaction; I have never completely grasped the concept of having things about yourself that you do not speak of, and I lack any kind of filter when it comes to the majority of my personal life. There are not many questions I won’t answer or stories I won’t tell.
This is why it is very common to hear me speak of my relationship with my mental health with very little sugar coating. If you ask me how my week has been and it has been anywhere close to how this week has been at the time of writing, you are going to hear just how god dam depressed I have been. I do not see the point of hiding or lying about these things, nor why it should make somebody uncomfortable to hear. Obviously there is nuance here, I am not going to confide my greatest insecurities and fears with somebody I have just met, but I absolutely will include mention of my depression if it comes up.
“How was my weekend? Oh pretty good, I visited my family to celebrate my niece’s second birthday but for some reason I started having a meltdown before I left and was too hysterical to drive so my mum had to pick me up, and then at the party I started sobbing every time someone asked how I was. Nice party though.”
When illnesses like depression and anxiety are so good at making you feel like you are the only person on the planet who has ever felt so alone while you are actually experiencing something so universally experienced, it seems a shame to me to skim past the uglier parts of our lives.
Openness about these things can bring others a great sense of comfort. I have had multiple experiences where people have overheard me talk of my own experiences with the illness itself, or of therapy, or antidepressants, and they have then confided in me later about their own experiences; maybe they were previously unaware this was something they could discuss, or they weren’t even aware there were people in their lives who felt similar ways to themselves. There is no more beautiful feeling than this, than feeling for the first time that you might not be alone, and there may be people on the other side of something you’re going through.
It is because of these experiences that I have ultimately decided to be even more open about this aspect of my life on this newsletter because, as corny as it may be to say, if one person is comforted by my words then any discomfort on my end is well worth it.
So, in the spirit of openness, let me tell you that I have been bad. I am often doing bad, particularly in recent years, and I have spent the last week feeling as though I have zero control over my mind or my emotions, leaving me to be sitting in a constant mix of feeling terrified, exhausted, and ashamed. I have found myself here again, stagnant in a depressive episode I thought I had just escaped, I have returned to my drowning.
I have been experiencing major depressive episodes for as long as I can remember so this sense of despair and distress is not uncommon, yet it somehow always feels unfamiliar, like it catches me by surprise each time and forces my stunned hand into a reintroduction. Last year I had a particularly scary episode, one of two ‘big boys’ as I call them, and the last few weeks I have been forced to remember how those felt in shorter, but equally as scary, increments.
My psychologist recently referred to these episodes as relapses, which is not a word I was familiar to hearing outside of the context of addiction. I have returned to this word a lot this week, as hearing it framed this way brought a strange sense of comfort. It is easy when you find yourself drowning to imagine being on a gradual pull further and further out to sea; I often question how I am supposed to return to this for the rest of my life and become overwhelmed with the exhaustion of always trying to keep my head above water.
Relapses, however, suggested something different. One change in wording and these lows were no longer moments I would find myself repeating over and over for as long as I could foresee, but simply a few moments of exhaustion on my way back to shore. Healing is not linear and all of that mush I suppose. (Side note: I know these metaphors are corny as all hell, but they truly are the easiest ways of explaining the feeling).
I find it quite crazy how a reframing like this can be so effective, especially as it something I probably never would have found without a therapist, and I am almost a little embarrassed about how something as simple as language can change my outlook on life. I should really try to journal more.
Thank you for reading my second newsletter (I am labeling these ‘diaries’ now), I am still attempting to post these weekly but I can not make any promises about them being on the same day in the week!
love,
Georgia
If anything in todays diary upset or triggered you please consider reaching out to a loved one or professional support like Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.