Memoirs Of Depression

It might seem counter productive to read about other people's experiences of depression, particularly if they are in depth and auto-biographical. There can be triggers within the contexts which poses a threat to the recovering and well-being of readers that are depressed. However, I find them to be highly informative. I recently started browsing for books on mental health, in particular those surrounding the conditions of social anxiety and depression. I had previously been given a book of this nature before. Initially I was reluctant as I've been bombarded with studies, theories and books with contradictory claims and it just puts my head into a faster spin cycle. Sometimes it can be hard to accept help from others. Of course support is welcomed, but in most cases it is likely that the person experiencing depression has done a fair amount of research into the illness themselves.

The books I've come across vary in their approaches to the condition. Some have been written from the perspective of the psychiatrists sharing how they feel seeing patients with similar issues day after day and how that affects them. Something which could be an interesting read as a high proportion of psychiatrists have gone into their profession due to a personal experience of mental illness.

I prefer to avoid being bogged down by the science of depression. Instead I have a few books that are memoirs, in depth books providing an insight into the author's experience of depression, what worked for them and what didn't, how bad things got for them and in some cases how they escaped the dark depths of depression. I love seeing people's reactions to the cover of the book I have my nose in, the titles aren't exactly cheery so it's funny to see them recoil with wide eyes. I think it's worthwhile for anyone to read these sorts of books, you may well find yourself in a similar position one day or come across someone in your life experiencing depression. If anything, the discussion of symptoms will help you to recognise them in yourself or others. Of course certain parts of the book can be quite distressing to read, yet I find comfort in knowing that someone else knows how badly depression can pollute the mind. And I'm glad that these authors have managed to express themselves for their own benefit as well as getting their stories seen by thousands of other people.

In the coming weeks I am going to be posting short book reviews on the titles I've been reading recently. Hopefully this will act as a guide to anyone interested in reading about depression in this way. The reviews will also highlight whether sensitive issues and potential triggers such as self harm are mentioned.

Your Words Cut Deep

 Image from https://instagram.com/colourpopcosmetics/

 Image from https://instagram.com/colourpopcosmetics/

 I saw the images from Colour Pop Cosmetics a few weeks ago. Perhaps it's just my mind and vision that made me see something different. Usually make-up swatches are done on the back of the hand to show how the colours look against skin tones. Perhaps I was in some bad head space but it reminded me of something different. This isn't a bad thing I think if that's the intention (as mine was) and as a creator you are looking to produce a strong image, you've got it right there. I am sorry if this causes offence or provokes negative thoughts for anyone. I will now warn you that the following post is on the subject of self harm. I have been working on this post for months. I've created numerous drafts but was never entirely satisfied with the outcome. Unfortunately it took a relapse (last Saturday) for me to be able to create a balanced piece of writing on the subject; I have been both the outsider seeing the scars of self harmers and the participant. I have looked for too long and also been looked at by others. It is my hope that I've discussed the subject sensitively and hopefully it won't trigger any negative thoughts for those who have self harmed in the past or currently still do so. I know how damaging it can be to come across pieces of writing composed in the wrong way about self harm. I have refrained from going into detail on my experiences of self harm to avoid producing triggers or relapses. I hope that people can benefit from reading this. If you are concerned that you could be triggered, I'm sorry, but please try to scroll to the bottom of the post and find the 10 bullet points that I hope will be motivational and inspire happy thoughts.

Self harm isn't an easy topic to talk about, it's a complex thing to experience and to fathom. Some people may believe that self harm is limited to a certain group of people, wrong. These people may also believe there is only one method of self harm, also wrong. It was something that was associated as being "emo" whilst I was in high school (six years ago), the words "depression" "depressed and "depressing" were used colloquially; used casually and didn't mean that those people were genuinely depressed. When I was 16/17 years old I wasn't entirely sure what it meant to be depressed, I knew that I was sad, alone and feeling empty. Somehow I manage to walk around and muddle through life at that time, but at the time I felt like an empty shell, I allowed people to talk to me in ways that aren't acceptable, I was treated badly and I just took it. I didn't process what was happening, the damage had already been done prior to this, they'd beaten me into submission with their words, shunning and not allowing me to pass by without acknowledging them in some way. The damage was done, they'd hit a home run but weren't satisfied with that, they continued to swing away and the balls just bounced off my empty shell.

