Overcoming Depression

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to be honest with myself and to share the experiences I faced for others to not feel alone. I wanted to be a voice among the millions out there who were able to overcome their fears and impart their wisdom over how they dealt with anxiety and depression. Reading the journeys of others was very comforting, almost selfishly, as I was happy I wasn’t as stupid as I thought for feeling the way I felt. This realization was enough to plant a seed of hope to escape the perilous claws of my own pessimism. So if you’re reading this and have depression, please continue to read on.

Common themes with depression are convincing yourself daily that you’re unworthy and having low self-esteem. You judge yourself so often that you find yourself judging your every move. I would barely have finished a conversation with someone before I would overanalyse and negatively tear apart everything I said, eventually convincing myself to be too embarrassed to speak to that person ever again. I felt I was too stupid to talk to. I would lose conviction in my own words when speaking them, half-heartedly say sentences and appear completely without confidence. I hated myself for it. I wanted to act and be normal but I couldn’t. ‘See you can’t even have a normal conversation’ ‘Why do you even bother?’ ‘What’ wrong with you?’ I was bullying myself. I was internally destroying what little self-confidence I had until the point I no longer felt worth anything. I would be at school, sitting in a full room during break time phasing out of the loud laughter around me and only hear my own thoughts. ‘See everyone wouldn’t notice if you were gone’. I would feel the same when I was at home, wasting away on my bed listening to my family laugh and enjoy themselves downstairs. Some advice I sought out online was to force myself into an environment of positivity, but even if in the rare occasion I did, I felt everyone was talking to me out of pity and seeing their happiness seemed to only make me worse. It was a constant reminder of what I was supposed to be but couldn’t. I was a failure. I was empty. I had nothing to live for. I was depressed.

The very idea of being in a public place was terrifying. I felt like everyone was staring at me and could see the dark cloud hovering above me. I imagined that everyone around me could see my deep internal struggle and realising how pathetic I thought I was. My lowest point was when I became so detached that, my own thoughts would haunt me wherever I was at any given time of the day. I cried when I was shopping, I cried at work and I cried in the cinema. All because I would repeatedly realise how empty and unsatisfied I was as a person.

While for some this may sound a strange way to be, for a large significant proportion of people it’s a sad truth both male and female alike. Depression for any sufferer is serious but while you already feel incapable of sharing, men are forced more into silence by the unspoken rule that we must be strong. I had balls when I had depression, so telling a guy to find them when he’s finally letting it out is not helpful at all. Men can get depression and anxiety too. It’s a fact. Faking and forcing yourself to conform to hide your emotions does more damage than it goes good. Don’t be ashamed to talk to someone.

Coming out of depression takes a few realizations. You must realize that if your brain has the capacity to make you feel so sad, it also has the capacity to make you feel just as happy. If you cast your mind back to yourself as a child you’ll remember that you had very little care for the thoughts of people around you and you expressed yourself freely. Society and you comparing yourself to others around you have dampened that attitude. We were born carefree and to focus on ourselves. You have the potential within you. It just requires focus on making a habit to find it. When you catch yourself thinking negatively again, stop and reprimand yourself and ask yourself if you would say this to a friend? No. So become your own best friend. Rather than considering your depression as a plague that you can’t shake off, believe in it as a propeller for you to want to successfully feel better.

Apart from mind-set changes, there are also some practical steps you can take to help speed along your journey to recovery.

1. Dissociate yourself from people who put you down.

2. Write down your feelings and how you want them to change. The key is to never read them again. Once you’ve let those feelings flow from your brain to paper, consider them gone.

3. Unfollow things on social media that make you insecure, may it be that overly successful annoying Facebook friend who updates their every achievement or a page of hot models.

4. Read other depression stories.

5. Consume more positive material.

The road to positivity isn’t quick. Just like how you didn’t one morning wake up with depression, you won’t wake up feeling positive one morning. It’s an accumulation of your efforts to make positive vibes a habit. You have more than enough potential. I really hope this helps you start that journey!

Sam.