The beginning of depression - excorcising with words

Shame?

This is how I describe them: Storm Clouds, They just appear, as if someone drew the curtains and closed out the light. You can be walking on a sunny day in the most picturesque of places, and it will still find you, creep up on you and cloak you in darkness and fill your mind with numbness and confusion. Its so frightening.

When a storm comes for me, I used to try and hide, shake off the impending feeling of doom , go for walk, do anything but let it catch me. Now I know that if it's coming, I should be in a place that I can cope, so I don't have a panic attack and feel even more embarrassed by my demon friend depression, I find sleep my greatest friend in all of this.

I close my eyes and let myself drift into nothing, let my confusion blur into a surreal dream and then wake up with a dull head and have my cuppa and start to focus. The duvet days get longer. I can spend hours in bed, telling family that I'm reading, resting, I'm not, I'm hiding, expelling my thoughts. My embarrassment too great to tell, my appalling secret. That I'm Depressed!

It started to happen when I was as young as ten, it would feel as if the corners of my mouth were being pulled down by invisible string, like something wouldn't let me smile. My mind would ache and I would start to think of a hundred thoughts at once, my mum called them migraines, I couldn't stand the light. I would wait until all I could here was noise and all I wanted to do was sleep. The feeling would be less intense after a sleep but it was still there nonetheless, sometimes for more than a week. It was as if I had a dark cloud as a friend, it followed me and I learned to let it linger there.

Of course when you are young, you don't think that it is unusual , you think it's just how things are. I was moody and quiet and quite often sulking about as a child, angry, or jealous of other people's happiness. I thought I was just miserable. I have always thought that, my dad told me so on countless occasions. Until the day as an adult and after suffering trauma, the despair relentless, I wanted to end my life. The cloud was unusually low that day and dark, baring down on me with tremendous force. I felt as if I were under a tonne of cotton wool and I just wanted to scream for it to go away. It didn't, I fought it off, the feeling and I went home and slept, not able to tell anyone how I felt, mortified, embarrassed, who would believe me?

. Then I knew I could find a label to fit. I think possibly I always knew. I was depressed. I am still depressed some days, writing is my way of exorcising it. I either sleep it off, or start writing, its my unique way of coping, everyone's is different , but there is a way for everyone, there is hope for every one, I want to help you find yours!

Thanks for listening.

CD