After a while, I became desperate to feel something. I had felt a lot of pain before, but now it couldn't touch me. I was invincible or indestructible, I was scared that I didn't feel human any more and just didn't feel anything. The Internet is a fantastic resource for many things, in an emergency we can look up how to put a spare tyre on our cars when one is flat, we can search for how to remove certain stains when our parents aren't available to help us with their wealth of knowledge. It's a fantastic resource, but in the hands of someone feeling depressed and desperate to feel some kind of emotion it can become a dangerous tool. I went searching for answers about what was happening to me, why did I feel like an empty shell? How could I feel something again? Type a question into Google or any other search engine and an enormous amount of information is churned out in front of you. I managed to find myself on a website that was essentially a wordy tutorial of ways to harm myself. If I couldn't feel anything why not inflict pain upon myself to feel?

I'll never provide exact details of what I did to myself, partly because I never want anyone to stumble across this blog and see it as a tutorial to harm themselves, I don't want to became part of that system I discovered. It's also a very private thing to go through, I do get asked questions about it and sometimes I will begrudgingly provide some answers to reassure people. Self harm can occur for a variety of reasons. People harm themselves because they desire to feel pain, some people enjoy the pain and crave it, others use it as a form of punishment for things they've done or failed to do. It's associated with a variety of health problems including (but not limited to) depression, anxiety and eating disorders. I self harmed for a combination of reasons, mostly because I longed to feel something, but also as a form of punishment. Strangely enough I punished myself for thinking certain things about myself, the depression was whispering in my ear and more often that not I believed the degrading things it churned out in my mind. Sometimes I felt the need to combat these negative thoughts by punishing the dark monster of depression, its words cut me deep. I inflicted pain upon myself and subsequently said 'monster', and it would go away for a time. I was temporarily slaying the beast.

When I am in that mind frame it's difficult to think good things about myself, I am the queen of put downs for myself. Not a title anyone should strive to achieve. I've struggled to believe that I deserve happiness, friends,  or a future. I struggle to accept compliments because of the hate and put downs I was pelted with by bullies. Perhaps the voice of the dreary dark monster is the bully or at least echoes the voices of those bullies. Do they now exist within me? As is struggle to be kind to myself I find it hard to follow my own advice. A very wise person told me to write down things I'd say to someone who had self harmed so I present you with those musings:

1. Don't listen to the people that say you're doing it for attention. 
2. I know you are hurting right now, but you are strong.
3. When you are ready to do so, make sure that you take care of your wounds, wash them, pop on a plaster if need be (a super awesome colourful one if you can) and carry on. 
4. If anyone asks about the plasters just say a) its an awesome plaster, why wouldn't I wear it? b) tell them the truth about whats its covering, c) say you scraped yourself on a tree branch or make up some badass war-wound story and be the legend you deserve to be known as!
5. They aren't really staring at you, your brain and the illness is making you a wee bit paranoid and wants you to hurt some more. DON'T allow it to!
6. Perhaps they are staring, or they've drifted off into a day dream and their gaze just so happened to rest upon your badass plasters. 
7. If they genuinely are staring and you feel confident enough give THEM the look up and down, "yeah, what you looking at punk?".
8. It's not a sign of weakness, you are not weak. Yes you harmed yourself and I'm sorry that you felt so badly and that this happened to you. I think you are strong, you may have been sad, angry, desperate but you didn't try the alternative. You were so determined to feel something, you are determined to live and to survive this. 
9. Cuts and bruises will fade, the biggest wound of all would be if we lost you. 
10. Wear your scars with pride, you survived, you've healed and you've defeated.

