Living with Mental Health | Depression and Friendship

I was diagnosed with depression in October of last year. In reality, it had most likely been going on for most of my teenage years but the summer after my first year of university was where things got bad enough that I couldn’t cope. My friends quite literally ordered me to go to the doctors – with one memorable threat that I’d be picked up and dragged there if I kept putting it off – as the changes in me managed to destroy my relationship with my then-boyfriend and were clearly visible to the people around me. In fact, that’s what this testimonial is about, really: my friends. Yes, anti-depressants and visits to the Open Door team helped me, but my friends have been the driving force behind my recovery so far.    There was one piece of advice I received shortly after diagnosis that has helped me more than anything: don’t let it be a secret. So many people see mental health issues as taboo, and keep them quiet, but if the people closest to don’t know what you’re dealing with, they can’t help you when you need them or cut you some slack when you’re at your worst.

Last year I was, to be perfectly blunt, a fairly rubbish friend. I missed birthdays and skipped meet-ups, and when I did show up, I spent most of the time sat in a corner feeling awful or trying to pretend everything was ok when I wanted to be back in bed ignoring the world. I was much the same with lectures – attending a 9.15 was a rarity, and workshops and tutorials pretty much ceased to even exist to me. But despite all this, my friends never once refused me notes to copy up or help with work and the invites to events kept coming. I honestly expected them to turn their backs on me, not through malice but just because being friends with me must have been akin to being friends with a brick wall or a goldfish.

I will forever be indebted to my best friend and housemate, who managed to curb the worst of my thoroughly self-destructive habits. I never self-harmed, but my sleep and eating habits became more messed up than I thought possible: some days I ate near-constantly, as if I was hoping to counter the deep, gnawing pain I felt with copious amounts of food. Other days, I would look at the clock and realize it was nine or ten o’clock at night, I hadn’t eaten a thing all day and I wasn’t hungry in the slightest. She kept me from eating only chocolate, reminded me – and occasionally outright ordered me – to eat something, and is probably the main reason I didn’t end up with severe nutritional issues, as I sometimes went days without wanting to eat. She also offered an ear, a shoulder and a hug whenever I needed it, and let me ramble on about what was going on inside my messed up little head without judging.

There are a few more people (who will probably know exactly who they are, if they happen to read this) who I will probably never be able to repay for their friendship. I have one friend who was pretty much the only person to get real smile out of me. Another who must have given me a few hundred hugs in the past two years. Yet another who would tell me outright if I wasn’t telling them the things they could actually help with and then give me solutions to the problems he could. These and others are the people who have kept me going, and the people that I could not have gotten through the last two years without.

To anyone reading this who is suffering: tell your friends. Don’t beat around the bush and hope they guess. Sit them down, and tell them you’ve been diagnosed with depression and exactly what that means. Let them know that if you don’t see them as much it’s not because you don’t want to, it’s because you can’t face the world today.

To my friends, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’m getting better now, but even if and when I’m fully recovered, I will NEVER stop owing you.

Anonymous