What depression taught me

I’m in my room, alone. It’s my first week of taking Zoloft. If you have ever been on this type of medicine, you know that the first days are absolutely excruciating. It gets worse.

My family made me take the train during the second day of my new Zolofted life. I began to weep. I was so sure I had lost my love, my friends, my everything.

I had been silently dealing with the monster called depression for a few years. It probably developed from PTSD after a family-related incident. Oh, and genes played a part as well. I stopped being creative, writing poems, singing. I became a girl who saw no point in getting up, preparing food. I became obsessed with my appearance, people accepting me; any worse grade, bad hair day, bad make-up day was the end of the world. And that’s how I lived for four years. I achieved success at school, at university; anywhere I went, I got praised. But those who knew me best new I felt no satisfaction. I had a gaping hole inside of me which could not feel happiness. I got into relationships just to become irritated, bored and abandon the person after some time.

But let’s go back to that first week. I cut myself off from everybody. I turn off Facebook, even though there is one person I want to talk to. But I’m scared. I don’t want to be rejected once again. To feel unwanted is the biggest fear you can imagine.
Going back to that week still makes me feel the stomachache I used to feel every single day. But, somehow, I almost feel grateful for my journey with depression and I want to make everybody aware of the fact that depression is, in fact, a serious illness.

Why do I feel grateful? Well, this illness teaches you that you can be your best friend as well as your worst enemy. You will be the only person who stays with you for your whole life. Anyone can leave. Of their own will or not. But you cannot leave yourself (although depression makes you abandon your own self-esteem…). I learned that you cannot change who you love and you shouldn’t fight your own feelings. I learned to accept and move on. I learned that being creative does not mean writing a masterpiece similar to “Paradise Lost”. Sometimes it’s just writing a mediocre poem or a few lines about your feelings. Or playing a song. Or singing. Or drawing a stick figure in MS Paint.
And that’s okay. Everything is okay. You are important. You are not alone.

Seek help if you feel like I used to feel. Reach out to me, to anybody you know.
I repeat: You are not alone.