Scraping The Barrel

I've been trying really hard to write this post for months now. I had written content prior to launching the blog in October. My writing process varies from drawing upon memories and experiences of my own, reacting to mental health coverage online and in the news and sometimes finding unexpected triggers of inspiration in objects, TV programmes and quotes. Most often something will come into my head when I'm suffering from insomnia, I know I have to get it down immediately in case I suddenly drift into sleep and wake up not being able to recall those thoughts in the morning. Sometimes an entire post will come to me immediately, I'll write it in the notes app on my phone and barely edit the wording when it comes to typing it up on my laptop. There are occasions, like this one, where I've been desperate to discuss an important topic, most likely a sensitive one too, and I'll just be stumped by it. The sentences form very slowly and I'll trip over the wording, really beating myself up over the quality of it all. I've attempted to write this post four, perhaps five times. Some of my notes were lighthearted in attempts to skim over the darkness of the content, whereas other notes go into a dangerous amount of detail which could trigger a period of depression or self-harm for those with mental health conditions. I started writing this post thinking I'd finally worked up the courage to discuss my experience with and knowledge of self harm. I'm afraid I haven't quite managed that today, some areas are easier for me to write about but self-harm is an incredibly serious, sensitive and tricky subject to manoeuvre around and I don't want to cause any harm to anyone by not wording it correctly. Its also still an incredibly raw nerve for me. I often say the last time I harmed myself was this time last year. But to be honest I somehow manage to block out that it happened not so long ago, so please give me time to do the subject justice. My main motivation behind this blog is believing that I could help just one person with my words, so someone knows that they aren't alone in what they're going through. I know how that feels, I didn't have any idea what was happening to me when I was 16, I just happened to stumble across the lovely Zoella who had just posted about panic attacks. That's all it took, it clicked in my head. I am not alone in this, and neither are you.

As I tried to write this post I felt myself slipping into a dark spot, feeling sore around my eyes, waiting for the tears to form and thinking that closing the laptop lid and retreating was inevitable. It seems ridiculous to me that I can become so tongue-tied even when it comes to a subject which I'm very familiar with, painfully familiar with. This is my duty, my job as such to help people with my words and hopefully educate those who don't quite understand aspects of mental illness. So when I feel like I'm failing at that I plunge into the dark pits of depression and submerge myself in it feeling desperate to scream at myself, but the pit won't let the sound bounce back to me, I can't hear the scream, or perhaps I just can't let it out for everyone else to hear. It can be incredibly hard to write it down accurately, or to the level I expect from myself. I don't want to skimp on the details or publish anything until its just right. Sometimes I wish I could video myself talking about all this, but I'm usually just as inarticulate when I speak out loud, although perhaps those reading would actually feel like there is a real girl behind all of this. I use blogging as a way of expressing myself when words fail me when interacting with others in person, I head a Youtuber say something that rung true and applicable to me the other day "I mean, I'm on Youtube because I don't know how to interact in the real world"(Thomas TomSka, 2015).

 I often forget how hard this process can be, I'm pouring out my soul, my past, my present to hundreds of readers each week, I am thrilled that my blog generates on average 1,000 views each month, thank you to everyone who reads my ramblings. I don't want to give up on writing the blog, I don't even wish to take a break, but I do want people to realise how difficult it can be. I may be 'Cheerful Chelsea' but the truth is more often than not, I can be far from that persona. This was evident when I was trying to arrange this post in my mind for the thousandth time. I'm a hardcore fan geek when it comes to video extras of films and TV programmes, and I was watching a behind the making of Game of Thrones prior to writing this, and I just zoned out. Around twenty minutes of videos passed me by and I wasn't jumping for joy with my nose pressed against the screen to take in every detail. Not like me at all, I usually re-watch these segments at least five times. So when that happened due to stressing over a blog post I did question whether this all does more harm than good. I really hope it helps someone. So perhaps I didn't quite make it to writing the self harm post I had intended, perhaps I've just discovered that fretting about things too much can be a form of self harm in itself. Just know that the intended post is coming. Also, on a final note, try to keep this in mind "everything will be fine in the end. If it is not fine, then it is not yet the end"(quote from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel).