Asking for help...

This last few years, I have reached my lowest and worked my way back up again. I've gone from pretending I don't exist to feeling like and I can accomplish anything, I have been diagnosed with depression, I've been medicated, I've gone through an environmental and emotional overhaul and I've started again.

The most difficult part of it was asking for help. Not because I didn't think I needed it, but because I was scared about telling people, about telling anyone that there was this thing inside of me, this thing that was eating away at any happiness - any emotion that I had in the world. I wasn't scared that they'd feel bad for me, I was scared that people wouldn't believe me. I wasn't afraid of pity, I was afraid of being discredited. Of being something and having something shameful. Of being told that my illness wasn't an illness and that I just needed to try harder.

I'm disappointed that my biggest fear was asking for help. The majority of my friends were the most supportive people I could ever have hoped for. But there were a few people, there are always a few people, who live up to a fear. I had - and still struggle with - a legitimate illness that will always form a part of me, and there were some people who told me that maybe if I stopped talking about it, and tried harder, it would just go away. I'd like to see anyone say that to someone who is physically ill.

The stigmatisation of mental illness is something that has always bothered me. Partly because I have depression, and partly because I know, without a shadow of a doubt that it's wrong. It's wrong to joke about people who are sick. It's wrong to think that mental illness isn't serious and that it's something you can think your way out of. It's wrong to assume that you understand someone else's situation because you've felt a bit sad once.

There are varying degrees of mental illness, just as there are varying degrees of injury, of physical sickness. Telling someone that what they're going through isn't real doesn't make them better. I hope that at some point, people start realising that. I had everything that I needed at the time I was diagnosed. Trying to appreciate it made me feel guilty for not being able to appreciate it. I was incapable of being happy.

Having a battle with yourself every morning as to whether you should bother facing the day, seeing other people, going to work, to school, just getting up, wondering whether it's worth trying anymore is not something that should be made light of. This is the kind of thing that ruins friendships, relationships, jobs, lives. It is real, and it's horrible.

If you need help, don't be afraid to ask for it. I wasted a lot of time being scared, and I found out that I didn't need to be.

-AJ

Talk about it!

I'm not very good at talking about my feelings, so I write about them instead. There is something inherently terrifying to me about the idea of sitting down with someone and just being honest. I know that this is something that many people experience, and the advice that's thrown around a lot (including by me) is to USE YOUR WORDS! But that's just a lot easier to say than it is to do, isn't it? It still paralyses me a little bit to talk about some things, even though in writing, I can say (and indeed, have said) a lot of what I need, and what I want to say.

But there are some things that you can't really just stick a blog post up about.

Being able to tell your friends that you're petrified of losing them, being able to tell people you love them, tell people that you're in love with them, be able to talk to the people you want to talk to about the things you want to tell them - even that's hard. Just starting a conversation. I genuinely really struggle with this sort of thing. There is something that eats away at me when I try and talk about this stuff.

So I've come up with a little project - something I'm going to try to do over the next year or so, to be able to talk to the people I want to talk to, without an instant response, and using writing so that I don't have to internally panic every time I open my mouth and just spew out a load of words that don't mean anything, or worse! Just not say ANYTHING AT ALL! Oh god the awkward...

I'm going to start writing letters - this is something I really want to do, and I feel like putting it on here will actually make me do it. As well as this being an easy form of communication for me, I think it's a great way to add personality into communicating. It takes longer than an iMessage, or an email, it won't arrive instantly, and people won't respond as soon as they see it. I think that's part of the beauty of it - you can send something saying everything you want to say, but without the crippling anxiety of starting at that little tick waiting for the other person's response.

This is something that's likely to always be hard for me. I don't really know how to talk to people about deeply personal things, but somehow writing everything out helps me think everything through and seems so much less scary, so maybe, that's where I need to start?

Always nervous about something...
AJ

"Why is this happening to me?"

A continuation of my previous post.

I was unhappy for a long time. It felt like forever, but obviously wasn't. When my body started acting oddly, so did I, but I never knew that I was acting oddly. "I'm fine." is the lie that I most regularly told myself, and the people around me. I was unhappy. It wasn't quite a sad feeling; it wasn't quite a feeling. It's difficult to describe and remember. I suppose it's all a bit of a blur.

Like everyone does, I occasionally go into a slump. I have an unhappy few days, wake up not wanting to do anything with my life, occasionally just not wanting to leave my room, let alone my house. For me, there's an overwhelming sense of apathy to life, which really upsets me, because I'm not that person. I am the painful optimist, I'm the one who always has something to say, who occasionally will literally dance across the house to get laundry out of the washer. So at this point, I go into what is essentially a self-destructive cycle, but somehow, I manage to pull myself out of it before I get out of hand. Largely because I'm surrounded by amazing and inspiring people.

