3 Things I Learned From Living With My Dark Jailer, Depression

Depression dwarfed me into the dark recesses of a conch shell. From there, I listened to the sound of the world in the heavy distance of my loneliness. I even heard the murmur of someone who judged me for being weak, someone who said that to me that “cheer me up, that life is two days”. However, my depression lasted for five years, long enough to learn everything from it.

Often, those who overcome a mental illness or a particularly serious illness are called heroes, and dimensions such as the courage and courage shown to face that difficult moment are often emphasized. However, those who have gone through this know that these are vital moments in which there is no other option, there is no other way than to be strong and take care that the worst enemy of all does not emerge: surrender.

On the other hand, WHO studies and reports repeatedly warn us that the rate of depressive disorders is only increasing each year. Among these data, curiously, they do not usually give data of the people who come out of that well in which the law that marks sadness prevails.

This is mainly due to a fact that was highlighted at the WHO congress this year. 7 out of 10 people do not receive the most appropriate treatment, with which the shadow of depression comes and goes, and when it appears, which is usually the most common, the simplest treatment is resorted to: drugs. Therefore, a more holistic, multifactorial approach would be needed.

Thus, depression that is not properly treated gradually becomes a suffocating tenant  who messes up our minds, closes the windows and lowers the curtains of our hope to achieve what she likes so much: make us captives in our own home. It is not easy to put order in such chaos. It is not easy to make it come out, disinfect it, make it smaller …

However, even the most severe depression can be overcome with proper treatment. And when we do, it usually leaves us with valuable lessons that are worth bearing in mind.

1. Disinfecting the stigma of depression

Depression is still a stigma. It does not matter that we are in the information age, that we have access to multiple data … None of that matters because depression is not discussed, it is not a comfortable or easy conversation and sometimes it can even be a real taboo. For example, it is on many occasions when the mother who has just given birth cannot cope with her life and feels unable to care for her newborn child.

How will your environment understand that you suffer from postpartum depression if it is “natural” for you to feel happier than ever? Furthermore, if we were to conduct a survey to probe what ideas the general population has about depression, it is likely that terms such as “weak”, “female” or “surrender” would emerge.

These completely biased ideas often lead to people being confined in the prison of their own silence, fearing the judgment of others and the gaze that they observe without understanding. This is how isolation is born, due to the misunderstanding that people with depression feel outside the bubble they have created to protect themselves.

2. Depression never comes alone

Depression is often accompanied by bitter and devoted allies, such as anxiety or panic disorders or stress. .. Many people define it almost as being inside a plane that is about to crash.

The heart races, constant fear turns us into someone who is unable to maintain control over his own life. in a person who barely sleeps or sleeps a lot, someone who barely eats or who, on the contrary, experiences hedonic hunger.

Each person will experience a specific symptomatology that will gradually shape a gloomy kaleidoscope of infinite nuances and bitter suffering. Thus, and almost overnight, the person will be taking antidepressants to treat anxiety, beta-blockers to slow down a racing heart, drugs to reduce nausea and sleeping pills at night.

3. Now I am a much more compassionate person with myself

Depression does not heal in a month or two. Sometimes we need years. Each one lives his process in a different way, each one emerges from the lonely recesses of his shell at his own pace and with his own music. It’s like finding your way back home after being lost in a desert, beating around the bush, aimlessly, without a compass, without strength … and without the hope of ever getting out of there.

• From depression you learn and also unlearn. Because sometimes, it is necessary to leave many things behind, change habits, reevaluate certain vital objectives and above all discard the classic idea that “one can do everything.”
• Overcoming this disease helps us develop a much more compassionate inner voice. The one who then has learned to tell us  “stop, take time for yourself”, “stop those thoughts, there is no need to be so demanding with yourself” …

In turn, and finally, that compassion also allows us to take greater contact with what is born from within us  to understand our needs, our limitations and also, of course, to always have at hand that toolbox with which to keep away to that “black dog” of depression – as Winston Churchill himself used to say .

Each one will house in that precious box of first aid what works for him the most: writing, sports, walks, reading, a chat with friends … These are strategies to cultivate daily, emotionally positive and healing habits of life that we they keep afloat, that save us and that bring us closer to that version of ourselves that we like the most: people who smile again.