Dealing with depression and mental illness

I recently read a very interesting article titled “3 Lies We Need to Stop Telling About ‘Negative People’ “(the link to it is right at the end of this post and I strongly suggest checking it out) and frankly, it resonated with me so much that I really felt like going a bit deeper into it here. Perhaps that might come off as unusual since I haven’t really touched down on any deep, personal topics yet but I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we deal with depression and other forms of mental illness lately and I suppose that article struck a chord with me, particularly because I’ve dealt with depressive issues in the past and I’m dealing with them now.

I really like it how that article debunks the myths surrounding the so-called “negative people” and the false idea that sticking close to people who are going through a very rocky time in their life for whatever reason and therefore are experimenting severe anxiety or depressive issues is such an unhealthy thing to do to ourselves that the best way to face a situation like that is cutting ties with the people affected, right off the bat without much thinking. I understand every person’s own happiness should be their top priority but does it really have to be that way?? I don’t really think so.

I recently went through some emotional delicate situations that got me feeling very low and depressed and at the beginning, I went through this phase where I would talk very little to anyone out of fear of being a burden to them but even though I’m still struggling with depression because of what’s happened in my life over the past few months, at some point I realized that if I kept doing that to the people I care about I would be doing pretty much what was done to me and got me feeling so bad in the first place to them and that didn’t sound very fair.

The aforementioned article focused mostly on the way other people perceive mental illness and it explained very well why cutting someone affected by depression or anxiety out of your life just like that is needlessly drastic and rather cruel, especially if you call that person a “friend”. However, I’d like to focus on how the people who are struggling with mental illness perceive and accept their condition and what a good way to deal with that might be because in my case, my initial reaction was to close in and avoid any form of communication related to what I was going through precisely out of fear that people who are important to me would just leave me asides if they felt I was being a burden to them because of my mental state.

I am really far from being an expert on these matters, I wish I was so that everything would be easier but sadly, I’m not. One thing I’ve learned, though, is that if communication is important when things seem to be alright or at least sort of alright, it becomes even more relevant when things aren’t; talking about your feelings and what you’re going through during a rough period isn’t easy, sometimes that’s the last thing we want to do but sometimes that might be precisely what we need the most even if we can’t quite feel that way at the moment.

I think making an effort to try to come across our feelings at least to some extent and get rid of the erroneous preconception that somehow we’re going to hurt our friends and family or make their lives “toxic” by opening up to them about our condition is fundamental. Being as upfront as possible about what we’re going through isn’t going to fix anything by itself and it’s no guarantee people would be more supportive to us in any way but just being outspoken about it already makes a huge, cathartic difference. I also realized that the more I tried talking about my depressive problems, even if it was just a little bit, the more I felt relieved.  Just letting everything off of your chest can have a surprisingly healing effect and if, on top of that, the other person happens to empathize with what you’re going through and react in a considerate and patient way then such positive effects will only increase.

It is important to acknowledge we do not represent a threat to anyone’s emotional stability, no matter how messed up we’re feeling, just by telling them about our problems and, daunting as it might be at first, we have to trust that the people who are important to us won’t cut us out, even if there’s a realistic chance some of them might, giving all these “negative people” misconceptions that were talked about on that article I mentioned are rather frequent in people nowadays.

In all honesty, trusting others has become nearly impossible to me at this point for a number of reasons but I also understand that somehow we have to teach ourselves to do it and get rid of the fear that things will go bad because that’s how 99% of the time things are for us. First, we have to work on trusting ourselves and then we have to move on and work on trusting others; trust is a type gamble and like any gamble sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t but living our lives convinced that it never will, in the end will only leave us feeling desolated and unsatisfied and that’s simply unfair; unfair to either our friends or family who might be genuinely interested in supporting us the best they can and unfair to us because we cannot torture ourselves thinking that mental illness is our fault or something that will eventually set us apart from the people we love.

Sometimes there are people who really want to help but they just don’t know how and I understand very well how hard it is to tell them how when we ourselves are not quite clear on what we’re feeling and let alone can we articulate it in a way that would make any sense to others but that’s where communication comes to play; communication is a mutual thing, it’s reciprocal and we can learn a whole awful lot about our mental illness and how to get over it or at least put up with it in the healthiest way possible, just by talking and exchanging ideas back and forth with someone we care, there’s no need for greater explanations.

I’d like to think this whole post is a modest example of a way to let your feelings out and talking about your problems; not long ago writing about this type of stuff publicly on a blog would’ve been outright unthinkable for me but I just felt it was a good thing to do and honestly, writing about it for a while felt very good; writing and talking can be way more therapeutic than most people might think and when it comes to our mental health, really, we owe at least that to ourselves, we must to try.

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/04/lies-about-negative-people/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare

Now, how about some happy stuff? :)