Living with Mental Health | Depression and Faith

When I first got diagnosed with depression, I was incredibly angry at God. I felt that he should have prevented the situation which was one of the main causes of it. I couldn't understand how a God of love, could allow the suffering I went through. Now I'm out through the other side  I still don't understand but I know God has taught me lessons that I couldn't have learnt any other way, and I will talk about those lessons in another blog. Because what I want to talk about now is how my faith got me through.

Like I said, when I used to be very angry at God, but now I'm not. Even in the darkest of times, I kept going to Church. In fact, at my lowest points, I used to scream out to God blaming him for everything I was going through. Because, in my eyes, he was to blame. I started to read the Psalms (for those of you who don't know what they are, they are songs mainly written by David (the David who defeated Goliath). They are songs of pain and suffering, but also songs of conviction and statements of truth about God. At they helped me to feel justified about my anger and pain. I felt as a Christian I couldn't have pain and anger at God, at yet these songs that were included in the Bible had them. And my favourite thing about them was that they would often start in anger, but come round to the truths that, I as a Christian, believe about God.

I also found my faith to be strongest in the darkest times, I couldn't depend on myself and it was only through reaching out to God each day for help, even just to get out of bed, I managed to keep going. God also provided me with the most important things I needed to keep going. He provided me with amazing housemates that didn't bring up my depression, and yet were also there whenever I needed them. He provided me with friends on my course, that helped me hand in my work on time and made me laugh and keep enjoying Chemistry. But most importantly, God provided me with loads of different people in Church that kept me going, supporting me with all my problems an doubts, and loving me even when I ended each service in floods of tears.

I've found these past 18 months tough, but I know that I could have not managed to get through without my faith. It has been the rock that I have been able to cling to when everything else has seemed to be sinking sand. I'm not saying that I've not had doubts, because I have, I have doubted God's existence and his love for me, but at the end of the day, it's been what I'm holding onto.

"He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

out of the mud and mire,

he set my feet upon a rock,

and gave me a firm place to stand."

Psalm 40:2

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

Living with Mental Health | Family, Friends and Depression

I think my experience of the way illness can affect your life started when I was thirteen. My mum got physically ill, and I started to feel increasingly alienated from her. I often felt that I was at fault in situations that, in reality, were outside of my control. Looking back, I understand that she was frightened and having to deal with a lot herself, but at the time it was very difficult to see that. Nevertheless, my relationship with my Dad was strong and, apart from the usual day to day stresses of being a teenager, things were generally fine.

But aged about sixteen my relationship with my dad started to deteriorate too. Sometimes I would make a comment or snap at him a little when things were tough. Things he would previously have tolerated, at worst. But instead of tolerating them he would ignore me, perhaps for a few hours, perhaps for longer, even when, at times, I would stubbornly continue to talk at him. He never shouted, just sort of withdrew instead. Again, it made me feel that I must be doing something wrong to deserve that sort of treatment: that I was a terrible person and an even worse daughter.

I'd always worked hard at school, but I became even more determined: determined to prove my worth to myself, my teachers and above all my parents. Exam results and making my parents proud became my God. But exam result after exam result failed to change the situation. I knew deep down that my parents loved me, but this only made me feel worse: here they were, feeding me, clothing me, and yes, loving me, and all I could do was make them angry, disappointed, cold and withdrawn. I was hurt and frustrated but I was sure I was at fault and didn't want to cause my parents any more anger and upset. Instead I often turned my anger inwards. I was filled with self-loathing, desperation and despair, and self harmed regularly.

I didn't tell anyone about it at the time, what reason would I have to do that? I was a disappointment, I was the one at fault and the only person that I could take out my pent up frustration on (and the only person I thought deserved to be hurt) was myself. It was simply my own logical decision. I didn't want anyone else to know, especially not my parents, who I thought would just be even more hurt and disappointed by my selfish attitude.The stigma attached to and lack of understanding that many people have for self harm can make it seem impossible to talk about. The thought of it often still fills me with tongue tying, heart racing panic. But I am blessed with close friends and over the past few years, with their help I've been coming to terms with this part of my life, gaining more of an understanding of why I acted in that way. I still self harm sometimes, but more often than not I don't.

