The raw reality of Mental Illness - part 2
Following on the first part of this blog post where I mainly addressed my anxiety...
Everybody experiences their anxiety, depression, bipolar and any other mental health issued differently. The trick is to try accept that people really do experience these problems, and they are real to them even if you don't believe they could possibly be so bad.
Depression is not just about being sad. Most of the time when I have a depressive episode I'm not sad, or have anything to be sad about.
My mom calls it my "dark place". I call it fighting with my demons.
How each person experiences depression depends on them. Some people need extra love, some people want no human contact.
Some eat. Some don't.
Some want to go out and have fun. Others want to hide in their bad for days.
Doing the simplest of tasks can take hours or sometimes even days to attend to.
Here's a typical example from my book.
Last week we had a lightning storm in the area - this type of storm has become common here lately. Lots of thunder and lightning, a downpour and then it's over. My 13 year old dog, Bella, has never liked storms. She acts up and she doesn't even know what she's doing. She climbs. She jumps on counter tops. She wants to come in the house, and then tries to find every escape route.
In last week's storm, nobody was home. So she went crazy and wrecked half the house. My craft room was a disaster area. She had knocked over tubs of beads - on the counters and on the floor.
It took me a week before I was ready to tackle the room. I had to get myself into a state where I was able to sit and start tidying up without getting upset.
On the morning I had planned to clean up the room I was offered concert tickets to a concert I had been dying to go to (and had come to terms I wasn't going to). I declined because I now had "other plans". Certainly not fun plans, but I had spent days psyching myself up to this task.
Other people wouldn't have given it a second thought and would've made another plan to clean up and gone to the concert. Nobody can understand how difficult it is for me to just change plans. I make all my plans weeks in advance because I need to keep reminding myself I have to do it. I try get out of many of my plans so this way I can prepare myself for some time out.
What would've happened if I decided to go? I'd probably enjoy myself, but keep to myself the whole night. I'd hide myself away from the world for the following day (and still not tidy up my craft room, or do anything else for that matter). I'd spend days feeling guilty about not doing anything, sending me further into the darkness.
It really does sound silly but that's how my life is.
But a reminder: the way I experience my depression is not the way the next person does. If you have someone close to you who suffers from depression, the best would probably be to find out what their signs are, and how they would like you to deal with it - stay away, love more, bring food and movies.... One thing for sure is to be there - whether it's during an episode, or after.
Everybody experiences their anxiety, depression, bipolar and any other mental health issued differently. The trick is to try accept that people really do experience these problems, and they are real to them even if you don't believe they could possibly be so bad.
Depression is not just about being sad. Most of the time when I have a depressive episode I'm not sad, or have anything to be sad about.
My mom calls it my "dark place". I call it fighting with my demons.
How each person experiences depression depends on them. Some people need extra love, some people want no human contact.
Some eat. Some don't.
Some want to go out and have fun. Others want to hide in their bad for days.
Doing the simplest of tasks can take hours or sometimes even days to attend to.
Here's a typical example from my book.
Last week we had a lightning storm in the area - this type of storm has become common here lately. Lots of thunder and lightning, a downpour and then it's over. My 13 year old dog, Bella, has never liked storms. She acts up and she doesn't even know what she's doing. She climbs. She jumps on counter tops. She wants to come in the house, and then tries to find every escape route.
In last week's storm, nobody was home. So she went crazy and wrecked half the house. My craft room was a disaster area. She had knocked over tubs of beads - on the counters and on the floor.
It took me a week before I was ready to tackle the room. I had to get myself into a state where I was able to sit and start tidying up without getting upset.
On the morning I had planned to clean up the room I was offered concert tickets to a concert I had been dying to go to (and had come to terms I wasn't going to). I declined because I now had "other plans". Certainly not fun plans, but I had spent days psyching myself up to this task.
Other people wouldn't have given it a second thought and would've made another plan to clean up and gone to the concert. Nobody can understand how difficult it is for me to just change plans. I make all my plans weeks in advance because I need to keep reminding myself I have to do it. I try get out of many of my plans so this way I can prepare myself for some time out.
What would've happened if I decided to go? I'd probably enjoy myself, but keep to myself the whole night. I'd hide myself away from the world for the following day (and still not tidy up my craft room, or do anything else for that matter). I'd spend days feeling guilty about not doing anything, sending me further into the darkness.
It really does sound silly but that's how my life is.
But a reminder: the way I experience my depression is not the way the next person does. If you have someone close to you who suffers from depression, the best would probably be to find out what their signs are, and how they would like you to deal with it - stay away, love more, bring food and movies.... One thing for sure is to be there - whether it's during an episode, or after.
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