This week I want to share with you my experience with Depression, and how important I feel it is for anybody who believes they may be suffering from it to address the issue. This is something I would like to share, because this is something I have had to do recently. I kept a lot inside me for a long long time; things going back to when I was as young as four years old. All this time I’ve believed that these are my issues, nobody else’s and they are for me to deal with and overcome, except now there are present issues I need to deal with, and because I haven’t dealt with the past issues, I’m struggling to deal with the present ones. Instead of dealing with all of my baggage though, I carried on doing what I’ve always known; store it away in my head and try to forget about it. That method hasn’t worked for me, and a couple of weeks ago I had a huge wake up call when I realised my issues are affecting my every day life, so the day after I booked myself into the Doctors…

Now my issues have lead me to worry about everything, all the time. My worrying is actually extremely unhealthy. I worry about everything to the point where I can never ever switch off; about things that I don’t even need to worry about; I lose sleep over the amount of things I worry about. So naturally for me, I was extremely worried about going to the Doctors and addressing my issues with them. I was thinking things like ‘What if they think I’m being ridiculous and tell me to go away’, and ‘What if they just tell me to get over it’. Of course it was the complete opposite when I got there.  My Doctor was lovely, I could see she truly sympathised with me and genuinely wanted to help me. She arranged for me to see a counsellor for an initial meeting and discussion, to see what treatment I should begin with, then as I left the room she said, ‘We’re going to get you through this’ Her saying those few simple words was a small weight off of my shoulders. Knowing somebody cared enough to want to help me get on to the road of recovery felt nice. I know my friends and family who know what is going on want that too, but knowing there is professional help for me really helped.

Of course as the days came closer to my first meeting with the counsellor the worry set in again. I can honestly say I’ve never been so nervous about anything in my entire life. However, this was the whole point of going to see him; to stop this constant worry and noise in my head, and to help me switch off and enjoy the life I have. To help me see the positives in situations, opposed to focusing and dwelling on the negatives. Again I had no need to worry. My counsellor was lovely and although it was emotional for me, it felt good that there was somebody who knew everything (I told him things my parents don’t even know), and that they wanted to help me get over these things.

I’m now on a waiting list, because the counsellor I saw initially feels I need to see a different kind of counsellor and put all of the things from my past to bed before sorting out my present issues in order to make space in my head to give me the tools I need to help me get through my day to day issues. I’m willing to wait though. I’m very lucky that these resources are free to me, so a short wait is a small price to pay.

I wanted to share my experience with you because I want anybody who is feeling in any way like this to address it and get help. Don’t be ashamed in any way, don’t be scared and don’t worry. You’re not alone in how you feel, and there are people who want to help you. You only have this one chance at life, so don’t just ‘get by’ every day. Everybody deserves to be happy and everybody deserves to live opposed to just exist…