For years I suffered with depression on and off. It was clinically undiagnosed because I didn’t trust the medical system (and i worked in it briefly) and refused the idea of going on any type of medication that was suggested every time I mentioned how I felt to a doctor. In my opinion, for me, medication was just a bandaid, I didn’t want a bloody bandaid. I didn’t like the idea of mainstream psychology because it was so clinical and the questions that were asked made me feel like they were missing the point entirely, which led to anger and frustration. I felt like there was nowhere else to go. I hid it from almost everyone, apart from those that were close to me, and even then I was too ashamed to even utter the word ‘depression’, yuck. I was too tough, too strong, too stubborn to be depressed, that was an illness, I was not ill. I was layered with guilt and shame and constantly compared my self to the exterior of other peoples worlds, asking myself ‘why cant I be happy like her, or productive like him, or social like them?’ I was unstable and I self loathed big time because I couldn’t be what I perceived to be ‘normal’.
I couldn’t ask for help because I truly believed that no-one could even begin to unravel the twisted layers of emotions and thoughts I was experiencing, in my eyes I was frigging crazy. The world became a painful and lonely place with no end, and other times increasingly interesting and painfully beautiful. I was a tangled yo-yo mess on the inside. I drank on the weekends so I could be social and hid from the world in the aftermath. I focused intently on my work; my creative pursuit was part of the cause but also a temporary relief from the constant negative spiralling, go figure.
It reached a point where I felt like I was living a double life, happy-go-lucky with friends and dark, lonely and lost when I was alone. I preferred to be alone because I couldn’t hold up the mask any longer, it was easier for me. I just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be like everyone else, what the hell was happening to me, is this what crazy was??? I was living by myself by choice to ‘sort myself out’. I spent months analysing my feelings and behaviours, endless days crying and hiding which increased in strength and velocity every time I had an ‘episode’. I was lost in a lonely pit of absolute hell, which I blamed myself for. I was a shell of a human, riddled with self doubt and I couldn’t see the point anymore.
One morning in the shower I gave up. I was tired and wrecked and I gave in to the looming emotions that were slowly diminishing my power. I let go of the self judgement and the blame and the ‘you are not good enoughs’. I let myself go there, the place that scared me the most, a complete disintegration of myself, my ego. A part of me did die that morning and I was left with a voice telling me, ‘you don’t have to live like this, you have a choice.’ What the actual f*%k was that? Everything was calm for a while, I was exhausted and sick and I went back to bed a shell of a being.
I faced the ‘evolve or die’ point, which I use a lot in my personal philosophy these days – this is where it came from, literally facing it. I made a promise to myself that day that I would beat this thing, this madness, this problem with me, this.. whatever it was. I decided to educate myself, I didn’t feel pulled to the mainstream ways of treating unexplainable episodes of impending doom, destruction and desperation of wanting to be something else, but terrible grief that I was me, and somewhere deep down, I loved me.
I started secretly reading weird and wonderful books. Thanks to a dear friend that I reached out to, I read The Power of Now, which began putting a few things into perspective… But the book that saved my life was ‘Am I Going Mad?’ by Marlyse Carroll. The unsettling phenomena of spiritual evolution! YES. This struck a chord inside of me and the pages revealed my experiences in a nutshell. I had to evolve out of this part of my life that was not serving me, my life depended on it.
Armed with new knowledge and an amazing retreat under my belt run by Marlyse and her husband Michael, I knew I was pushing parts of myself down to fit into what I thought was normal. I was hiding me, the real me, because of fear of judgement and rejection and a huge fear of being different and alone. Ironically these fears were what was already my reality, because of their existence. I spent the next few years ‘personally developing’ and uncovering the layers and finding my truth. It has been a long, challenging journey but I would not change a thing. It has led me to understand parts of the mind that many people don’t even get a glimpse of. It has given me a thirst for knowledge to not only help myself but to help others. What I once thought was a curse is now a gift that has taught me to ask in any situation ‘how is this serving me?’. I still struggle with judgement and lots of other quirks but surrender and total acceptance is medicine.
Knowing my cyclic emotional roller-coaster has also been a HUUUGE piece to this puzzle that continues to grow, and it is why I am here now, writing all of this to reveal a silence that has been lying dormant. It is what keeps me alive and constantly evolving.
It is so important to reach out to each other, to conquer fears and educate ourselves, to raise our awareness and support each other on all of our silent, internal or loud and thrashing journeys. We all have shadows and we all have light. This life is a holiday from infinity, and in its tiny span in the vast landscape of time it is our choice of what to make of it.
Don’t book a holiday to a shithole, and if you arrive at a shithole accidentally and you are not happy, tell someone about it, and then go and find its gems. The margaritas are just a temporary distraction… and don’t forget to take a copy of this book if you or anyone you know needs it:
x
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