Depression Awareness Week

This week has been Depression Awareness Week and I wanted to do a post focused more on trying to help others understand depression a little bit more.  Depression is something that is really hard to go through, and it's also really hard to understand unless you (or someone close to you) have gone through it yourself.  Because of this, I never expect people to FULLY understand what it is like to experience depression.  Heck, I don't even want anyone else to have to know what this feels like.  But society as a whole treats depression with a stigma and judgement and a complete lack of information, and it's time to change that.

There is this idea that because people can't necessarily "see" the depression, that it doesn't exist.  Because it's not physical, they think we're making it up.  Let me assure you, depression is NOT something that someone can just "snap out of it."  Do you really think we like feeling the way we do?  If something as easy as "snapping out of it" would fix things, don't you think we would have done so already?!?!  I've spent a lot of time trying to find ways to help explain to people why the comments they make are hurtful, judgmental, and most of all, ignorant.

For example-  Telling someone not to be depressed because someone always has it worse, is like saying someone can't be happy because someone always has it better.  It just sounds stupid, doesn't it?  Would you ever tell someone they were to blame for cancer, or a tumor?  So why blame someone because they have depression?  Asking someone how they can be depressed when there's so much great things in the world, is like asking someone how can they have asthma when there's so much air around them.  Do you realize how ignorant these things sound?

Depression causes a lot of struggles that I have to face every single day.  Struggles that not every one sees.  Like when I'm so depressed I can't get out of bed.  It's not that I don't want to get out of bed, or I'm not trying hard enough, it's that the depression is so heavy and the thought of having to do anything is so completely overwhelming, that it completely paralyzes me.  I lie in bed sobbing for hours.  Or how I can feel so incredibly lonely, even when I'm around people.  I'm so afraid of failure that it often keeps me from even trying.  I've lost so many friends because they couldn't handle my depression, or just from the stigma that was attached to it.  Sometimes it feels impossible just to take another step, or another breath.  It feels like I'm trying to breathe under water with a thousand tons of bricks on my chest.  My mind is completely engulfed in this unbearable darkness and I'm so afraid of it.  When I'm suicidal, I have to spend 100% of my energy on fighting those thoughts and trying to keep myself safe that I don't have energy left to worry about trying to eat, shower or brush my teeth.  It feels like I'm in this deep dark pit, drowning, with no way out, no light, and no one else around.  There are times when I can't bear to be around anyone and so I lock myself in my bedroom alone and just cry for hours because it's all I can manage to do.  There doesn't need to be a "reason" to be depressed- it's just there.  It's like a constant dark cloud that fills up every nook and cranny in your mind and the rest of your body until it controls you and shuts you down.

There were some comics I posted several posts ago about just how depression can affect someone.  The artist is Nick Seluk and I had his permission to post them.  I think these pictures do a good job of explaining how depression can feel so I'm going to post them again.

There is currently a campaign on the social media sites for this week #whatyoudontsee.  If you have some time, please take a look at some of the posts people are writing.  They will give you a very real look into the struggles people face every day.  Like this one-

PLEASE take it seriously when someone says they have depression.  Please don't brush it off or tell them it's their fault or that they're just not trying hard enough.  Encourage them to get help if they aren't already.  I'm incredibly grateful to have such an amazing therapy now.  Don't get my wrong, I liked my old therapist, but after awhile, it just felt like I wasn't getting what I needed.  I'm so glad I switched therapists and found someone new.  She helps me set goals, she gives me assignments to work on throughout the week; she's compassionate and genuinely seems to care.  She encourages me to give her a call throughout the week if I'm having a hard time.  She has helped me make some very real progress for the first time.

Therapy is really hard sometimes...

I know that going to therapy is good.  But dang it, it's really hard sometimes.  This past week has been rough for me and it started with an intense therapy sessions last week.