Last time I wrote, I felt like I had so much more to say, but I wasn't really sure where to start... so I'm gonna just try and start with something from a few days ago that just completely overwhelmed me, which is something that hasn't happened in a long time; I mean, I've been overwhelmed but this felt different.

It sounds like a massive cliché, but I felt like I was falling to pieces.

I hate that feeling, and I hate myself for feeling it. I don't like being out of control and that's exactly how I felt. I felt out of control, I hated myself for feeling it, then felt more out of control, hated myself for hating that I hated it, and it just got worse until I was walking to work in a haze, trying to not curl up on the pavement and just... cry.

And all I could think was "Why is this happening to me?".

People say that you're tested and it's never beyond your abilities to overcome the tests, or something thereabouts. I don't feel like I overcame this one. I sent a message to a friend, and got a phone call that made me calm down. I don't feel like I'm falling apart any more, but I still don't feel like I'm wholly content. Happiness isn't a destination, it's a state; it's just sometimes a state that really eludes me, and one that I occasionally can't even think about because I'm so deeply in the opposite. I get sad. I'm not scared to talk about it, but I'm scared of feeling it. I pretend to be confident and that it's just a part of me, which in fairness, it is... I just which it was a part of me that would become dormant so that I can be happily functional.

There isn't really an answer to that question though. I don't know why it's happening to me, other than it's a wall that I have to break down, and a thing that I have to embrace and overcome, but I just don't know how. I suppose in a way, it'll help me grow. It's things like this that help me identify with some people on a different level... I've met and been inspired by so many amazing people, and I'm awestruck by people who cope better than I do when they seem to be comparably worse than I am in a... slump.

One thing that I really need to impress on people though... when someone feels something like this... if someone is depressed, unhappy for no reason, whatever you want to call it, telling them to pull their socks up and get over it will never, ever help. It is so rarely a case of getting over it. That's something that's utterly bewildering. How do you even get over it? How does that work?

... Nope.

-AJ

"I just don't want to talk about it."

We all have those days where we just want to hide under a duvet and watch crappy movies, not make any interaction with the outside world and just mope. And sometimes, after a good day of solid moping, everything feels alright again, and you can see why the birds are singing and the world is spinning.

But what if you can't? What if you spend weeks not wanting to move? What if you feel so terrible about yourself that you can't bring yourself to be more?

So many people on the internet - myself included - talk about depression, about mental health, about experiences, solutions and reasons. I'm going to try and explain to you how I felt when I went through a kind of depressive funk a while back. I feel like a different person than I did then, and even though there are large periods of day to day life that I just can't even remember, large blanks as it were, I still remember how it felt. It did not feel good. It's the worst I've ever felt, and as far as depression goes, I don't think I even scratched the surface.

I don't like to use the 'd' word when I talk about myself. I was never diagnosed with depression and I hope that I never have to be. What happened to me was a mixture of poor self-esteem and medication that went a bit wrong. I lost a friend, and then I lost what felt like my femininity within the space of a couple of years, and those years, that space of time between those two events were filled with confusion and bewilderment at my body, which was just going into a sort of hormonal train-wreck. I am reluctant to say that I was depressed because, even though I have felt terrible about myself, about the world and about everyone around me, and I have felt alienated from everything and apathetic, and at times numb from everything except anger, I have seen people go through worse.

I've since come more to terms with myself, but there are still occasionally those days where I just want to disappear into a little cave and just cry, but it feels more normal than it used to. Much more normal. But the point of this isn't that I came out of the other side feeling better about myself. That took a long time, a change of medication to fix the hormones that made my head feel rubbish, and a good friend that would listen to me when I learned to talk about it.

The worst thing I felt was worthlessness. Around the time that I was diagnosed with PCOS, I began to feel like I wasn't worth the trouble, and like I shouldn't bother trying, and like I shouldn't talk to anyone because it wasn't worth stressing them out about my silly little feelings. I hid it a little too well though. Nobody noticed that I wasn't quite right for a really long time because I had sort of... distanced myself from everyone. I went about it the wrong way, but I'm not the only one who does. I'm not the only one who feels - or felt - like they're worth less than everyone else. I still have issues with myself... I'm not very confident, but the written word helps me a lot. But I only began to feel better about myself when someone helped me to. You should not deal with these things alone. The people who love you will be there no matter what.

If you're on the other end though, if you're one of the people who's worried about someone, make sure you know the person really well. Be able to see through that mask. That's the hardest part I think... then just being there to listen. Showing them you care and they're not worthless. Sometimes "I just don't want to talk about it." is a start. There isn't always a logical reason to feeling awful, that's a big one to understand. It might not make any sense to you, but try and understand that it might to them.

I'm going to stop this here, before it becomes a full essay. Words mean a lot to me and I want to get them right, especially about something like this. People I love, people I care about, have been affected by depression, and it's become something quite close to me... You can never fully understand someone else's feelings, but you can always listen.

As always, thanks for reading.

- AJ

Old Things... and New Things...

