Depression and ED Update

Depression:

Rating on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being I am feeling great and 1 being I need to go back to the hospital I am at a 3. Not a great place to be but for the past 2.5 months my baseline has been about a 5 to a 6. We are working towards keeping me out of the hospital and I will only be admitted if it becomes absolutely necessary. We are also trying to find the cause of the drop from by baseline and how to get me back to it.

ED:

I’ve returned to working out and eating as little as I can without it raising red flags for people who know that I struggle with eating. I have also started working out more and increasing my water intake.

Is It Worth It?

Every so often I find myself asking this question. It helps me to realize why I am trying to get better and why I should. Sometimes my answer is yes it is worth it but sometimes my answer is that it’s not worth it. When my answer is yes, it usually means that I am in a good place emotionally and when the answer is no it means the latter. So for today I am going to answer this question in the frame of mind I am right now.

Is it worth it?

I’m not sure. I want getting better to be worth it. I want to get to a place where the smallest thing no longer seems like a mountain in my way. But there’s a doubt in my mind that it’s not worth trying to achieve because moving a mountain is nearly impossible. I’m conflicted with myself and my emotions because they seem to be non existent yet all being felt at once. I feel like I don’t belong and no one seems to understand. If I were to tell someone they would immediately respond saying “I/We love you and you shouldn’t feel that way.” Well guess what I do and there’s really nothing anyone can do to make me not feel like that. The feelings have to run their course and invalidating how I am feeling is not going to help. I guess I don’t feel like I can be myself anymore. I just really want to be alone so I can attempt to figure things out, myself. So if it is worth it I guess I will have to wait and see.

How to Forgive and Why You Should

Forgiving someone is probably one of the hardest things to do. I’m not talking about accepting someone’s apology, but 100% forgiving them. It’s not a quick process it can take a while to fully forgive someone but its worth it.

Right now I want you to take a minute and think about someone who you have not fully forgiven. It could be a parent, a sibling, a friend, an abuser, someone who you saw at the store who was rude to you, etc., it could be anyone and as you read through this I want you to keep them in mind. Don’t continue to read until you have at least one person in mind or absolutely can’t think of anyone.

Right now I want to say that for EVERYONE forgiveness looks different. It’s also not a perfect science but finally doing it should make you feel better.

I watched a movie in 2009 called ‘Madea Goes to Jail’ and it has become one of my favorite movies. Not just because it was a funny movie, but because of one line that was said, “Forgiveness is not for them, it’s for you.” I think this is the most important thing as to why forgiveness is so important. If you spend all of your time refusing to forgive someone you live your life being held down by that baggage. I understand that an abuser is probably going to be one of the hardest people to forgive but it is possible and it takes time. For me when I finally forgave I felt free and empowered. The process of going through the forgiving was not easy. I am the type of person who pushes down all of my negative feelings and I don’t deal with them. But going through the process of forgiveness forced me to deal with the anger and hurt and sadness that I felt surrounding the situation. There were times that I was just angry for absolutely no reason and I took it out on my mom. I’m so thankful that I have such an amazing mom because after things like that happened she just waited for me to chill out and then we talked about it. It took me probably about 2 years to finally forgive this person and everyday that this skeleton starts to creep up on me I have to tell my self that I forgave this person and I don’t have to be okay with what happened but it happened and I have to live the life that I have for now and not dwell on what happened.

So I am going to give the three steps that I used to forgive

1. Acknowledging what happened and admitting that it was not my fault
2. Talking to my therapist about what happened
3. Saying out loud that I forgave this person

For step one acknowledging what happened was very important but admitting that it wasn’t my fault was hard. For this step if part of it was your fault you have to admit that. For those of you who were sexually abused you need to know what happened to you was not your fault.

For step two talking to my therapist was difficult because I had never told anyone about it so I was never able to work through it. Talking to someone who can help you work through it is crucial. It doesn’t have to be a therapist. For some people talking to the person who they need to forgive can help with the process. But if talking to that person puts you in any danger or you don’t feel comfortable doing it, DON’T DO IT. There are plenty of other people you can talk to, find a mentor, talk to a parent, someone you trust, but you have to talk about it.

For step three I said the person’s name out loud that I needed to forgive. But there are many ways to do this. Some people write out what happened and/or the person’s name and then burned the paper they wrote it on. Some people rip up the paper. Some people go up to the person and tell them that they forgive them. With step three it allows for that person you are forgiving to lose power over you and your happiness. Step three is the reason that forgiveness is worth it. You are no longer allowing for that person to have ANY control over you. YOU get to live YOUR life they way YOU want to. It’s empowering to feel in control again. You set yourself free with forgiveness.

Don’t rush the process of trying to forgive someone it takes time. Also these steps are the ones that I use and that work for me. Everyone is different and just because something worked for me does not mean that it is going to work for you, and that is completely okay. You are going to have to figure out what works and what doesn’t work for you and not get discouraged because one thing doesn’t work. You can do it!

If you need someone to reach out to feel free to send me a message to me on Facebook and I may not be able to help and if I can’t I will tell you and help you find someone who can. Keep going and keep living because you are worth it.

~”Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” Julie Andrews~

Things People Need to Stop Believing About Depression

Depression and Sadness are the same thing.

Depression is usually characterized as having feelings of sadness that last more than 2 weeks. Sadness is a feeling that IS used to describe depression but what is usually forgotten is that the sadness is unexplained. I know people who say that they think they have depression because they are feeling sad about something that happened. I’m not saying that they don’t have depression but most of the time it’s just they don’t understand the difference between having depression and just feeling sad.

Men don’t get depressed.

Depression does not care what your gender is, the color of your skin or, how much money you have. Depression does not discriminate.

You will have to be on medication for the rest of your life.

Antidepressants cure depression.

I’m going to combine the two above because they go together. Antidepressants may help relieve symptoms of depression but it is no way a cure. Antidepressants help some people but they aren’t for everyone. If you are going to take antidepressants to help with your depression you are not going to have to take them for the rest of your life. I may be for a year or a few years and some people may take it for a while. Everyone is different so the effects of an antidepressant may be different.

Talking about depression makes it worse.

Talking about depression is not going to make it worse unless you are saying things that are just rude. (Read my blog post Not Okay to Say). By talking about depression and being accepting of it helps break down the stigma around it.

Children and teens can’t have depression, it’s just their hormones.

Once again depression does not discriminate. It can affect anyone.

People who have depression are lazy and just want to feel sorry for themselves.

One thing that I know is common among people with depression is that they aren’t lazy. Some mornings it’s harder to get out of bed than others, some days it’s harder to get out and be around people, some days just suck a lot more than others. I know for me when I start having days like that, want to get out and do something because I know that there’s a chance that I will feel better. Anyone with depression knows wallowing in sadness is not going to make your day any better.

If your family suffers from depression, you’re going to get it too.

Yes people who have a family history of depression are at risk for it but that in no way means that you’re going to get it.

Everyone who is depressed is suicidal.

That’s like saying everyone that lives in America eats McDonald’s. It is common for people who have depression to become suicidal but some people just aren’t suicidal. It’s also not an immediate thing. For some people they feel so hopeless and like there is no point in living that they feel like taking their life is the only option. Please, don’t assume a person is suicidal just because they have depression.