So in therapy last week, one of the more active parts was my self-critical part, and we discovered that it was active because of something that happened on Easter. --- There was an incident with someone who I know has some control issues.  But when this incident happened, the things that were happening and being said, in my mind, translated to "You're too dumb to do this."  I had taken a friend with me to Easter dinner and even he commented on what happened.  So when that the self-critical part was active last week, we worked on it in therapy.

Something we discovered some time ago is that my self-critical part and my hurt part tend to work together.  The self-critical part takes the messages it has heard my whole life, and just repeats them itself so that when other people say it, it doesn't hurt as much.  My therapist wanted to work with the hurt part a little bit and asked me to describe a couple of the memories it holds on to.  There is one particular incident that happened when I was in 9th grade; someone close in my life told me that they wanted to kill me sometimes.  (I'm trying to be vague with details because I'm not trying to "call them out" or anything, but I'm trying to be open as well.)  Some one who NEVER should have said something like that (of course, no one should ever actually say that to some one.) and it wasn't in some sort of joking kind of way.  It was very serious, it was very hurtful, it was very terrifying.  Well as soon as this memory came up, I became visibly upset, my therapist almost stopped what we were working with.  We were trying to work through the memory and trying to let it go.  At the end of the session, she asked me to imagine letting the memory go; I could imagine letting it go in the wind, burning it a fire, setting it out to sea etc.  I chose to imagine burning the memory, and that was the end of the session.  However, that memory continued to come all week long.  No matter how hard I tried, or how many times I imagined burning it, it continued to come back.  The more it came back, the more active my self-harm and suicidal parts became.  As the week went on, I was in bed more, crying more, and barely functioning.  My anxiety was through the roof as I was trying to shut people out.  Thankfully, I had a friend who checked in on me a couple times if they didn't hear anything from me, but it was really really rough.

When I went in to therapy this week, I explained how the week went and how hard it had been.  My therapist said next time it gets like that, I'm supposed to call/text her.  She said I can always come in again during the week and next time I wasn't supposed to just let it continue.  Oh.  This was a new thing for me.  I mean, I had her cell number, but it never even occurred to me that I should have called her.  That was NEVER a thing with my old therapist and I honestly never really expected it to be a thing.  So I guess next time I'm supposed to call.  Anyways, she mentioned that it sounds like there are more memories attached to that particular one that it making it difficult to let go of it.

So things have been really rough.  This memory won't leave me alone, along with many other memories.  Therapy has been intense, and I've really been struggling.  My self-harm and suicidal parts have been incredibly active and it's been hard to stay safe and it's been exhausting trying to fight those parts.  It's also been very discouraging.  I feel like no matter how hard I try, or how hard I work, or no matter what progress I manage to make, it's not enough.  I feel like I just keep slipping into these deep dark holes with no way out.  My anxiety has been pretty bad lately too, especially around my work shifts.  The overnight shifts are definitely making things much more difficult.

*deep breathes*  I appreciate all the support I've been able to receive and the friends who have let me reach out to them and have helped encourage me.  I know all this work and all the therapy is good, it's just really hard sometimes.

Just trying to figure it all out

There's been a number of things that have happened in therapy since I last wrote.

First of all, a couple of weeks ago I discovered that some small part of me is afraid I'm going to leave the church again.  That was kind of a surprise to me.  When this happened, I was struggling with some of those messages that the depression is my fault, or that I'm worthless because I can't just make it go away.  Even though I know those things aren't true, I still struggle to fight with those thoughts sometimes.  So when I went into therapy and shared this, of course my therapist wanted to explore a bit more what might be going on.  I found that there is a small part of me that wants to accept some of the blame instead of completely accepting that this is a trail that Heavenly Father has given me for whatever reason.  This part was afraid that I'm going to get angry at Heavenly Father and leave the church again, so it tries to hang on to some of those messages a little bit so that doesn't happen.  Yeah, I wasn't expecting that.  I'm stronger in the church now than I was before I left.  I'm not angry with Heavenly Father and I have no intention of leaving again.  So now I have to show this part that I'm not going anywhere and that it can completely let go of those messages and the blame.

This most recent therapy session was pretty intense for me.  On Sunday night, I was having a lot of dreams where I hurt myself, and when I woke up on Monday, those temptations and urges to hurt myself were incredibly strong.  I ended up staying in bed a majority of Monday, which I was not happy about.  So in therapy on Tuesday, we found both the self-harm part and the suicidal part were very active and apparently feeling neglected.  I've spent a lot of time trying to push those parts away, because in my head, "getting better" means that those parts are no longer present.  I'm trying to find other ways of coping and it's been over 3 months since I last hurt myself (which is big deal for me because before that, I couldn't go more than a couple of weeks.)  Because I've relied on those parts so much for such a long time, they were feeling neglected and started to become really active again.  The thing is, these parts think they're protecting me, so the fact that I want them to go away makes them kind of mad.  The self-harm part is like a "firefighter," as my therapist puts it.  When things get really bad, it's my way of dealing.  Without it, the darkness/depression would get too much for me to handle; in a way, it acts as a moderator between me and the suicidal part, it keeps me from doing something worse.  If it weren't there, I would be resorting to much darker things.  And the suicidal part is afraid that if it's not there, the darkness/depression will completely overwhelm me and I won't have any way out.  I know it probably doesn't make any sense to anyone who hasn't experienced these things, but it kind of makes sense to me.  Anyways, on Monday, that depressed part stepped in and kept me in bed all day as a way of trying to keep me safe and not hurt myself.

My therapist explained that out in the world, and even in the mental health world, those self-harm and suicidal parts get a bum rap because we don't think they should be there, but that I was supposed to explain to those parts that I don't want them to go away completely because ultimately they are trying to protect me, we just want them to step back a little bit so they don't feel like they have to completely take over.  She suggested that I "invite" the parts to join me when I work on other coping activities that I try to do (such as coloring, crocheting, etc) but I have no idea how to even go about doing that.  So in some future sessions, she wants to do some activities that we can work with those parts so they're a little less intense.  In the mean time, they've remained pretty active this week after confronting them in therapy and I've been having a hard time trying to keep them from completely taking over.  It's hard and it's intense.

I'm really grateful for my therapist though.  I really like her and I know I'm starting to make a little bit of progress.  We recently reviewed my treatment plan that we created when I started because they want their patients to review it every 3 months.  So when I started, there were 3 main goals that we set- 1. I would develop 2 new skills to help cope with my depression.  2. I would be able to finish my school work in a more timely manner without getting more extensions on my semesters. 3.  I would be able to handle work better and not get covers for my shifts as often.  Since I'm working just 2 nights/week it's been a lot easier to handle and I have not needed to ask for a cover.  Though my school work is still going slow, the pace has increased a tiny bit, so that's better than nothing.  And lastly, the skill that I feel I developed is this blog.  Sure, I've always written in a journal pretty regularly, but creating this blog has helped me to be more open and reach out more and I think that's really helped me a lot.

Throughout all of this, I am very, very, slowly beginning to see and feel some worth in myself, and that has resulted in me starting to take better care of myself.  I've even lost 8.6 lbs in the past month!  I'm not doing anything major, but I've been making small changes to try to take better care of myself and it seems to be doing something.  Things are still really hard, don't get me wrong.  Heck, this week alone has been a roller coaster between days when I feel okay and days that I'm really struggling.  But overall, things are moving in the right direction, and that's all I can do.

Nurturing that little girl

So, therapy continues to be interesting.  We've still been working with the different parts inside my mind and the roles they play (and the roles they THINK they're playing) and I'll be honest, it still kind of freaks me out sometimes.  I feel weird imaging and talking to all these different "parts."  But, we've discovered something.  After working with several different parts, we have discovered the "little girl" in me, and a lot of the parts seem to think they're supposed to be protecting her.

This little girl is terrified, and she's alone.  She's trying to protect herself, which is when a lot of these parts have developed, and they work hard to protect her.  One of the exercises I was supposed to work on one week, was just to try to comfort and nurture that little girl.  Give her a hug, let her know she's not alone and doesn't need to be scared anymore.  But every time I tried to get near her to try to comfort her, all those parts became active again.  The depressed part, that raging storm outside the house, would be begin to destroy anything and anyone that tried to get near the house.  The little girl would hide in a corner, protected by my scared, lonely, controlling, and dark parts in particular.  She's still scared.  She's scared of the things outside her bedroom door, she doesn't want to keep getting hurt.  She's trying to protect herself from the bullies when she was younger, from the hurtful comments that even the people closest to her, and were supposed to love her most, made all the time, from the actions of others that terrified her to hiding in her bedroom curled in a ball sobbing, not knowing how to deal with it.  She's protecting herself from the "friends" that destroyed her, from the feelings of worthlessness and not feeling good enough all of her life.  She's created this protective bubble and won't let anyone or anything near it.  Not even me.  She just keeps hiding.  She's still terrified.  She still feels completely alone.  She's still hiding in a corner in her bedroom sobbing.

It's been really hard to handle, honestly.  Whenever I try to hug her and let her know she's not alone and doesn't have to be afraid anymore, all those parts start to become very active again, even if I had managed to keep them calm for a little bit.  The parts that are most difficult to deal with are the depressed and dark parts.  Those parts become active, and all of a sudden I'm back to sobbing and not being able to get out of bed, I'm keeping a distance from people and shutting down, I'm struggling to not self-harm and fighting suicidal thoughts.  And then that little girl just starts feeling worse.  It's been quite a battle.  While everything that we've been doing in therapy is good, it has also been very hard.  I'm trying to find ways to slowly approach this little girl, to help her see me and trust me so that I can get close enough to nurture and comfort her because there was no one to nurture or comfort her ever before.

As weird as all the "parts" stuff is, it's helped me become a little more self-aware and present, it allows me to step back from everything and try to see and understand what is going on and to "talk" to these parts so that they can also understand what is going on and that maybe sometimes they just need to step back a little bit.  In all seriousness, if you have not seen the movie "Inside Out", you should see it, the whole "parts" thing will probably make more sense after that.

Why depression being misunderstood in the church, caused me to leave

Most people know that I left the church for several years about halfway through high school until about 5 and 1/2 years ago when I finally came back.  I often talk about the time I spent away, and I talk even more about how I came back; but I don't often talk about what pushed me away.  Today, I'm going too.

I've suffered with depression for about as long as I can remember, but it started to get a lot worse in middle and high school.  I was frustrated.  Church wise, I was doing everything I was supposed too- I was reading my scriptures, saying my prayers, going to church and young women's, I finished the young women's personal progress before I was a Mia Maid (they had just made changes to the program, allowing you to finish before you were 18.)  I was going to Seminary and doing everything else I thought I was supposed to, but my depression continued, and it continued to get worse.  From the things that I had been told in church, I thought it was all my fault.  I couldn't figure out what major sin I had committed that would cause such despair and anguish.  Everyone around me at church, including leaders, were telling me things like ---
                                          "You just need to pray more"
                                          "You need to be more spiritual"
                                          "You need to be more worthy"
                                          "You're not doing something right"
                                          "Just believe more"
                                          "If you just ask, Heavenly Father will make it go away"
                                           Among many other things
These things were being continually thrown in my face.  It got to the point, where I believed it.  I didn't understand a lot about depression at the time, despite having suffered from it for a long time.  I believed that it was all my fault, that I wasn't worthy enough for Heavenly Father to care about to make it go away, that it was my fault I couldn't make it go away etc etc etc.  Eventually, I pushed away from the church, I couldn't find myself to believe in anything I had been taught there anymore.  At the time, I was in high school and it was the same time my brother was also pulling away from the church.  I know that hurt my mom, so to try to spare some of her feelings, I didn't "officially" pull away until after high school.  Until then, I simply went through the motions.

