When Your Depression Isn’t Worthy

So I am in my mid 30s. I am married. I have three children aged between 4-14. I have a job. Actually, I have two jobs.

I have experienced tragedy, recently. But long before all the recent heartache, tragedy, and trauma, I suffered with depression and anxiety.

There are times in my life, dare I say, sometimes even years, that go by, where I would say I’m not depressed and sometimes months, without anxiety. I project the image, like most people who suffer with it, of being “fine.” I’ll carry on as usual at work, I’ll stick a smile on my face before I walk into a room so that people don’t look any further. I listen to my kids, play with my kids in the garden and all the while, want to go and lay down.

Sometimes I want to cry, sometimes I think of hurting myself. MANY times I have pictured myself taking my own life. When I was a teen, I used to scratch my arms with nail scissors. I wasn’t what I would have called a self-harmer, but looking back, anyone inflicting any kind of damage (long-lasting or not) is a self-harmer.

When I was 17, I took an overdose of antidepressants. Only (even more depressingly at be time) for the ambulance (a family member called them after I panicked and confessed) to be told I hadn’t taken enough to be taken into hospital. I’d feel really ill for a couple of days and then be fine. I spent the night shivering on my bathroom floor feeling so sick I thought I’d throw up but never did. When my family asked me why, I’d told them I just wanted to be unconscious. I didn't want to die, I just wanted to stop the pain. I wasn’t able to deal with it. It was so painful for me. I felt alone and no one understood.

I went on anti-depressants several times and came back off of them within a few months. I took sedative on and off for months. I was told I should stop taking them because they were addictive, I sought out another doctor who would prescribe me more. I later learned this was called “doctor shopping.” Luckily, I managed to realise what was going on and woke up one day and threw the rest of a pack away.

At the age of 20, I gave birth to my son, the father wasn’t around, only my mum. I lived alone after he was born, in a studio flat. I would sit outside on the doorstep crying when I couldn’t stop him from crying. I felt guilt; huge guilt and failure.

On and off since then, there have been instances where depression has arisen, taken over for a while and then faded away. In the in-between phases, I would describe myself as happy. Not counting the odd down days, which I think everyone has, these bouts are as random as the weather and with no apparent fixed cause or reason.

What has only become a recent feature of my depression, is the thought of deserving. Finally intellectually knowing, if not feeling, that I finally don’t deserve to judge myself as harshly as I do. That my feelings of shame and paranoia, that people dismiss me as weak and worthless because of this, come from me and me alone.

There’s a grey area in being able to tell someone you’re depressed and not coping and feeling like even saying the words “I want to die” out loud, feeling like you're going to be judged as a massive drama queen and a selfish one at that. It’s a hard place to be. I’ve hovered outside someone’s door for hours on and off, waiting for the courage and the words to pop into my head. The right words, the strength to say, help me. Because when I’ve done it before, people have supported me, but the thing nobody tells them is how to help.

They’re sitting with you, quite possibly holding your hand, a look of intense sadness on their faces as they earnestly stare at you searching for what to say. Suggesting counseling and pills, neither of which you want. You just want to go to bed. But you can’t because little people depend on you. You can’t because if you disappear off the radar, Becky from accounts will be calling the next day asking if you’ve completed your report and your boss will be questioning what you’re doing.

You’re a terrible liar, but you also lack the conviction and feelings of worthiness in your own pain, so you fumble about with words like “anxious” and “Dr's note” and even if they’re not, you feel as though they’re judging you. As though, the moment they hang up, they’ll be rolling their eyes at work and sighing about the fact that they’ll somehow have to pick up where you left off.

You’re at home, you’re entitled to this few days off to make yourself feel better. To “recover”, the company policies advocate mental health awareness. Yet, you lay in bed on your first day off feeling nothing but guilt, nothing but a letdown. Worse still, a FRAUD. Because the sheer panic you felt when sitting on the train yesterday on the way to work, at the thought of your colleagues asking hints of you, of sweating as you run to the bathroom. For the fifth time that morning feeling sick with anxiety, is gone. You picture your colleagues able to see you in your bed scrolling listlessly through Facebook, or making a sandwich, or watching TV and think that they would be sneering to one another “nothing wrong with her NOW is there.”

This is what I need to get past. Realise that my boss IS supportive. Realise that I am NOT a fraud and realise that I don’t need to feel guilt. That yes, maybe people will roll their eyes and judge but that their judgment doesn’t invalidate MY life and experiences. But I still do feel that way and that’s probably one of my biggest problems.

Maybe though recognising it, is the first step in changing it. That’s why I wrote this post, to say that if others feel this way, a feeling within the depression, for those of you who have periods of time where you feel fine, for those of you who are not on medication, not seeing a therapist and not constantly feeling down, you’re not alone and you’re not any less valid.