Starting is always hard, so I’m going to begin this the only
way I know how
My name is Denisse and I suffer from depression and anxiety.
I have suffered from these mental illnesses for most of my
teenage years and well into my adulthood. I’ve been medicated for them for the
past year or so. My diagnosis didn’t come as a shock, to be completely honest,
it came as a relief. What I was dealing with, what I was battling, had a name.
It wasn’t an imaginary force, I was not being dramatic, I was mentally ill.
But what most people don’t know is that people who suffer
from these mental illnesses suffer and struggle in different ways. I cannot
speak on behalf of everyone because my feelings, thoughts and emotions may be
completely different to how another person suffers the same illness.
I want to start this blog to draw attention to depression
and anxiety. To shine a spotlight on it so that anyone reading in can
understand that
1.
If you suffer it too, you are not alone
2.
We all experience it differently
3.
We need more people to understand exactly how
our minds work
I am so reluctant to post this on a public domain. To have
this posted where my mother, my family, my friends and co-workers can see it is
terrifying. When I ‘fall into the pit’ I can still function like a normal
person externally. I can go to work, do what I usually do, but on the inside, I’m
screaming. I am so fragile that there are times that even breathing hurts. Any
comment, any action becomes a herculean task. But I am lucky, I know people who
when they land in the pit, won’t be getting out of bed for at least a few days.
But why do I keep my suffering quiet? Why is it such a huge
secret for me?
For one, I feel like suffering these mental illnesses is a
sign of weakness. There are days when I hate taking my medication because I hate
the thought that there is a medicine keeping me ‘normal and stable’. People
have such a distorted perception of depression that telling them usually makes
them want to avoid you. I don’t want people to know that sometimes, the
scariest thing you can do is be around a group of people. And lately, as my
illness progresses, I understand how difficult it can be to think about facing
the world on that day. I know how hard it is to get out of bed and go do the
normal things. it’s a conscious effort - Every day – to leave my own house.
But I have decided that this will be my therapy. My blog
will be my story, on how I try to battle my demons. There will be things in
here that are hard for me to admit to, there will be things here that I hope my
mother can understand. There will be things here that others can relate to and
it is to these people that I speak. Even though we may not realise, we are a
community, we have each other because we understand each other’s pain. We understand
things are different for all of us but our pain in the same. I want to raise
the awareness of what we suffer because there are so many of us out there.
And honestly, I’m tired of hiding it.