After about 4 or 5 years away, I slowly made my way back to church; a lot of things happened to get me there until it was like Heavenly Father was hitting me over the head with a 2x4 or something.  At that point, I had started learning more about my depression and other things I suffered with (and still continue to learn.)  As soon as I came back, I began looking on Deseret Books for books that would help me understand depression better in relation to the church.  I found this book called "Matters of the Mind: Latter-day Saint Helps for Mental Illness"  (you can find it on Deseretbook.com here if you're interested.  It covers several different mental illnesses, not just depression).  This book was a great help in helping me understand more about the role my depression has in my life, and in the gospel.  It was especially helpful when it explained that not being able to feel the Spirit sometimes (or often times) is common, and isn't a result of anything I'm doing.  It came down to knowing that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ could hear me, but I couldn't hear them.  I have since learned that that is when I should ask for a Priesthood blessing.  My darkest times are when I need to be able to feel the Spirit the most, and that's usually when I can't feel it at all; receiving a Priesthood blessing allows the Spirit and Heavenly Father to go around that depression, and communicate with me through someone else.

In this month's Ensign, there is a wonderful article about depression.  (For anyone who doesn't know, the Ensign is a spiritual magazine geared towards adults produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).  The article is by a woman who didn't even know she had depression at first, and felt a lot of the same things that I also felt in regards to the church.  She points out something very important in the article

Understanding that there are spiritual side effects from depression is important for Latter-day Saints dealing with their own depression or that of loved ones. Depression, in all forms, alters perception, making it difficult to feel peace, love, joy, or any of the fruits of the Spirit. It becomes easy to misinterpret sorrow as condemnation by God, thus causing spiritual struggles and sometimes inactivity in the Church. This may cause further distress for individuals and families facing this challenge. 

It is essential to understand that such a spiritual crisis is not a result of spiritual weakness or lack of faith. Rather, depressive feelings and the resulting depressed view of one’s spirituality are usually caused by a chemical imbalance.

 She also quotes a talk Elder Jeffrey R Holland gave a couple of years ago in conference called "Like a Broken Vessel" which is another great source of helping others to understand depression better in the church.

I'm sad to say that there are still times I'm told some of those things from above.  I know that most of the time, people have somewhat good intentions when they say things like what has been/is said to me, so I try really hard not to get mad or frustrated.  But at the same time, I'm not going to lie, it's just to INFURIATING!  I know it just comes from ignorance and a lack of understanding, but the stigma in the church (and out of the church) can be really hard to deal with.  Things like depression, anxiety, OCD, etc etc are illness, they are MENTAL ILLNESSES, just like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.  You would certainly not walk up to someone who has been diagnosed with cancer and say things like "you just need to pray more", "just try harder", "just believe more" etc etc.  NO!  If they aren't getting treatment yet, you would be encouraging them to see their doctor, to start treatment, to fight.  Just because it's harder to see, doesn't make mental illness any less serious than a physical one.  I'm going to finish this blog off with a little "cartoon" that demonstrates my point quite well--- If physical illness were treated like mental illnesses are-

Parts Therapy: Finding Worth

Therapy has been...interesting lately, to say the least.  This "parts" therapy is kind of weird to get used too.  It starts off with a breathing exercise to kind of "center" myself.  Then I'm asked to visualize some of the parts we've identified.  The first session we really did this, we started off with the depressed part.  I've always visualized my depression as a raging, threatening, thunderstorm with tornadoes.  I was supposed to visualize myself separate from the part, and we talked to it.  It was really kind of weird at first, I felt crazy, honestly.  As we've talked to some of my parts, we've discovered other parts in the background.  A lot of my parts seem to have some sort of connection to trying to keep me from getting hurt.  My depressed part tries to keep me from being around other people and situations, my self-critical part keeps me from trying to succeed because it's afraid of failing and not being good enough for the people around me, it also thinks that by repeatedly telling me I'm worthless that it'll hurt less when other people say it.  We discovered another part recently that we've been calling the "dark" part.  This part seems to collect all triggering images I've seen (like from movies and tv shows) and holds on to them, it's also where the suicidal thinking and self-harm seems to reside.  Then, in my darkest moments, it likes to bring them up because apparently it 1.) thinks it's helping my lonely part by trying to tell me I'm not alone in what I feel, and 2.) it feels it's protecting me by showing me a solution to how I feel.  The questions seems to think why does it that would be protecting me.  There's a quote I found quite some time ago by David Foster Wallace that I've used a few times to help explain how I feel, and I think that maybe this is the idea that this "dark" part has-

