Refracted

First of all, please look after yourselves. I endeavour to be honest and truthful, and will try not to be overly bleak or graphic, but I want you to be mindful of your own mental health throughout. If anything you read does bring up bad stuff, please, please, please seek out help. Speak with a trusted friend or family member, or reach out to one of the many mental health crisis and call back services. I will endeavour to include a list of just a handful of these at the end of each piece. Remember, you are not alone, you are deserving and capable of love and the world could not stand to lose your unique spark!

Time to crack out the champagne, the party hats, the streamers. It’s been ten years. Brilliant.

For the past decade depression and anxiety have been my most faithful companions, drifting away and slamming back into me with unrelenting force, screaming for attention. Of course, our relationship has changed over that time. At the start, like many, I was on the closest of suicide watches. Truthfully, this was for the best. In those first days, months, even years, I teetered on the edge of oblivion. The reality of my mortality and the absurdity of everything else consumed my waking and sleeping – fitful at best – thoughts. I was entirely overcome by a fear of death, whilst at the same time most of the time I contemplated how to end my own life. The irony.

What is there to say about depression and anxiety ten years in? Well, what a decade it has been. At the same time as I find myself inundated with emotion and experience, I find a frustrating lack of words and a void where I struggle to combine one thought with another in a coherent fashion. Such is the mire of my mind these past years, and such is the mess I shall try to untangle and put to paper. For the ambling thoughts to come, I apologise and hope that they shed some light on just one individual experience of these aspects of life. We are all different in our journeys, especially where mental health and illness are concerned. My only hope is that this will make someone, anyone feel less alone. Life is hard, life is messy, and we all stumble.

It has been a rollercoaster of light and shade, the ever-welcomed highs where I remember that joy can still be found in life, down to the lowest of lows where there was no more treading water to be had, but rather to just sit and withstand the depths until such a time the light would break through once more. And it always does, but try telling that to me when I am at the bottom. Sometimes it is enough to simply exist, despite it all. I hope to mature to a place where I come to accept that even on my darkest days. I have not reached that place. Yet. But I am well on my way.

I will never stop being grateful to those few who have remained solid and by my side through what have been the worst moments of my life, in truth these are the ones which determined whether I saw life as something that ought to continue or not. That is not to place any pressure or expectations on them, but to acknowledge that I may never be able to fully express how completely I love and cherish their presence in my life. In fact, I have never told them. I think it is natural to view our struggles and mental illness as a burden on others. That it may feel better to not bring it up more than it does itself. No need to dwell on something so God-awful. But I hope to let those people know exactly what they have meant to me. Where you find people who are likewise steadfast and have faith in you, never let them go. Or, if sadly time or distance tears you apart, never forget the time you were given together, remember it with fondness.

By this point, I have come to the uneasy acceptance that this may in fact be just one of the many facets of my existence, at least for the present and who knows for how long, so I come to welcome it more as an old friend than as an unwelcome intruder. I am darkness as much as I am light, I am deeply flawed but somehow woven back together and all the stronger for it. That does not make the nights any shorter or any less terrifying, but it helps to embrace the fullness of myself. Like a gem, I am made of thousands of facets and sides, all as beautiful and precious as one another. That some of them draw focus on darkness and shadow is not a fault, rather they work to enhance the depth and brightness of the other kaleidoscopic parts of me.

I have not been asked this by someone else, but I have often asked myself if I would rather this had never happened to me. If only the answer were as simple as the question. Yes, and no. I believe life would’ve been simpler, definitely. I could’ve followed my projected path and exceled in one career or another, been in a much better position financially and in whatever other ways security is measured, marry someone who was both sweet, loving and at the same time ambitious and devoted (probably the only count on which I actually achieved, through dumb luck mostly). I cannot speak to whether I would be happy, but I imagine so, on some level.

Who knows, maybe I would’ve even been well enough to start having kids by now. I am twenty-eight, and the prospect terrifies me, the doubt as to whether I will be whole enough to consider it before I lose a grasp on my fertility. I want a family, I think. But I feel so broken and in a constant process of healing that I am fearful for the life that would be for a child. That I may not be the mother any person deserves. And the clock keeps ticking and reminding me that time is slipping away. The pressure is nauseating. So that may be one count where I really feel short-changed.

But still. Nothing refines or grows the human spirit more than suffering and hardship. I can acknowledge what I have faced pales in comparison to the true hardship, tribulations and horrors that millions of others go through on a daily basis. Even so, these years have been a test of endurance, of resilience and I am grateful for it.

We are a sum of our experiences, and depression and anxiety have been an undeniably integral part of mine. I simply would not be the person I am today without them, so I cannot despise them or label them villainous. Although in those moments of isolation and despair I do mourn for the idealistic young girl that I have lost, as if she has died to me. So curious and creative, and so quickly burnt by what she discovered of the world. But a person will die many times over, each time reborn into something new. Such is life. There is no going back, but that does not have to be a bad thing. I may have lost innocence and naïvely placed hope, but in return I have gained empathy and insight, and ultimately a hard won hope. They differ, but I value them all the more highly, given the price that was paid.

As self-involved and pessimistic as I probably sound, I am not ignorant to the amazing things which have also come into my life in the past ten years. It has been a beautiful and ever-changing ride. I have gained a husband, a home, rebuilt a sphere of friends after losing them all. Although I admit that I am more guarded in my approach to new relationships than I have been previously, especially towards women as they have caused the greatest hurts in the past. Despite the battles I have faced in my mind, I have continued to be swept along in the current of life, and I am grateful for everything, every challenge that has arisen along the way. This is so much easier to say in hindsight, but I mean it nonetheless.

Recovery and rehabilitation are real. I have just arrived at the place of almost-peace with the fact that may not be my reality. It is not a given that mental illness will pass. I have found myself with chronic, treatment resistant struggles. And this may always be the case. But whilst I may never fully be freed from my clingy, dark friend, I have arrived at a place I would not have believed existed, if I had been told ten years ago. I embrace it, not in the ways I have in the past, where embracing it could be one step away from ending it all. But embracing it as a dark, damaged but infinitely beautiful part of me. The raw, unrefined and passion being beneath my skin. Me who feels it all, is not numb to the injustices and big questions in life. And in embracing it, I feel stronger. I feel better able to walk this life, one day at a time, gradually getting better at working with that darker side of me.

If you are struggling, please do not remain silent. I can personally attest to how useful the following resources are, having called multiple times. (I am based in Aus, so have only included a handful, this is nowhere near comprehensive).

Australia

• Emergency 000
• Lifeline 13 11 14
• Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467

USA

• Emergency 911
• Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255

UK

• Emergency 111
• SANEline 0300 304 7000
• Suicide Prevention Helpline 0800 689 5652