I Was Told Not To Post This, But I Am Anyway

Depressed.
Depression.
I have depression.
I think I've typed and erased this sentence around 20 times.
I even made a video about it. I erased that too.
I was talking to my friend about this post. She said not to post it. Stop being a Debbie Downer.

I'm posting it anyway.

I have depression. But I'm getting through it.

That's such a huge relief, a weight to finally get by typing those words. But the words themselves have such weight to them that so many throw around casually with any sort of mental illness (see "I totally have OCD because my shoes have to be in order." Or "They messed up my Starbucks order. I was SO depressed for the rest of the day." And so on).

So I didn't want to really admit the heaviness of the word "depression" unless I was absolutely sure. I didn't want to belittle it, especially for those who are suffering from it far worse than I am.
I'm sure now.

I also felt shame because there's such a stigma to depression. There's a stigma of any mental illness, isn't there? It means you're weird. Not normal. Something is wrong with you--you're crazy.

I didn't want to talk about it because I didn't want to appear weak. I didn't want to even admit I had it. I didn't want anyone to worry. I've always been the strong one, the one people rely on. That means I couldn't possibly be depressed, right?

Severe depression, to me, was due to by some tragic event. Nothing tragic had happened to me in a few years, so I couldn't be depressed, right? I was wrong and in denial.

Depression to me was a tv commercial of a woman confined to her bed, in the dark, and crying all day. That couldn't be me. I went to work every day, right? I couldn't be depressed.

And then I realized for the past year I've been sending out a sort of decent facsimile of myself. She got dressed, went to work, ate, and even blogged sometimes.

But then things stopped happening. I went to work every day, sure, but instead of giving 110%, I started giving 90%. I showered every day but wore wrinkled clothes, no makeup, hair in a bun, no polished nails, and no skincare, save for testing for a sponsored post. You might be laughing, but for a beauty blogger, that's kind of my life.

Speaking of the blog, I kind of gave up that love of mine. I went from posting 5 days a week for 7 years to only two or three times. I gave up visiting blogs, on social media. I stopped answering emails and they began to pile up from a few hundred to thousands. I missed deadlines. I started forgetting things, commitments. No one noticed. No one cared.

It began to take all of my energy to do ANYTHING. Anything. I was tired all of the time, but couldn't sleep. Just breathing was heavy. I felt alone.

The one day it hit me: this is depression. This is affecting my life. I need to not feel this way.

I thought about everything that got me here: having a period for three months, the constant sickness of the flu and pneumonia, the defeat of wanting to move for a job opp that didn't work out but yet I was sad about leaving the city I love, the watching my blog crumble, the sadness of my current job ending, and more...of these things are small but they built up and weighed on me over time. I developed horrible anxiety, which I've talked about before.

It was that realization that sort of brought me out of the fog I had been living in for nearly a year. I allowed myself to feel the way I was and not feel shame, but to accept it. And know that it wasn't always going to be like this.

Now, this didn't happen over night--there's no magic trick here. It's been a gradual thing. I gave myself small goals: get out of bed. Shower. Eat. These things took all of my energy. They took hours to do. And slowly I began to add more things. I talked to others. I could feel moments where I felt like myself again.

I'm still shaking the cloak of depression off of me. I'm not 100% me just yet, but if you could see how far I've come! How close to "me" I am now. I can see her! There are still times when I feel overwhelmed or defeated. Then I realize how far I've come. And I know this can happen again. But I won't allow it to win or defeat me. I will win.