3 Things That Got Me Through Depression
Depression is one of the most common mental health issues that people experience. As many as one in five Australians will have this illness at some stage in their life.
Depression and anxiety frequently emerge at times of transition as a consequence of the stress that life transitions bring with them. In my own experience, the was the transition from a single woman to couple. And then from couple to a couple with children. It was not surprising that I became depressed – but I didn’t see it like that at the time!
At that stage of my life, my husband and I were committed to and worked for The Salvation Army, having been raised within this cultural context. The Salvation Army had been like a benevolent parent who provided employment, housing, community, identity and support. It was all that we had ever known and I felt secure and happy. I had no idea that a life crisis was heading my way.
The ‘clouds of depression’ had been gathering over a number of years previous to my marriage, however I had continued to function, having no idea what the source of my constant fatigue was. The birth of our twin daughters was a joyful and exhilarating time. But I could not shake off my feelings of sadness and isolation. My body constantly ached as I struggled to make it through each day.
For two years I continued to push myself to be a good wife, mother, daughter and working professional and I fulfilled the roles assigned to me and the expectations that came by association.
There were three things that got me through that time. They were a good starting point to just survive the depression – but not to heal from it.
Here are the resources that got me through that time.
1. Support
I had the support of two friends. They listened, encouraged me and did very practical things like helping with the ironing and giving me a hand feeding the babies. These mature women understood the struggle I experienced and accepted me without judgement. I have always felt an unfailingly gratitude towards them.. If you have people in your life who want to help you, accepting their support is not a sign of weakness. It is the recognition that you are not ‘super-woman’ but a normal human-being under significant stress.
2.Spirituality
I have always had a very strong sense of what is sacred in my life and practiced the discipline of meditation. My personal belief in a loving and compassionate God, nurtured within me a spirit of gratitude and the belief that every life experience has purpose and meaning. Your spirituality can be a rich source of inner calm and groundedness and can be viewed as separate from following a religion. Religion is about following a particular belief system, its rules and rituals. For some people this is very life-giving and grounding. I prefer to separate the two because whilst I enjoy meaningful rituals, in my own experience following a religious pattern became life-draining. This did not mean that I abandoned my faith, only that I needed to let go of religious expectations that had an exhausting and stressful impact upon me.
3. Hope
The hope that things would change for the better. This hope enabled me to hold on to life and not give up, though there were many times when I felt like it.
I survived with these resources for two years, however they were not enough to restore my wellbeing. As a consequence, I became seriously unwell, physically collapsing at home whilst caring for my 2-year-old twin daughters. This finally drew attention to how seriously unwell I was. However if I had known what I know now, I could have received the help I needed well before this and recovered much quicker than the 15 years that my recovery journey actually took.
Click here for the things I wish someone had told me then. I hope they help you now.