Even though I'm always glad for the arrival of Summer, it's always tinged with a little bit of sadness - less and less every year, but it's always there, and it's always going to be. A few years ago, vaguely around this time of year, I - and a lot of people in my life - lost someone important; probably one of the best friends I've had. I think back and I'm still inspired by my friend, and it still fascinates me how she managed to remain so upbeat, even as we began to see less and less of her over time. It's things like this, people like this that shape who we are and who we want to be. We all want to be the best person that we can be, so what's stopping us?

For me, I know that I'm in my head way too much sometimes, and that I need to just move way back into the present and get on with life, but sometimes, those far off, vaguely possible eventualities terrify me. But the problem is, not getting on with things now means that I might not get onto those far off eventualities, as likely or unlikely as they may be. And there it is, the shunt that takes me back into the reality that I'm in, and stops me daydreaming about lighthouses and illustrating children's books whilst simultaneously designing my own range of furniture... because I can't get there if I don't do this part of my life now.

Forgive me, I think I'm rambling a little bit...

The way we handle things that have happened to us, the things that are in our past... old things, shapes the way we see the future, whether you're a realist, optimist, pessimist, whatever-ist. It's really important to value experiences that you have now, and make the little things important. Remember the things that make you happy... and the things that make you sad, because honestly, you never know what you're going to be facing the next day.

I wish I'd had more time with my friend, that I'd gotten to make a few more of her days brighter, but I can't anymore, and I just have to rely on the idea that maybe, just maybe I managed to help make something brighter, whether it was a day wandering around the small city that I call home, or cracking a stupid joke in an IT class, I just hope that I made a difference. But now, I try and make everyone I meet smile, and it can be harder with some people more than others, but making someone smile, for someone as emotionally... muddled as I am, can just make you feel properly again.

Yeah...

- AJ

I'm angry at myself.

I'm finding myself coming back to this blog more and more, wanting to write things that I can't quite form words for, but I can give it a pretty good try most of the time... If there's one thing that I can actually do, it's words.

So I'm feeling pretty low today, and writing something or other usually helps me, so here we go...

I think I'm angry. Not at anyone else, not at anything in particular, it's just one of those days where everything you do makes you a little bit more frustrated until you build up this sort of completely angry, dissatisfied with life mentality. But it's a strange kind of feeling; not the immediate seeing red and wanting to do something irrational that you'd probably regret later, but more of a jaded sort of irritation with yourself.

And that's the distinction - I feel like I'm angry at myself. Which really shouldn't be a thing.

I'm usually quite a calm and cheerful person, and I try to be as much as possible. I try to help people when they need help, I get my stuff done, but now and then I just get this shite feeling at the back of my head which makes it really hard to do simple tasks like focus on what someone's saying. What makes it more annoying is that it's an inward thing. It's aimed at me. And being angry at yourself is just a really weird feeling. It just feels so odd.

So basically, I've felt a bit thrown off the last couple of days. It's been really confusing me, and it can be quite upsetting. But it's okay. It'll be fine eventually. I've had months of this before, and look, I'm alright now. I can do it again.

-AJ

Honesty

Honesty is a thing that people often struggle with, and reasonably so as well. It's hard to tell people things that you know they won't want to hear, or tell them things only to hear what you don't want to hear. It's often not easy to be honest, I understand that - there are things that I don't tell anyone, but sometimes, in spite of your apprehension, being honest, no matter what the outcome, is really the best thing to do. Because at least then you can be at peace with the truth, even if it takes a long time.

Sometimes, being able to be honest with someone else, helps them to be honest with themselves. Admitting something aloud or on paper makes something much more real and for me, it helps you accept the reality of what's going on. Sometimes, giving something a name makes it so much easier to fight. Because then, at least you know what you're fighting against.

I've been trying to write this for literally months. I must have started it in August, something like that. Almost a full year ago... I know it was before I moved to Glasgow, before I knew that I was moving here, even before I was as calm as I am now, day to day. But I think I'm starting to understand a bit better. I suppose what I want to say is that I'd rather someone was honest with me than lie to save my feelings. So I'd like to do the same with others.

I'd like to think there are people out there who are just the same as me, who do the same sorts of things in my position. I've been told before that the things that I put on here, that I try and share with as many people as possible are things that I should keep to myself. But that's not at all what I want to do. That isn't even remotely conducive to what I'm trying to achieve. Because if you are out there and you're like me... I want you to know that.

I want to put a positive stint on something that's really affected me... something that's affected me quite badly... Up until I could see retrospectively, I didn't realise quite how much. But the only really useful way I can think of is helping people. I can't help people by lying. So I'm being honest, because that's how I think it should be done.

I still get those days where I can't feel anything. It terrifies me. Every time, I don't think it'll go away. But it always does. It gets better. It always gets better. And that's what I'm trying to achieve.

Honesty can make things better... sometimes you just have to push it to do so.

-AJ x