I know what your thinking…..what on earth is this blog about?!
It’s an oxymoron to have “gift” and “depression” in the same sentence, that doesn’t make any sense!
Well, if you read on, you’ll understand why it makes perfect sense to me.
As I progress on my new journey, I learn more and more about the stigma attached to depression.
One of my old clients asks “are you sure you want to talk about going through that? It may affect things you want to work on in the future as people will look at you differently”. People I meet ask me what I’m up to and when I tell them they enquire more then eventually pluck up the courage to tell me “I suffered from depression too. I dealt with it in secret” or “I don’t tell anyone about it”.
I had three really short spouts of depression. The first two lasted a couple of months and the third and final episode in 2010 lasted 3 months with a few attempts at suicide.
When I was diagnosed with depression, I rejected it! I thought it was a condition only weak people dealt with. They felt so sorry for themselves and wallowed in their sadness. They were too weak to pick themselves up and do something about how they felt. That wasn’t me! I’m hard as nails. I’ve been through so much in my life and nothing breaks me. There’s no way I could be “depressed” but I was.
I was an insomniac, crying sporadically for no reason, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, was physically and emotionally drained. I just wanted to sleep all day but used every last might I had in me to drag myself to work and keep going. When you engaged with me it was clear there was no life in me. No joy. No hope. I felt completely misunderstood because no one I knew could relate to what I was feeling and also dismissed me because I didn’t “look” depressed.
My GP prescribed antidepressants and my CEO paid for me to see a CBT (cognitive behavioral therapist) neither did me any good. I only took one of the antidepressants before deciding not to continue and I felt worst after each of the three therapy sessions I had so stopped going.
I started researching and learnt more about the mind and how it worked. I was introduced to a coach that taught me a breathing technique to help with my anxiety. I started the process of reprogramming my belief systems, the thoughts and ideas that got me into that state and were no longer serving me.
My life began changing immediately. My business began thriving, my relationships with friends and family completely turned around, I felt better about myself, learnt to put myself first and set boundaries…it was night and day!
Would I have made those changes if it weren’t for depression? Probably not!
I often say that depression was the best thing that had happened to me. It was the rock bottom I needed to fight for something more. Before the experience, I was getting by. I was miserable. Like a robot, I woke up and did what “I had to do”. After depression I became aware that ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING is a choice and I have more control than I realised over the quality of my life.
I believe that we create ways of being to survive experiences we go through in order to avoid traumatic experiences happening again. As time goes by those defense become out of date but we continue to play them out in our lives. Our mind body and spirit tell us the way we live our life is not serving us anymore and provides ques for us to change and when we don’t listen and ignore signs it results in feeling pain (in my case, depression) in as the ultimate low to force us into making a change.
Depression starts from something as simple as a thought and can affect anyone. This is evident by the cases of depression rising Year on Year.
There is life after depression and a pretty magnificent one at that, if managed well, and I am committed to doing my part to change the narrative and stigma attached to the condition as well as using the tools and techniques that helped me to help others.
Depression can be a gift as it provides the rock bottom that creates a blank canvas for you to redesign the life you want and deserve.
With love,
Linda