This week is about Mental Health Awareness. I am yet to discuss my experience with a doctor. I feel safe talking to my good friends and I know that although they don't always understand, they still love and accept me; and they've been helping me to love and accept who I am too. My relationship with my parents is much improved and we're all healing in our different ways. So I'm not sure I'm really talking about me anymore.

Instead, where did this start? I think it started with the social stigma of depression. We just don't talk about it, do we? It's something bad, something that weak-minded, self-centred people (or perhaps usually strong people who are just going through an awful situation at the moment) suffer from, isn't it? Why don't they just get a grip, man up and muddle on with that oh-so-British stiff upper lip like the rest of us? But depression isn't like that; it isn't just about being a bit sad sometimes. Depression is an illness, just like anything you could suffer from physically. It's time we accept that. If society were more accepting, if people felt able to talk to each other, rather than hiding behind their forced smiles, then people like my dad might be able to speak up sooner.

For people who have friends or family suffering from mental health issues such as depression, I pray that they have shared what they're going through with you. I hope you understand that they don't hate you, they aren't ignoring you, but that sometimes that is the only way they feel able to deal with how they're feeling, particularly if they don't want to hurt you by shouting. It also really isn't your fault, no really, it isn't, just as it isn't their fault. After all, nobody is to blame when they are diagnosed with breast cancer, likewise with depression! So simply, I urge everyone who is reading this, whatever you're going through, to set aside your mask: be more open and willing to talk with people, laugh and cry with them and seek to truly understand what they are experiencing. No-one should feel like they have to suffer in silence. It's time to break free from the shame of depression and the damage that shame can cause.

God be with you,

Anonymous

Living with Mental Health | Depression and Perfection

I suffered from depression at high school. This was something that took a lot of time to overcome. There are many things I learned which have helped me overcome depression. In this post I want to focus on just one, which is sometimes an issue for me to this day. I have always been a perfectionist, and I really believe that to do a good job, I should focus on past mistakes. Since I have always considered this to be one of my better qualities, at high school it never occurred to me to question whether this was contributing to my depression. However, I have since realised that there is a right and a wrong way to go about learning from mistakes. And there is a fine line between learning from mistakes, and dwelling on them.

For example, if I said something stupid when talking to a group of people I didn’t know very well, I would tend to not only feel embarrassed at the time, but remember the incident long afterwards. Of course, everyone has some monumentally bad moments in their lives that they will always remember. But at some point I realised that I was keeping a mental list of small bad moments to - and I remembered bad moments much more clearly than good ones. This was because I felt I had to keep going over my mistakes in order to avoid making them again. I think this is where I crossed the line from learning from bad experiences to not being able to let them go.

For example, during my last exam period, when I was incredibly tired and stressed, I left my laptop at a bus stop. Luckily, someone handed it in to security and I was able to recover it. When I went to pick it up, the person behind the desk seemed to think I was a complete idiot (probably not an unfair assessment given the circumstance). The lesson was pretty obvious – if I’m tired and stressed, I’m more likely to be forgetful, so I should just carry it in my bag. But I kept dwelling on the fact that the person behind the desk thought I was an idiot. Feeling bad about this, I started reviewing my mental list of everything I had ever done wrong, and felt worse and worse. After a while I realised what I was doing. With some effort, I put aside the bad memories, and tried to focus on something else (a hot chocolate and an episode of How I Met Your Mother always seems to do the trick!). I haven’t left anything at a bus stop (or anywhere else!) since, but I also haven’t brought up the bad memory. Of course, this gets harder the worse the experience, but I remember a time when a small incident like this would have made me feel miserable for weeks. For me at least, the main barrier was realising that it is ok to let go, and that doing so won’t lead to repeating the same mistakes – just because I don’t feel the need to regularly revisit the bad memory, doesn’t mean I won’t remember the lesson.

Anonymous