When suffering with severe clinical depression throughout my youth I became accustomed to hiding my feelings, my sadness and ultimately myself from the world. I built up a
The
If I sat and questioned now, as a recovered patient why I did this I would honestly answer that my reason for doing so was because it was the only way I knew how to survive. Pretending everything was OK in my family was something that I was expected to do by my parents. In turn, this promoted other detrimental behavioural issues, my
As humans, we naturally have a built in mechanism whereby our response is that of one where we respond with flight or fight. My mechanism for coping was one which meant I was on edge constantly, waiting for someone to pounce; in turn this made me defensive and aggressive, especially towards anyone who may have criticised me and this was because I didn’t want them to tell me something I didn’t know about myself.
I didn’t want anyone guessing what was wrong, telling me what was wrong or acting superior in knowledge towards me. I figured only I knew me therefore I knew best and as such I would deal with my issues in my own time and my own way. All the time adding layers to the
Eventually, when I went thought counselling and therapy and then hospitalisation and I was faced with the question, who am I? I wasn’t able to answer it. I had built up a pretend person and was living a pretend life in pretend circumstances with pretend outcomes.
Finding out who I really was became a massive part of the healing process that I underwent to become depression free. As such, I would suggest to anyone suffering with depression – patient to patient, stop with the