Recovery from mental illness is not linear.
I’ve been doing so well overall in my recovery from mental illness in the last few years. I feel like I’ve come on in leaps and bounds, especially in my recovery from depression. I have normal ups and downs like everyone, but, on the whole, I’ve been able to maintain a nice balance, never feeling too low or too high.
Which has been so lovely, considering before this, I went through a rough patch of five years where nothing would work to shift my depression.
That is why, in this last week, when I started to feel a depression falling over me, I began to panic.
‘Oh no, why is this happening again?’
‘Oh no I’m going to be stuck like this again forever!’
‘This feels so horrible. I really don’t want to feel like this.’
‘Oh no the heavy stuck feeling is back. I must be having a relapse, I better look this up on Google, my medications must have stopped working. My depression is back.’
It was one scary thought after another, running through my mind like a hamster on a wheel.
This is what happened to my mind as soon as I felt my symptoms coming on again. I quickly realised that my old ways of reacting to myself when I feel like this, had crept up on me.
Instead of taking a step back and realising this could be happening for any number of reasons, my mind went to the worst case scenario. Which made the feelings worse, which then fed into the depression, which then spiralled very quickly to where I was in a complete state of panic.
Luckily, I have an amazing therapist who was able to calm me down and talk me through these feelings. I was able to accept these feelings as they were and reframe the fear into more calm-inducing thoughts:
· It is okay.
· I’m feeling a little more depressed than usual.
· It could be due to being overtired, not resting enough, having too much on my plate.
· Perhaps I just need a good decent rest to recover.
· Perhaps I should give it a few days, rest as much as I can, and if it still feels bad I can always visit my doctor and have my medication altered if needs be.
I began to speak to myself calmly. I started to comfort myself as if I was taking care of a child. I tried to reassure myself that even if my depression was back, it would be okay as I’ve gotten through it before so of course, I can get through it again.
After accepting my feelings as they were, I was able to have a good cry on a couple of the days and I felt so much lighter in the aftermath of those crying sessions.
I realised that this is the time of year I lost my Nanna and that I was so close to her, so maybe this bout of depression was simply grief from her death resurfacing and I just need to let myself be sad and rest more.
I also realised I have been juggling a lot recently and I was actually feeling quite burnt out and in desperate need of some TLC and self-love activities.
In the past, I would have let the dread of what was happening spiral into unmanageable anxiety about having depression. I would have isolated and suppressed these feelings and shamed myself for having them. I would have tried to just get on with things. I definitely would not have allowed myself to cry!
So, I can definitely see that I’ve come a long way and now I know how to manage these ‘wobbles’. I’m feeling more confident about my recovery going forward. I’m pretty sure that there will be many in the future, as that is just the nature of living this life with mental illness.
And that is okay. Wobbles are okay! Healing, as I’ve said, is not linear, some days you’ll be feeling great and others will be much more difficult to navigate. My message to others: Go easy on yourself. You’re going to be okay.