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”

This "dark" part is more afraid  of the darkness (aka the flames).  Since starting therapy, and since my medication dosage increased, my okay days have increased, which I'm grateful for.  But I'm still having plenty of rough days and days.  Since talking to the dark part in therapy this week, it's actually been very active, and it's very difficult to deal with.

Besides all that, another big thing we've been working on is trying to find worth in myself.  My therapist had me visualize "letting go" of the thought that I am worthless, and find ways to replace it.  So I've been doing my best to focus on the positive things that my friends around me say.  I have a folder filled with cards and letters from friends and I've even written down some really sweet texts they've sent and I keep it all together for me to remind myself of often.  Now I'm trying to find the same worth in myself.

Inside Out

Well, I don't think it's too much of a secret that I've been having a really hard time.  There's not a whole lot to say about it in particular, but I decided I would update the blog with some stuff going on in therapy and other reflections.

First of all, I want to say thank you for all the love and support that was shown to me after my last post (if you haven't read it yet, you can do so here (if you're interested: http://mymentalhealthmatters.blogspot.com/2015/12/battle-wounds.html)  I was really scared to write that post and even more scared to share it.  Again, I'm so thankful for the love and support I felt after I shared it; you have no idea what it meant to me.

So, my therapist decided to switch things up a little bit.  First of all, the week before, she had me do some more assessments.  She said she was getting some training that weekend in these particular assessments so she wanted me to do them so she could score them after her training.  She said that the results weren't what she expected and that I underscored with the validity of it.  (I guess my score was basically showing because of the underscore, that my answers may not have been valid.)  This was a 136 question assessment, that I actually had a hard time taking.  It asked about different feelings/symptoms (both emotional and physical) and you were supposed to responded with how often you felt it:  never, occasionally, often, or always (or something along those lines.)  The reason why I have a hard time with these kinds of assessments is because, with a few exceptions, I would answer just about every answer with "always", I feel like those feelings, both emotional and physical, are always on and at 100% intensity.  However, there are a few times that I feel a small relief from some of those symptoms, and so maybe for a time the intensity drops from 100% to 90% or somewhere around there.  When I feel that way, I'm so grateful to have a little bit of a relief from it, that I misjudge how I'm feeling.  The week she had me take the assessment, I was feeling somewhat okay for a couple of days--- so when I'm answering the questions, I didn't feel like I should be put "always", so instead I would be occasionally or just often, even though technically, I should have put a higher score.  I explained all this to her and she said that would definitely explain the underscoring.

So besides that, she decided to move away from the EMDR therapy we were doing.  She doesn't think I was responding well with it and that some of the results of the various traumas she identified, aren't so much affecting what I do, but creating reactions when things trigger the memory.  I don't know exactly, she didn't explain to much, she said that she wanted to try out the "parts therapy" for awhile.   I don't know it well enough to really explain what will be happening, but if you've seen "Inside Out", it's like that.  Apparently one of the big guys that came up with this theory/therapy was a big consultant on the movie.  It's an idea that our mind is composed of different "parts" (like joy, sadness, disgust, fear, and anger in the movie.)  and that each part is supposed to be helpful, but sometimes things get mixed up.

