I think most people think that depression is a feeling of just sad.
But for me.. THAT was NOT the main feeling.
Depression for me was anger, anxiousness, and fear. I struggled with the overall desire to yell and scream and make other people feel badly. I think that somehow in my unbalanced brain I thought that if I hurt people with my words then they would feel as badly as me and somehow I would feel better.
There were some people that their very existence and breathing annoyed me.. if they talked or did anything that might remotely be construed as bothersome to my brain I would desire to push them down the stairs. I didn't want to hurt them. I had no desire to kill anyone...
I wanted the satisfaction of the push.
I wanted someone else to feel as badly as I did inside my own skin .
That maybe if I spread the pain to others, maybe in some crazy way, I would be less miserable.
Depression felt like being constantly exhausted, by stuck with toothpicks holding my eyes open. I wanted to turn off my brain. I needed mental and physical rest but there was never a place where I could find rest.
Depression was sneaky really. I thought maybe I was just cranky or hormonal. I didn't want to admit that I could actually be suffering with depression. The idea of even admitting there might be the problem made me panic and anxious. The idea that my brain was sick was hard to take in. I mean, it's MY BRAIN that in itself made it scary.
I think of my brain as the place I store intimate details of my life: the feeling of sheer and absolute panic the moment that Dr. Friese handed me my son for the first time and he cried and I didn't instantly know how to sooth him, the perfect moment driving down the highway listening to music, sun on my face, white t shirt whipping in the wind as it came in the window while some handsome man sang along with the radio and I fell irrevocably in love with him, the time I called my mother to tell her I had found the second lump in my breast and I felt my throat get tight and the fear felt like strangling as I tried to stay calm and not sound scared as I told her, the parade sending out the other units to Desert Storm wearing my uncle's thick socks under my blue polka dot dress to futilely stay warm and feeling lost looking through the uniforms and sea of faces trying to find my dad who was never again gonna be in the sea. The idea of admitting that my brain might be betraying me, that was a level of denial very real and very near Egypt.
One day I finally heard myself yelling at my child. I saw in his eyes the fear and sad. I saw the mommy I was becoming.
I yelled.
I was mean.
I was ugly.
And I was everything I didn't want to be as a mom. At that moment, I knew there was a problem. I knew I needed help. I knew it wasn't going away on it's own. I knew I had to tell someone there was a problem. That's the other problem with depression, once you know it's there, it doesn't get any less scary.
I had to swallow as much of my fear and disappointment in myself and make the call.
I had to face the people who I loved and admit I needed help.
The drowning suffocating feeling of admitting I had a problem nearly kept me from telling anyone.
Anyone who is suffering, let me tell you something....
If you were sick and needed medicine to get better- you would tell you doctor the symptoms and get medicine to get better, Right? Your mental health is no different. Sometimes the chemistry of it gets sick, and you need to tell someone the symptoms and have others help you get better.
You are not a failure.
You are not permanently broken.
You are not defective.
As someone who has experienced depression, PTSD, and anxiety- please get help.
Save your memories and find the real you and not the foggy unhappy you.
You are worth it.
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