Going through depression

04 Dec, 2016 - 00:12 0 Views
Going through depression

The Sunday News

black-girl-sad

SOMETIMES life throws so many stressors our way that we do become exhausted with it all and overwhelmed for a while.

It is not just physical activity that exhausts us but sometimes it is what our minds do that also affects energy levels in the body and in our thought space. It is not unusual for young people to experience “the blues” or feel “down and beat up by life”.

Adolescence is always an unsettling time, with the many physical, emotional, psychological and social changes that accompany this stage of life which I like to refer to as the stage of stress and storm.

Depression drains your energy, hope, and drive, making it difficult to do what you need to feel better. You cannot just will yourself to “snap out of it,” although you do have more control than you realise even if your depression is severe and stubbornly persistent. When you are depressed, the tendency is to withdraw and isolate oneself and feel very low and beat down unable to make it go away. Even reaching out to close family members and friends can be tough because most people are ashamed of feeling depressed. Feeling depressed is horrible and I think no one deserves to feel this way.

Depression takes away motivation, energy, sociability, optimism, and peace of mind. It replaces these things with despair, anxiety, regret, ‘restless sleep’, loss of confidence, hopelessness, and exhaustion. Almost all the depressed people have something deep within them which they have sometimes shared, but most of the times, kept up to themselves. These feelings describe how they are treated, how they felt, how they are hurt and how they have been at their lowest. This week our column is on a young girl in her teens who is depressed and does not know how to deal with it.

I have been going through depression for years now and sometimes I lose focus and I feel weighed down I really wish I could do something about my state. Almost every day I wake up feeling down and sad. The days where I can wake up and feel okay are extremely few and scarce. Most of the time I am moody, feeling unmotivated and sad. My sad feeling can shoot from no particular thoughts but it is a feeling that I have gotten so use to. I fail to make friends or even talk to people because I look down upon myself I often think I am not “cool” enough to be accepted by people. I really do not want to feel this way but I have a very low self-esteem and this mostly resulted from people who made me conscious of my flaws. I had early puberty and I developed fully when I was in primary and most people used to make fun of me and call me old.

I have a very rough skin and my peers are all smooth and beautiful, the girls in my class like to wear lip gloss and talk about beauty and I often find it very hard to connect and talk about these things because I know very little about being beautiful I am even too shy to use lip gloss although I buy tons I never actually get used to them. I feel very uncomfortable in my own body and skin and no one has ever looked at me or told me that I am beautiful I know I do not need anyone to tell me I am beautiful but I wish that I could hear someone tell me that I am beautiful and I long that day. I have tried to be happy but it never lasts it always ends up badly for me because I like to compare myself to people that are around me and I wish to be happy the way they are but it is often impossible and this breaks my heart. Happiness is something I cannot relate to as all I have is an idea of what it could be.

I have not known how it feels like to be happy in a long time. When I am sad, I can feel the utmost bottom pit. It is just a sad state to be in all the time. I find it extremely difficult to concentrate on tasks, and most of the time in fact right now, I have to stop this story halfway because I’m feeling too down to continue I cry without reason, sleepless nights, feel down always, I want to be alone. I do not want people to feel pity for me and so I keep all my tears to my pillow and all my feelings to myself I cannot even talk to my own family about all this. Sometimes it breaks my heart to be so depressed and I contemplate suicide, I wish I could fit in and feel loved. I lack enthusiasm and I do not even know what makes me happy or what I like to do.

I feel safe writing about this because this way no one will judge me, trying to keep my private battles within myself and taking whatever measures necessary to ensure that nobody knows what I am dealing with can be draining. Sometimes, things I will never have is something someone will always have and this bothers me because some people are always happy. Something that I have always wanted was to be able to be happy make friends and have a hearty laugh.

I have been betrayed, hurt, broken hearted, depressed, and looked down on, but there were those times that I felt happy, wanted, and praised when I was a child but now it is a different story no one pays attention to my feelings anymore. Nothing can buy happiness, true happiness is full of emotion and joy. Is that too much to ask for? Or is it something that I am preventing from myself? Perhaps it is something I have never had or maybe something I will always have but I deprive myself.

I have friends in my own head and I so wish they could become a reality and we could have fun just like the picture I have in my head. One of the saddest things in the world is to feel broken, and although you have somehow been figuratively ripped apart, you feel like can never be put back together again. This is exactly how I feel.

There are days when I ask myself, What are you staying here for? Most times I do not even have an answer and that is when the thought of suicide creeps into my head. Sometimes I just do not want to be here anymore, and those are the toughest thoughts to deal with, but the days that I truly cherish are the ones where I am so overwhelmed with happiness that it feels like I can beat this depression and these only last a few hours. That happiness comes from my wishful fantasy of the friends in my head or the idea of being positive and trying to talk to people but before I even engage in conversations someone is making fun of me or giving me a funny look or whispering about me. I notice all these things because I am highly conscious of my duckling looks.

Those are the hours that make life worth living, and those are the hours that keep me fighting. The extremes of depression are the worst. One minute you could be on cloud nine and in the next you can feel like you have hit rock bottom. I do not have trouble getting out of bed, I actually do not know how to “just be happy” for me, it involves being constantly distracted, I am not sure how many people feel like this I wish I knew and maybe we could help each other through it. My heart is sore too many a time and I sometimes cannot put a finger to what hurts me and makes me miserable. I wish I could get over this feeling make friends, have a real relationship with my family and just have someone notice me and give me a good laugh.

Getting through a breakup is as much a physical process as an emotional one. Remember that, and know that it will get easier.

Keep going. You will get there someday and in the mean time continue to share your heartbreaking stories with us email [email protected] .

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