Cursed, lonely, exhausted and suffocated. Four adjectives that still struggle to fully encapsulate how I have been feeling lately. To tell the full truth, I feel lower than I have before; overcome by circumstance and separated through consequence. I have found myself at breaking point on several occasions, with no reason to feel that I should try to climb back.
I have accepted and understood what is wrong with me. It is an illness, a disease, a horrible, dark, inescapable curse. Again however, these words do not and cannot fully encapsulate the true extent to the torture and suffering that I have no choice but to endure. With accepting and understanding what is wrong with me, you could well expect that I would be more positive, as the diagnosis is clear, and therefore the correct solutions can now take place? Unfortunately, the story is very different. It is well and good understanding what is wrong with you, but when it feels that you cannot help yourself at all, you pray that perhaps there are other ways in which people can provide the help in which you can find from within you. Sadly, it isn’t like that. When a person is diagnosed with Cancer, it is of course absolutely devastating for their friends and family and obviously that person too. However, the confidence and hope that can be found in such an awful circumstance is that people understand what Cancer is, furthermore, they understand what the impact of cancer is on a human. They understand the methods in which cancer can be treated, they understand what systems are in place to help those in that terrible position, they understand that speaking to that person will help, they understand that supporting that family is highly important and, although it is no consolation, it certainly helps that people can open their arms to help you. I do fully condone and support this however, this is not the case with Mental Illness. As I mentioned in my previous posts, the stigma around mental illness needs to be tackled, but there is nothing in place to help this happen. People seriously underestimate the effect of Depression on people, and clearly do not realise that we are living through an increasing epidemic. The sad truth is that nobody understands, and nobody tries to understand. I do not believe that you have to experience Depression to understand it completely; all it takes a commitment to help someone, and a commitment to empathise constructively.
Once you are diagnosed, you simply know what the problem is, help is not immediate. In fact, I only received immediate help three days ago, when I told doctors that I was genuinely questioning how far I needed to go before somebody would show me that they cared about me. Why should it take these extremes before somebody takes you seriously? It should not.
I am utterly stifled by this illness. It is like there are two people that live within me, there is the normal Adam, the one who writes these blogs and the one who thinks normally, the one who wants to fight, achieve, live and love. However, there is another person that strangles hold of the real me. I cannot speak, I cannot think, I cannot do. I can only see what he wants me to see, and the only thing he wants me to see is that a job is no longer worth the money, exercise is no longer worth the physical health, that life itself is not worth living. I have accepted it, and I understand it, but it doesn’t get any easier when people do not try to understand or help you. People shy away, and brush it under the carpet, and that is a great shame within itself, because I feel that too.
I do not want you to feel sorry for me, I do not want sympathy. I do want help, but not sympathy. I want you to feel something, anything, because if you feel something then it means you’re understanding something. I understand that I’m not going to change the world with this blog at the moment, but all I want to do is to try and do is break the societal paradigm that has risen about treating Depression as a small issue, that people will just simply “get over”. The illness will not permit that. Consumerism and the media continuously send messages of buying this a product for the feeling of “completeness”, to bring joyfulness and enlightenment in every single day. It is not possible in real life. It is easy to belittle, undermine or evade me, or somebody suffering with Depression. The weakness lies with those who do that, because the lack of understanding is the weakness, weaker than the illness itself. Depression is not something that can just change, it lies deeper within me, and of course within others for more than people realise. It destroys lives and it is destroying mine. I am not just a bit mad for a while, I am sick and I want to get better. It is not just in my head, it is real and it is inside me.
I am searching for something greater to help me, is it Science? Is it Psychology? Is it friends? Is it family? Is it God? At the moment, I do not know what is going to help me, however I have faith in myself to overcome. I just hope people start realising what is happening. I believe that there are no martyrs in resolution. However, I’m not so sure that the thing inside me believes the same things as me, as far as I know it believes the complete opposite. But as I say, I have faith.
Adam Dow. 