Tears Before Christmas
It was a low point in my life when depression struck so hard that I thought there was no escape.
How could I possibly escape something as soul destroying as the deep dark feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, sadness, anxiety – all mixed into one?
I vividly remember feeling like I was being sucked into a dark tunnel, my body gripped by a force like gravity.
If this is what you are experiencing, then the most important thing to know is that help is available. The most important thing to do is to do something about it. Letting it lay festering, trying to ignore it will not work.
So many other people have got through it, you can too.
Depression Is a Bastard Of a Thing
Depression sits inside like a cancer. Winston Churchill referred to his depression as a ‘Black dog’ and that is apt as well.
The worst thing about it is that it warps your perceptions, changes the way you think.
You think it is inescapable, but that’s wrong. It can be beaten.
Why Is It Worse At Christmas?
For me it was because other people were happy, so why wasn’t I? How could this be a happy time when I felt so bad?
How could I feel so bad at Christmas, a happy time?
That made me feel guilty. I wasn’t fun to be around, I was visibly suffering. Guilt is the best friend of depression, it feeds it and strengthens it.
The guilt and the sadness made the depression feel worse and so it all fed into a vicious cycle.
Break the cycle. That is what I did.
Get Help Now - It is all around you
There are plenty of places you can get help from. They range from free counseling through to specialist staffed private-stay facilities designed to get you through it.
A really good place to start is your doctor. It was for me.
Whichever way is for you, do something.
Just Google “depression help” and you ill be shown many options in your country.
There are different levels and types of depression.
Mine starts with feelings of anxiety that morph over time into full on black-dog depression. The only good thing about this is that I now know when I am about to suffer a bout of depression. I get in early, I see my doctor, I go to some talk therapy and if necessary, go back onto my meds.
I found it takes courage to admit to depression. That was my essential first step to getting out of it, to getting cured or at least getting respite for a time.
Trust me – you can get past depression.
Finding Happiness
One day you will be able to relax, kick back and enjoy life again.
The Things That Work For Me
My doctor was fantastic. I tried 3 different meds then found one that suited me. He made me persevere. He got me to see a psych.
Persevere. At a time when I felt so low, this was difficult. Yet it is absolutely vital. I tried and tried with the meds. Eventually I found one that suited me. My doctor was central to this. He was right.
Recognize That Something Had To Change. To become depressed, to feel so low, for me it was they way I was living but also my inner thoughts based on my upbringing. This, these thoughts, they had to change. I had to change.
Counseling with a good psych probably saved my life. I got life changing advice. Some simple sentences from someone with experience changed my perspective. What had been problems I realized were nothing more than my misconceptions and upbringing.
Self soothe. This is actually a great concept, except it just didn’t work for me in this format. Being easy on myself, giving myself ‘slack’, letting myself have time off – are all great concepts. It is just not solid enough when I’m feeling so low. I put it here to highlight the problem. The words are just too imprecise, woolly. In depression I need something simple and yet strong, concrete and obvious. My next point is self-soothing – but defined differently.
Do Things For ME to make ME happy. This was not natural for me. I was/am a ‘giver’ – I do things for others quite a lot. Stopping that, looking inward to find what makes ME happy then doing it took some effort. It still does but you know, it is a nice feeling sometimes to self-indulge and make myself happy.
There is a golden rule here. My happiness is in my hands. No one else can do it. It is up to me. I must take responsibility for my happiness.
Undertake small jobs giving a quick reward. This is so important for me. Tidying the house is a HUGE gob and takes days so I can never do it. But tidying one room, washing the walls, getting marks out of the floor boards, polishing the brass takes a few hours and makes me feel good. I get a quick result.
There is nothing like a quick result to make me feel better, to feel great. Saying “I did that” has a nice ring to it.
Same for outside; pruning some shrubs, sweeping the front path, doing some weeding and then plant a few seedlings only takes an hour or two. The next day there is a lot of pleasure looking at those seedlings and watering them.
This is a hard lesson. Depression make everything feel harder to do. I want to sit and do nothing. It me think jobs take 3 times as long as they do so it saps my will to get anything done. Just cutting back some unruly shrubs and telling myself ‘I can do this‘ really does help.
Smile even if I don’t feel like it. This is really hard to do, and probably only works when coming out of depression. The thing is, when I smile I find after a while I actually am happier. I trick myself into feeling better. What was once a mask becomes reality.