Well I don’t think you can do it solely by yourself, I think you need somebody who actually can support you and not just judge you basically to say like, you’re normal, you’re okay. You know because when you feel like this, you feel like nobody has felt like this. No one could possibly be as low as feel right now. So somebody who understands, maybe somebody who’s been there and then coping mechanism, a healthy one, you know, like an outlet you know? Whether that’s talking to somebody, whether that’s exercise, whatever. I think there’s positive ways to deal with this

She accepts that that I have depression now. She accepts that I have it. And she doesn’t tell me what to do about it. She’ll, like she’ll just say, I pray for you on a daily basis. I check up on you whenever I can, like I’ll call or something, you know? And that’s, that’s kind of how she seems to be dealing with it which I appreciate,

The one positive experience I’ve had with religion was probably maybe three years ago. My father had this big spiritual overhaul, kind of like a new born Christian and it made him a much nicer person.

Like I don’t adhere to any beliefs myself, but all I can say is it really softened him a lot and he’s a lot nicer than he used to be. After having this and doing things I would never see him doing. He like goes to bible meetings and group sessions and he leads this men’s group now.

Stuff I would never have associated with my father. But he’s a much more, he’s not gentle he’s still fairly a hard stoic man, but he’s a lot more easy to communicate with and he doesn’t feel as judgmental as he used to.

What’s really nice is having someone who has gone through what you have been through. And really understands you know what you need.

Because it’s hard to say to like, I don’t know some of my friends and my acquaintances who know me in my extroverted sense. You know, Hey I’m having a crash right now. I need you to help take me to the bathroom and like take off my clothes and like put me in the shower like I can’t do that on my own. And they’ll probably ask me you know, But you’re such an energetic person you know, you can, They won’t, they won’t really understand, there’s a disconnect but my roommate since she’s been through that kind of situation and she knows, and like we’ve had like more deep in depth conversations about what it’s like and on our own personal ways going through depression. You know she, you know completely understands and she’ll like do whatever is, whatever is possible to like help me out because she knows what it feel like.

she knows exactly what to do to help me when I’m in my low. Typically when I’m in that dark place, I’m anxiety takes over my entire body, my muscles hurt and I’m not really able to move so what she’ll do is she’ll take me, help me get into the shower like the basic things, I can’t really eat on my own, she does a lot of those things for me and it’s been really helpful.

But to have someone who can be there and say, I know what you’re going through is ok and even if I don’t understand the pain that you’re feeling, just know that I’m here for you anyways to recognize that you are going through something and that I’m going to be supportive by being here with you. Unless you want me to go sit over in the other room, then I’ll go sit in the other room and you can be by yourself and I’ll be supportive from you wherever you want me to be supportive from basically. Because like sometimes you want to be alone, you’re like, No I need to cry for ten minutes in my room. Leave me alone. You know, or you know, sometimes you just want them to sit with you and when you cry. You know it just, it varies, it depends. You know, it’s how your feeling which can be so many different things and all the things all at once. So it’s, it can be overwhelming in so many ways.

Online there’s tons and tons of forums that I’ve definitely used and have talked to people , asking them how they feel about certain things, like if they’ve, if they have the clinical depression , have they run into the same , like the same problems that I have, like the anorexia or if they’ve had like a, I like to know other people’s stories, if they’ve had similar pasts that I do and I’ve have and it, it’s nice to see the you’re not alone. That you know, you, your mind tends to think that way and that you’re the only one with these problems , that this is just you, that you’re going to have to deal with it on your own. And then finally speaking to someone who’s having those same feelings had had those similar experiences is just again another relief. It may be kind of sad to see that other people have had to deal with the same things you have had to deal with, but it’s definitely nice that you can deal with, connect with other people now.

a lot of my friends have similar feelings like I do, like feelings of inadequacy and, feeling like they’re never good enough, um, my significant other especially. And I feel like though that, we’re kind of alone even though we can, we share each, each other’s experiences. We, we alone can only understand what we’re feeling, we can be as vocal and descriptive as we possibly can, but when it really comes down to it we’re still isolated in our own issues and problems. And it’s good to talk about it and it’s good to relate, but it’s, it’s hard to really like take yourself and place yourself in somebody else’s shoes completely. Like you can be and, as empathetic as possible, sincerely empathetic, but that’s really all you can do at that point.

I wouldn’t have married him if he wasn’t like this, but he’s just always really been there to hold my hand and support me without doing something for me and I think that’s what I really needed in a relationship. Someone to be supportive and loving and be kind of a coach in some ways to remind me, but not enabling in any kind of way

So you know, the depression definitely has impacted every romantic relationship that I’ve had, the difference with him though is that the love is unconditional. I can be depressed and we’re still going to be married and he’s still going to love me. He can have a bad day and I still feel the same way. And I think that just generally acceptance that I feel and the security that I feel helps ward off the depression in a lot of ways. I, you know, it’s not his responsibility to ward it off, but it helps with that, definitely, because if I feel loved and secure and safe and happy and we’re having a good time and laughing and everything is good then that really helps.

I mean I know that not everybody can have a partner at the time when they need it you know it doesn’t just happen that way but to have anybody, a friend, a parent, anybody that can just remind you to just take a deep breath you know give yourself a break cut yourself some slack, I think that’s been one, a very big thing in helping me realize, ok just let me just take a step back here and before I get myself all worked up before I’m beating myself up, let me just remember that you know everybody has made a mistake at some point.

I had some really good friends and some people I could rely on really well who were always there to say, like I understand or not necessarily that they understood, but what they could say to me was , I may not know exactly what you are feeling, but I want you to know objectively, here’s what’s going on. Objectively, you are a worthwhile person. Objectively, people care about you. And whatever subjective feelings you’re having right now, just know that those are totally not valid, that’s not reality. So I think, yeah, it was just a mix of those two things, just valuing myself and knowing that I was valued by other people. Which can be really hard, I think, because if I hadn’t had that group of friends at that time, I think it would have been a lot more difficult to recognize.

So I went to like a very kind of like, progressive liberal arts school and there was a, a pretty large dialogue there surrounding like mental health and that like, it exists, and everyone has it, whether or not it’s going great, and that there’s a huge stigma around it and you should be able to talk about it. And I like, so I would like literally just like see posters about this. I knew people who talked about having mental illnesses and like things that like, things like I deal with but also things like I think probably way harder more than I deal with. And we’re like this doesn’t, you know, make me somehow like less than, or whatever this is, just like a thing that is in my life and I was kind of like hmm. And I never like looked at any of the student groups or whatever but I think it really changed the way that I thought about things just to be around kind of like that dialogue in the air almost.