"Depression is itself a form of grief - for all the connections we need, but don't have." Johann Hari
I first experienced depression at the age of fourteen. I knew what it was, what the signs were, and that I was showing all of them. But I was too embarrassed to admit that I needed help. So I struggled on my own. Several years. That's how long my first episode lasted. It was the most hopeless and lonely time of my life. It was full of tears, sleep, and an aching for friendships I had no idea how to make. I did homeschool, rarely leaving the house, and watched more movies than I thought was possible. I felt like I was drowning in something I didn't understand.
Luckily there were miracles that happened at the completion of my high school (homeschool). Most of these miracles involved people who loved me enough to help me, even though I resisted. Coming out of that episode of depression was like seeing daylight after being in the dark for a long time. It felt amazing. I started making friends again, I got out of the house more, and ultimately I met my husband, the greatest blessing of my life. I won't lie, things went so well for a couple years I thought the worst was over with my depression.
Unfortunately, new challenges surfaced. A large move out of the country to the Caribbean, and a new job with a boss that had a different personality made life harder.
And I began to struggle again. And then again. And again.
Over the next six years I had some ups, but MANY downs. New moves and goals often brought new light to my life, but my depression was so easily triggered by difficulties that I would quickly withdraw from the world just like I had as a teenager.
With each depressive episode I became more and more discouraged. I was so tired. So tired of being depressed. I was tired of the tears and not being able to function days at a time. I was now a mother of two boys and a wife of a very busy husband, and I felt that I was letting them down because I couldn't be happy.
It was after having my second son, during a particularly low time, that I watched a movie (The Croods) that changed my whole perspective on life. Never would I have thought that one simple scene in this movie could have such an impact on me, and make me willing to DO ANYTHING (good) to feel better.
It was a movie about a family of cave men who live in a cave their entire lives to avoid the dangers of the world around them. The daughter, who hates living in the caves, wants to explore the outside world, but her father insists they stay inside the cave to be safe. Something happens one day and their cave is destroyed during an earthquake, forcing them out into the world. They see a mountain in the distance and decide to head towards it, sure there is a cave there. In the mean time, they have to travel out in the open and experience rain, flowers, and stars all for the first time.
As they reach the mountain and find a new cave, they contemplate whether they should go inside or if they should live out in the world because of the great time they had. Just as they're discussing this, an earthquake starts to part the ground, and the father tries to push his family into the cave to keep them safe. But they all resist. Anxious, the father tries to convince them to go inside by saying, "The cave will keep us alive. It has always kept us alive."
This is when the daughter, who is tired of hiding, fights back by saying, "That wasn't living. That was just not dying; there's a difference."
As I watched this movie with my boys, this saying hit me like a load of bricks. This was exactly how I felt. I wasn't living life, I was just not dying. And it felt awful. Whenever I heard the phrase, Find Joy in The Journey I cringed. I didn't feel any joy in my journey and that meant something was wrong with me.
For the first time in my journey with depression I had an overwhelming desire to change that. I wanted to move forward. I wanted to live my best life.
Unfortunately, I ran into the same problem I had run into all along. I didn't know how. How do you learn to understand and survive your challenges? How do you learn to get through a day without overwhelming tears and excessive sleep? How do you learn to see the good in your life, when there seems to be so much bad?
Thankfully, after trying to figure out the answers to these question, I began to realize that even though I didn't know how to live a happy life, I knew someone who did. And I was married to him. My husband has lived a tough life. It has repeatedly tried to knock him down and discourage him from succeeding, but he never lets it. He always finds a way to move forward.
So I began studying him.
I quietly watched him and wrote down the habits he made a point of doing on a daily basis, that I didn't do. I created a list at the end of a couple months which looked like this:
Notice Nature
Attempt to make and keep friends (socialize daily) Listen to music
Talk kindly about others
Exercise
Dream Big
Make fun a priority
Make new goals (at least monthly)
Ask for help
Serve others
Face your Fears
Forgive
These sounded like miniscule things to me as I looked at them on paper. I wondered how doing them could possibly make a difference in my life, but I was so desperate for a change that I decided to put them to the test. One at a time.
I was amazed after trying this task, how much I NEED THESE THINGS in my life. Friends! Nature! Music! They are all incredible gifts and needed to make a point of using them!
I made my own goal to do them daily, and I couldn't believe the difference I saw in myself. I ceased to have panic attacks, the to-do lists in my head no longer had control of my life. I was more interested in the world around me and willing to try new things. I felt, for the first time in a long time, that I was living. Later on, I found a book that helped me understand what these things do for me. They help me build connections with things that are bigger than me: people, nature, even myself. These connections, if created, become an incredible support during the difficult times. A support I had been missing most of my life.
Two years later I found therapy. I can't tell you how proud I am to say that I've been through therapy and continue to use the tools I learned. It has helped me understand my tendencies, behaviors and beliefs about the world. Little did I know that changing what goes on in my head, could change what I see through my eyes, and feel in my heart. It makes everything a little brighter. Together, building connections, and therapy have changed my life.
I have shared my experiences with developing these new habits, (click on Learning to Live below to get to the page), but there are some important points I want to make before I close.
1. The decision to make this change in my life had to be mine. If it had been imposed on me by a loved one, I would have been too proud to accept it. I had to decide on my own to do this. It took me a long time to be ready.
2. As easy as these things sound, they were extremely difficult for me to complete. They were often the last thing I wanted to do when I felt discouraged, and I had to force myself to do them.
3. This process was painful as it forced me to break behaviors that were so engraved in me. I wanted to run back to my tendency to withdraw simply because it was easier. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has helped me work through those really painful moments and feel the pain instead of run away.
Doing these things on a regular basis acted like a prophylactic treatment, preventing me from falling into an unrecoverable depression, but this doesn't mean that it don't struggle. I do. Life is hard. The challenges we're required to face are painful, and we will get discouraged. There are also times when we are unable to complete these things due to forces out of our control. But I am here to illustrate that we need to have a little good in our lives, to make the bad bearable, and we have to make the decision to try.
Experiencing the good helps us live a little more, and just as the girl in the movie mentioned above, Living a little more is better than just not dying.
Click Here for my "Learning to Live" Experiences
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