She told me that when we're depressed we can sometimes act like a toddler throwing a tantrum thinking something isn't right. We can look at the whole 'fake it 'till you make it' bullshit or we can just accept that we are going through a tough time and get on with our life. She told me to not give up on the blog just because I'm not in a positive state of mind, but to start writing about how I really feel, if nothing else just to prove to others that it's okay to be depressed. It's okay to have dark thoughts and it's okay to have low self-esteem. It's all okay as long as you know and accept the fact that it's temporary. Think of it like a dark cloud over your head. You see it and you think 'ah shit. It's going to rain on me any second' but there's nothing you can do about it, so you accept it. You know it's happening but you know that it will go.
DISCLAIMER: Everything I talk about is based on my experience and my opinions. I'm not saying everyone's the same, I'm simply talking from my own experience.
I don't think embracing your mental health illnesses is the way forward. I feel like by saying you're embracing it, you're welcoming it and inviting it to stay and learning to love it. I don't think this is healthy by any means. Embrace is such a positive word, and should be used for things like constructive criticism or the people you love, not for something that's making you question your very existence. Acceptance is just letting it be what it is. Knowing that it's a thing that's happened or happening and just thinking 'well... okay'. Accepting something bad makes things so much easier to deal with, and I don't think depression, or anxiety should be something you should avoid at all costs.
I've spent much of the past few months putting massive amounts of pressure on myself to get better. I've been ignoring my anxiety and my depression and then beating myself up with I won't let myself do something due to panic attacks or feeling defeated. My depression has got worse and worse simply because I wouldn't accept the fact that I was back to having regular panic attacks, and would end up feeling like I've let myself down if I couldn't do something without having a panic attack. I put pressure on myself because I want to get better. I'm not patient by any means, and when something doesn't go my way, I hate myself for it.
In my opinion, this is why anxiety and depression so often come hand in hand. When you're anxious you stop being able to do things you love, and you start overthinking everything to the point it becomes unbearable and you start to feel low. That's how it was for me anyway, especially this time. I relapsed in October with my self-harm purely because I was fed up of being anxious. That's all it took. Self-harm for me is muscle memory in a way. Because it's been something I've struggled with since I was 16, it's one of those things where I know that it's a definite way for me to release pressure and feel something other than despair for a second. I don't like doing it, but in the midst of a mental breakdown and my face hurts from crying so much, my mind instantly tries to make me feel at ease the best way it knows how.
I don't want to go on too much of a tangent seeing as this is my 'returning' post. I just wanted to make note of some of the things that were said to me yesterday because they really spoke to me. Accepting you're depression, anxiety, bipolar... anything is important. It makes it so much easier to deal with because you can very easily justify the way you're feeling. You have the right to be sad, you have the right to feel low, you have the right to emotions and you have the right to have a reason for all of that. And it's perfectly okay if that reason is simply 'I have depression' or 'I have anxiety'. Those things are there, and there's no point running away from them or trying to ignore them because that's not going to make them disappear, in fact sometimes it might make it worse like it did with me.
I'm aware people have different ways of dealing with their shit. I know some people do get better by just getting on with their lives and ignoring the problem, really embracing the whole 'fake it 'till you make it' state of mind. I respect that, but this is me writing this post and it doesn't work for me. The purpose of this post is to remind people that it's okay to know that depression and anxiety are valid. To know that although neither should form part of your identity, they're there and they should be respected and listened to and recognised.
I'm hoping to be back regularly. I think it might be a good idea for me to start writing posts even if I feel shit because of this conversation I had yesterday. Acceptance is part of recovery in any case, I suppose. Maybe writing when I feel down is a good way to show that it's okay to feel low to anyone reading. The whole idea of this blog is to try and make mental health more talked about after all.
I'll hopefully talk to you all soon..
Until next time,
-M x
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