Everyone’s own experiences differ, but for me, reaching out for help was extremely hard. I was “lovingly threatened” by someone close to me who pointed out that I really needed to make an appointment with a mental health professional after joking about getting my “shoelaces taken away” too many times. So I started my search for a provider who I respected and felt safe enough with, whom didn’t tell me to just breathe and do yoga, someone logical and blunt who I knew sincerely cared about my well-being. How could I open up to someone if I didn’t respect them, like them, or if I felt that they didn’t really give a shit about me. Then I found her, and establishing trust was KEY.
Things got really low once, for reasons I cannot even explain. I was at that cusp… where my thoughts of death and dying were starting to consume my days and nights. I hadn’t necessarily made a solid plan for suicide, but I had started writing out goodbye letters and writing down all my accounts and passwords for my brother who I would have left to both grieve for me and handle my estate if I had embraced that darkness. I trusted my therapist and so I told her the truth. I was scared I would take that step.. over that line. We talked and I agreed to get admitted.
So began my 28 day treatment at a VERY nice facility which I could’t afford. I will acknowledge that I was very blessed (good insurance really helps). I have visited and known others who have been admitted in facilities that were… sub-par to say the least. It took a while to open up, but it was scary and refreshing and healing to be brutally honest about my feelings and experiences. And I made friends.
That is what helped the most. Seeing that others also felt broken and had the same dark feelings if not similar experiences. Being around others and talking about my traumas and depression and having them care because they could relate somehow. Seeing pain and suffering in others and wanting them to understand just how amazing they were. Wishing they could see themselves as I saw them, as beautiful amazing souls. Seeing how brave they were and then realizing that I am the same.. I am here to get help and I too am also brave. I wasn’t alone anymore. I was never alone… I just opened my eyes.
Because for me… I think the feeling of being alone, suffering alone, not wanting to burden ANYONE with my pain, actually feeds the darkness. Feeding into my habit of isolating myself from others, my desolation, feeding into my thoughts of “whats the point…”. But, I wasn’t actually alone, I found solace, hope and an affinity with others searching for the same that I was. It was enough to keep going, day by day, breath by breath.
So reach out, anonymously, to your family, friends, a therapist, an emergency room, online, over the phone, just reach out. Because despite the solitary feeling of your darkness.. you are not alone.
Photo by RANGGI MANGGALA on Unsplash
Depression Thoughts 