Yesterday whilst at work I received a message telling me that a former colleague of mine had passed away and it was soon confirmed that they took their own life. Whilst most people would understand that this is something that would impress on the heart, for me it runs much deeper than that.
Many choose not to talk about their battles with mental illness due to the stigmas surrounding mental illness in society, so that they aren’t viewed as weak by those who don’t understand what it is like to suffer from any mental illness. Thankfully however, story by story, person by person, this stigma is being broken down and mental illness has begun to gain the recognition it deserves for it is often a silent killer.
If the stigma is being broken down story by story and person by person then I want to add my story to that collection. Whilst this hasn’t been a secret so to speak, it’s something I’ve only ever spoken about to a few people when it seemed appropriate and to this day not one family member of mine is aware.
When I was 16 I was diagnosed with depression. Things at home were rough, and whilst this isn’t the forum to go into specifics, they weren’t showing any signs of improvement after a constant deterioration over many years including a rapid escalation over the twelve months prior.
Yes I felt sad a lot of the time, but it is much more than that.
I lost sleep. I lost motivation. I lost direction.
I felt worthless. I felt it was my fault.
I lost my own feeling identity – I no longer felt like me.
The path out was treacherous. You would feel like you were nearly there but that could change in a minute, only then the added despair of the setback pushes you down further than you were to begin with. You begin to feel like it is a trap, that you are never meant to escape. Eventually, it became that sense of helplessness that kept you down – there would even be periods where it would prevent you from trying to find a path out because the thought of failing again becomes too much.
One of my mistakes at the time was likely trying to tackle the battle head on – by myself. Just like so many others, I didn’t want to tell anyone else and put a smile on my face each day to hide the inner darkness of the illness.
However, in one of the things I am most thankful for I scratched and clawed and eventually found my way out. It was the biggest mental battle of my life, and it is one which will likely never be over. There will always be things which happen that in the moment make you feel like a relapse is forthcoming. Today however, unlike before, I am stronger and wiser – to the symptoms and the battle. Make no mistake, that doesn’t mean I am safe but there is an obsession to make sure I never allow myself back into the place.
Where does the guilt come into it? Upon hearing the aforementioned news, I was overcome by a myriad of feelings and emotions. Sorrow, grief but one of the surprising ones was guilt. I felt guilty because I found a way through it and that in this case, someone else didn’t. This does not make me stronger than anyone else going through similar battles – It means I was lucky. This fate could have happened to anyone, because on any given day anyone is susceptible to the vile, horrible illness that is depression. It raises a bunch of questions which I can’t answer as to why I was so lucky, whilst I can’t answer those questions I can be sure I don’t waste another breath.
There is so much more work to be done in this area to make the conversations around depression and mental health normal and acceptable but this is one thing where talking about it can also be doing something about it.
To anyone feeling down, speak up. It is okay, it is normal and it is acceptable.
To anyone thinking someone may be suffering – ask them R U OK?
And to my colleague, Rest in Paradise.
May heaven be much kinder to you than this world was.
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