I have sat and listened now for a long time trying to put into words my feelings about the deaths in St Catharines. I took my time to use the best tool I have my ears. Which is what is missing in this world, people actually listening and wanting to make change where it is needed, not thinking that they can control people’s behaviours or change them, that is the root of the problem… People are not educated when it comes to mental health, they don’t understand at all, and that is okay because that is the barrier we need to break.
The stigma behind mental illness is older than time it self. People fear it, they miss understand it and they have no clue how to educate them selves. And can you imagine being someone who struggles with depression being in an environment with people who don’t understand? Or miss use words and have bad advice which only makes them with draw further into them self’s. That is a barrier that needs to be broken.
People need to understand that when someone reaches the point of taking their own life a barrier will not stop them. Taking their own life is not an option that just popped into there head that day nor is it a light bulb moment that suddenly went off! That they should do what the other people have done. People who have reached this stage in their life all have family, parent’s, friends, people who love them but they reach a point were ending it all is the only way out.
This is a result of years of struggling with no help and no tools to fall back on, there is no other way out because their depression or mental illness has completely dominated their life for so long that they see no other way. I like to say in my classes that the depression googles go on and the world closes in and you see nothing but darkness. You say to your self that the world is this way because I said so, and any other way of seeing it is out of reach and just makes no sense at all.
I have decided to share with you a journal entre that I wrote after a horrible down turn in my life, so people can understand just what it is like to be in the position when depression kicks in and there is no rational thinking at all. This is a personal experience and I am sharing to educate and help people, help them understand what it is like when depression hits.
When depression hit
I can really feel it when it comes on now, the panic, the self doubt, it’s ability to suck my soul right out of me. It lowers me to the depths of no return. To the point were disappearing is the only answer (Suicide). No matter what I try, what I think or do it doesn’t matter! All my success all the things I have done for myself and others washed away. I am left with one thought! Disappear, move on, leave this world. Mindfulness, meditation, self love, every coping skill, all the things I have worked so hard at are all gone. It happens so fast but also so slow, because depression just wears you down, sometimes you don’t even see it coming.
The simplest tasks are impossible, the depth of hopelessness so deep it is bottomless. Everything about me is lost. My self esteem, self love, self worth all gone nothing left but a broken confused soul with nothing there at all. No ability to reason, no common sense, no rational thought. Humiliation, embarrassment, self hate, worry all loving each and every moment as I slide deeper and deeper. Depression finally getting it’s chance to take down the author of 3 books on mental health like it is nothing, leaving me feeling worthless and weak. I allow it to have this power for a short time now because I have tools and I see what is going on, but before I had none and depression would have truly had its way with me for weeks and weeks with out end.
Counter thoughts
// I look at this now and see it with so much detail then ever before, because I have been practicing mindfulness, meditation, self love and all my positive tools. I see how I react both emotionally and physically. These down turns only happen once or twice a year now and they only last for a day or 2. I live a happy life but I look over my shoulder, I make myself strong by doing so.
I write and I get what is in my head out because sometimes my mouth and my mind do not connect the way they should when I am in this state of mind. But with my pen in my hand and journal In front of me I have no boundaries at all. I have learned that fighting depression is no fight at all, that the only way to deal with it is to be pre-emptive and act first, self love, enjoying life, learning to add up the good, treating myself with love and enjoy life with out feeling guilty is the only way to win. Doing things, I love so depression has no way of catching me. Depression is tireless and I have to be as well, I have to practice my tools, all the time and that is okay because doing things I love feels good, and makes me feel good about myself.
But I hold on tight because some how it will find me because it knows me, it knows what will bring me down and it is vile and has no mercy, it brings me to my knees. I must Always remember that self love beats depression all the time if I give it nothing to grab on to then it will never have a chance. I take the time to love who I am because I only have one life and I have to live it before it is gone, we all have to live our lives before were gone! //
This was a horrible down turn that happened to me and I made the right decision in the end, I called my therapist and saw her right away, which lead to seeing her once a week for a month. I look at this down turn as a positive, as a gift! because it showed me that I was able to see clearly what I was going through. I saw it all happening in real time because of all the work I have been doing, with out this work I would have never been able to get myself out of this down turn so quickly, it would have been weeks…not days…
This is what happens when depression hits. People who are reading this who struggle are nodding there heads right now because they have experienced it first hand, they known intimately each and every word, sentence, and emotion I wrote about. My goal with this tiny little journal entry is to educate people and break down the barrier that has been around for way to long when it comes to mental health. No physical barriers will ever stop people from struggling from depression and mental illness, if we want to help people, we need to change inside not out side, we need to change the health system, we need new ways of educating and caring, showing love and then the barriers will fall. Walls and barriers are met to keep people out….let’s not build useless walls but let’s rebuild our minds, open our hearts and rebuild our mental health system so people who struggle will not feel alone anymore!
“Only with open conversation can we break the stigma behind depression, let’s start talking and do it together”
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