Sometimes I doubt I'll ever find anyone who truly understands what I am going through, who can see into the depths of my soul and comprehend the unbearable sadness, the hopelessness which has manifested itself there. It is something completely beyond my control, I am unable to free myself from its deathly grasp and that is one of the things which frightens me the most.
Anyone looking in to my life from the outside would be at a complete loss to understand why I feel the way I do, I have no doubt of that because on the surface my life appears perfect. In Neil I have the most amazing fiancé who would die for me and I couldn't love him more, I have such incredible parents who would do anything for me, fantastic friends, and in Jake I have effectively gained an adorable son. I have everything, a career, a life and a future. None of that can help me to move past this desperate depression I suffer from.
To begin with I couldn't comprehend everything I was feeling, everything I was going through because it didn't seem to make any sense that someone like me who has everything she has ever wanted and needed, could feel so painfully unhappy. There was no specific reason for the depression, there never is. No identifiable trigger for the most severe periods which can last for months at a time. I just became enveloped in this bleak darkness, completely smothered by the pain, by the agony and nothing could bring me through it. On some occasions I even stopped believing I could survive. I attempted to deal with it on my own, I mean how could I ever expect to explain this to anyone even Neil, my soul mate, the man I confide everything to when I didn't even have an explanation. So I decided to struggle alone with the overwhelming burden of my depression.
People can be so flippant, so nonchalant when they talk about depression or feeling suicidal. The word depressed seems to role off everyone's tongues without them giving a second thought to the full implications or the true meaning of what it is to be really depressed. If they have a row with a friend, have a bad day at work or get stuck in a monstrous traffic jam on the way home, they start to claim to be depressed. A long hot bath, a good chat with a friend or a pampering session from their partner always succeeds in countering the effects of their so called depression. I envy them, if only it was that simple to cure me. My story is a complete departure from their tales of woe and suffering.
The main difference in my case is that I truly can claim to know the meaning of the word depression, and undoubtedly the word suffering. I wake up every morning and the first feeling (not even a fleeting thought, but a deeply engrained feeling) I experience is the desperate grief of discovering I am still here, I still exist in this horrific cycle of torturous depression and I haven't escaped it by slipping away in my sleep as I have so often longed to, even occasionally prayed to. This feeling never leaves me for the remainder of the day, sometimes it even accompanies me to sleep and that is when I can stop the thoughts racing through my head for long enough to relax to sleep. Every single moment of every single day is an agonizing struggle one that an outsider cannot even begin to understand. It is almost impossible to concentrate on work, on leisure, on reading, on cooking and even on watching the television. All I can focus on is the terrible sadness, the isolation and loneliness and the numerous other emotions I have to try coping with. Not a day goes by when I do not feel absolutely petrified of life and the pain of living and that is extremely confusing. Being alive is not supposed to be painful, but for me it is. I am extremely vulnerable and confused and scared, but mostly I am sad, nearly destroyed by this illness.
Eventually I needed a coping strategy, and it was at this point I turned to the razor blades. Causing myself physical pain became the only way to deal with the depressive feelings, to relieve the anguish and express the frustration I felt at not being able to confide my pain to those closest to me, those I was supposed to be able to trust. It was only a momentary respite though; the pain never leaves me for long. People do not understand the purpose of self harm, the reasoning behind it but if they experienced even a portion of the depression I feel they would understand that it is not something desirable or controlled by me, but actually sometimes feels like my only means to life, because anything, absolutely anything is better than the mental anguish and the absolute destruction of your soul. Depression tears your life to shreds and you are powerless to stop it, self harming is my coping mechanism and my only way of clawing back some of that control.
It wasn't long after the self harming began that Neil found out exactly how ill I was. I attempted to hide my scars, but he knows me inside out and had already known something was desperately wrong with me. He simply had hoped that I trusted him enough to come to him about it and did not want to press the matter in case he upset me. When he saw the scars on my arms, on my stomach, Neil broke down. He couldn't understand why I would want to do this to myself and I feared he would hate me. He soon made it clear that was impossible but he just could not comprehend what was going through my mind. I broke down also, my tears a mixture of guilt at causing such obvious pain to Neil, relief at having finally confided my secret and mainly overwhelming agony of the depression. Neil cradled me in his arms that night, listening to me and attempting to make sense of everything I said, whispering words of comfort to me telling me we would get through it. Though I completely trusted in Neil that he would do everything possible to get us through this, I still doubted that I would ever make it through, that I would survive.
He took me to the doctor, sat with me the entire time and gave me every ounce of strength, love and support he had. I was diagnosed with severe depression, prescribed anti depressants, referred to a psychiatrist and a counsellor and began to try to deal with my illness, because that is what it is. All the medics explained it to me; my condition is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain and it is beyond my control. The medication helps to rectify this aspect of the illness. They also explained that depression is a debilitating illness and that it is perfectly acceptable to need a beak from everything else that is going on in my life.
I am slowly getting better, but it is a long and difficult process and getting well does not necessarily mean staying well. I will be living with this for the rest of my life and it is always going to be a struggle, only I will be able to manage it and to feel happy again. Often I still think of self harming and of suicide, they are some of the most terrifying thoughts I have ever experienced. It is not the thought of dying which scares me but the thought of dying alone, without someone to hold my hand in the last moments, without someone to share the burden. I do not see death as my only option or my immediate option, I want more than anything to get better but in a way it is a comfort to me to have the option. If I don't recover then I could not bear to spend forever trying to deal with this anguish, I just haven't the strength for that. I have fought this illness for so long and there is only so long I can go on, so much I can take. But things have changed now, they are different. While I still have the most unbelievable pain and struggle to deal with every day of my life, I now have something that was distinctly lacking before. Now I finally have hope.