Anyways, so what we did last week, was try to identify some of the different parts in my mind.  She asked me a bunch of questions (like when do you feel most creative, courageous, compassionate, curious, calm, connected etc etc) and then we talked about some parts that she thinks exist.  Some of the parts we came up with so far are:

• Depressed
• Anxious
• Planner
• Conflict Avoidance
• Analyzer
• Self Critical

She also said there are "firefighters" in each of us.  Basically, the fire fighters are the things we do when things just get too overwhelming and hard to deal with, the things we do to try to survive.  We pointed out that my fire fighters are self harm, binge eating, and staying in bed.

Supposedly, each of these parts think they're doing something to protect me.  I asked what in the world my depression part could be doing that it thinks it's protecting me and she pointed out that it can keep me away from people and situations, which I guess makes the part think it's protecting me.  Like I said, I'm still a little hazy on some details here or where we go from here.  It'll be interesting to see where things go from here and how it works and see if/how it helps.  I don't have therapy this week because of her holiday schedule, so I'll be back next week.

An another note, there are have been a few things that I think are feeding in to me having a particularly hard time.  One of them has made me realize something-  as much as an apartment to myself may be ideal for someone my age, it's not a good idea for me; at least not anytime soon.  With everyone gone for Christmas and busy with family and friends and such, there are days that I barely see or talk to anyone (even at work, we're so slow that I don't even see any guests.)  I already struggle with trying to not to shut myself down (meaning that I PURPOSELY don't see or talk to anyone, I avoid my phone, barely leave my room or apartment, etc.)  It's not an easy fight and there are plenty of days I lose and I do shut myself down, but I try incredibly hard not too.  When I'm in a situation where it's basically impossible to *avoid* that exact situation, not only does it cause me to have a hard time, but it makes it harder not to purposely shut down.  So, as much as I like to avoid people sometimes, I'm definitely seeing the toll it's having on me.

There's another set of feelings that I'm struggling with lately.  Almost every year around my birthday and around the new year, I often struggle with a lot of suicidal feelings.  It has nothing to do with getting older, or looking back with regret or anything like that.  The feelings stem from anger and frustration of dealing with this black hole of depression.  During those times of the year where it's fairly normal to "look back on" or "look forward to" things, I begin to feel incredibly desperate for relief from the things I feel and battle with and can often only see one way out.  It's incredibly hard to fight those feelings and urges and even harder to try to reach out to some body when I'm feeling it.  Often I'll try to reach out to someone without specifically mentioning what's going on, just to "connect" with someone, or see if there's something that someone else needs that I can help with.  I also use other resources like crisis chats online.  I really hate talking on the phone (with 2 or 3 random exceptions), so calling a hotline is often of the question for me, but I've found some good crisis chats online that have been helpful in the past.  For now I'm still fighting.  I'm not gonna lie, I don't really want too, but I know I'm supposed too.  :'(  It's hard, it takes all my energy, strength and motivation, which makes it hard to gather up energy or motivation to do anything else, like get out of bed or do school work.  Some days I am literally talking it half an hour at a time because that's all I can manage.  I'm grateful to the support I have and the friends that I know I can reach out too (whether I'm specific about things or not.)  I really do love all you guys.

I think since sharing this blog, I've opened up my support system a little bit and I think I've helped a few people understand things a  little bit better.  A couple of people have also mentioned that they have felt similar symptoms or feelings, though it may not be as severe.  Let me tell you something, it doesn't matter if it's not as "severe", it's still a big deal!  I definitely recommend getting in to your doctor or finding a psychiatrist who may be able to help.  The typical length of time that they measure by to determine if something is depression is 2 weeks.  There is a quick assessment on WebMD that can help you decide if you should go to your doctor (http://www.webmd.com/depression/depression-assessment/default.htm)  You shouldn't self-diagnosis yourself, but it conveniently puts together common symptoms of depression just to help you determine if something is up.  PLEASE- especially if it's something that's been going on for awhile, please try to get some help.  It is ssooo important.

Also, here are some other links/information to the chats and such I mentioned earlier if anyone needs them-

Suicide Hotline-  1-800-273-8255  http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Online Chats-

https://www.imalive.org/

http://www.crisischat.org/chat

http://carecrisischat.org/index.html