By Laura Copeland
When I think about how hard my life has been it still cuts me up sometimes. I wonder what a depression free life would have been like, if my childhood was happy and fun, if I hadn’t had this dark cloud overshadowing my whole life, if I hadn’t spent most of my life being my own worst enemy.
I can’t even remember when it all began, when I first started feeling like this. I’ve always been this way for as long as I can remember. Even when I think back as far as I can, I remember how hard my life felt and how I just didn’t want to exists.
I didn’t even know I was depressed until after I was diagnosed when I had my daughter at the age of 23, I just always thought, this is how life is. I look at how happy and confident my daughter is now and it makes me realise it was not normal at all.
It makes me think how did no one notice, how could I go through my whole childhood being that depressed. I mean I couldn’t tell anyone because I didn’t realise there was anything to tell, but how didn’t anyone else see?
Even the social workers didn’t see what was going on and tried to pin it on abuse, which there was none. I always felt like I was a trouble maker and a lot of the time I was made to feel like I chose to be like this, like it was my fault. All I wanted was the love and understanding I needed and the help to get better.
When you’re a child with depression and you don’t know what’s going on, it’s like you have no control because you can’t just go to the doctors for help. I remember wishing so many times for someone to help me, for someone to see that I didn’t want to be like this and I wasn’t just trying to cause trouble.
This has been the case for most of my adult life as well and I have only recently been able to get my depression under control, although I have had a recent lapse. It seems to me that I can achieve a period of time where I feel like I live my life without depression but the challenge is the maintenance. And I have only had two of these depression free periods, which isn’t many in a total of 30 years.
Does all this make me want to give up though?
No way, I’ve tasted freedom and it makes me more determined to find this permanently. There are so many things I’ve tried and some of them work very well for me and it’s about commitment.
I know exercise and mediation work wonders for me but it doesn’t mean I always have the motivation to fit them into my life. Even though I know they will make me feel so much better I still have some resistance.
I mean I’ve been this way for nearly the whole of my life and it’s so scary making that change for good. It’s a learning process and I the older I get the easier it is. There are now so many things I just don’t see the point in getting upset about, like I used to.
There is one thing I know for sure and it’s that a lot of how I am is down to not thinking I’m good enough and at my worst times I would literally bully myself in my head. I had no chance, constantly telling myself how no one cared and how I was no good and when I say constantly I mean every minute of every day!
Talk about living in hell but that is the one thing that I have managed to control. I can’t even imagine doing that to myself on a daily basis, to that extent anymore. Of course I still put myself down now and again but it’s mostly specific to something I’ve done, instead of a running commentary in my head.
Being able to stop this habit has transformed my life and it has given me hope of full recovery. It has shown me that I can change, even something that I’ve done for the whole of my life, something that is so embedded in me it felt like it was a part of me.
My life may have been hard up until this point, well it still is but I am so close to coming out on the other side. And when I do it will be my soul goal to help others break free too.
I mean, I just have to, otherwise what was it all for? Knowing that I can use all the heartache I’ve been through to help so many others, makes it all worth it. It has also made me who I am and I slowly love that person more and more every day.
We all have a purpose and we all can make a difference in the world and I hope to make beating depression mine.
Not only for myself but for everyone I have the privilege to inspire.
Author Bio: Laura Copeland is the founder of Female Worth, empowering women to accept the best, attract the best because they deserve the best. Female Worth is a site dedicated to helping women live the lives of their dreams by enabling them to believe in themselves and grow strong self-worth.
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sophiadphotography/10597799035/
