Where depression started...

I've been reading back some old journals for therapy, trying to have a look at how things developed. Some of the entries make me want to cry, because I remember feeling that way, but it's so wrong for some one so young to have to feel that way, because of the way people treat her. Looking back now on who I was then, I can see that I didn't deserve it. Yes, I was slightly on the heavier side, but that wouldn't have turned into the hell it did if people didn't feel the need to constantly focus on it. On the one side is the bullying, ensuring that I was always the outsider, making me believe that I wasn't a 'good' person; I was selfish, boring and unwanted. Next to that was the constant commentary on my weight - "Do you really need beans with that meal?", "That dress would look so nice if you lost half a stone", "I can't afford to keep buying you bigger clothes" and of course the favourite insult of "fattie" employed by my brothers. Inevitably, my head reasoned "No wonder they don't like you - they can't dear to be seen with you, look at you. If only you could lose weight, be thin like everyone else, THEN you'd be accepted".

But I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried I always failed. I spent so much time alone and food was the only thing that was there for me in those times. It was all I had, how could I give that up too? Then I'd have nothing. So I figured, okay, I'll make myself sick then. I can still eat the food, but not keep the calories - perfect solution! But I couldn't even do that right. It just wouldn't happen. So the self-disgust, self-hatred just grew and grew until it had nothing to do with anyone else anymore, I didn't need them to hate me, I hated myself enough for all of them.

So this is where it started.
Some of it is too much to put on here.
But I'll leave you with my 15 year old thoughts.

23.12.07 (age 15)

...I'm also starting to despise myself 'cause I'm so horrible and ungrateful to Mam and Dad and don't do much to help them. Also, that I don't seem to be good enough for my friends and there must be something wrong with me 'cause I'm involved in every argument. And I care about them so much, but they don't seem to care about me at all and the people I should care about most, I don't care enough for although they sacrifice loads for me.
I really want someone to talk to, a friend who'll understand 'cause no one I know ever will.

29.03.09 (age 16)

I don't know where I am. I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel like I'm not really living, it's like everything is moving too fast and I can't keep up. It's like I'm separate from everything around me. But why do I feel this way? What possible reason is there for me to be like this? It's pathetic. The only time I exist is at school, otherwise it's like I'm drifting.
But why?! There's nothing massively wrong in my life. It's like Mam said before - "When's it going to stop being all me me me?" I'm being completely self-centered and I don't want to be like this, but I can't seem to help it. Exams in seven weeks. And still it doesn't feel real. What am I doing? There's no sense of urgency...there's no anything.

19.05.09 (age 16)

I can't deal with this anymore - it's getting so out of hand...I need help but I can't tell anyone...I just can't take it all anymore. The stress just gets to me. I don't even want the food. I don't even know why I eat it.

A lifelong illness?

Amy recently posed the question "Depression - in it for life?". This is a really difficult question and one I've struggled with a lot. Some disorders, such as bipolar, are generally accepted to be lifelong, although they can be controlled with medication. It would make sense then for this to apply to other mood disorders i.e. depression. And the reality is that whilst you can control behaviours to some degree we cannot control how we feel - and what if those feelings never completely go away?

I think the honest answer is that depends on the individual. Some may experience a single episode of depression and then recover completely. Some may live their whole life with a low level of depression. Some may alternate periods of complete wellness with complete disability and still others may struggle with it for years, cycling through mild and severe periods and yet eventually make a full recovery.

I believe heredity must have an influence - my mum and grandma have also struggled with long-term depression and eating issues. Age is also an important factor. Particularly those people who have struggled throughout their teenage years - our brains grow through major changes at this time and it makes sense that mental illness during these critical years could leave a permanent mark, adapting our systems to be more vulnerable to depression. And this way we have never known an alternative.

Personally, I view my depression as a chronic illness that needs to be managed. The correct cocktail of treatments will become a part of my routine and control the symptoms, flare ups will be more likely when under stress and will need additional treatment. But I don't think this is the same for everyone.

Perhaps it could end up better than I imagine. Maybe there will come a day when I don't think about depression at all (my own depression that is, given that I want to become a therapist), a time when I am so recovered that I don't particularly need to keep an eye on it. But this illness has been with me so long that I can't imagine who I would be without it. Even when I go through extended periods of relative wellness I have never felt recovered, I've never felt that it has left me, I've never forgotten.

During the good times I can accept that this might be the way it has to be, that perhaps depression is just a part of the person I am, that 98% recovery is good enough. But when I am ill I dread that I will never be free of it, that it has forever left its mark.

Maybe a tendency towards depression isn't necessarily a bad thing. Provided that it is well controlled, we may even be able to use to our advantage those thought patterns so detrimental in depression. Some of its traits can be beneficial in small doses - perfectionism can motivate us to achieve our best, overthinking may help us to make that major change that is needed, a slip downwards will be more noticeable and prompt us to change things more quickly. Emphasis on the small doses of course.

As the saying goes, the light shines so much brighter in the darkness and we have experienced such darkness, so how bright must the light be?
Maybe we can translate our horrendous experiences into some good.


Do you view your mental health issues as permanent or transient? Chronic or recoverable?