"All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul and they will never notice how broken you really are"
A few years ago I was clinically diagnosed with depression. I had been depressed for a really long time but that was my breaking point, I couldn't keep fighting anymore. I was tired and I just gave up, although my version of giving up was finally asking for help and letting someone else help me deal with my problems for a while. I look back now and think that it's the best thing I did for myself but that is not what this post is about...
OK, so a few days into my stay at the hospital we all had our usual occupational therapy session and right after that our group decided to have lunch together. This lunch was like any normal lunch among friends, we were all chatting and laughing and if any outsider looked at us they would think that we were such a happy bunch of people. I remember sitting there and thinking about how amazing my day turned out to be and how great all these people were and then reality kicked me in the face and I really started looking at these people.
Samuel the oldest from the group was the funniest and the one person that you would always find smiling, yet he had bandages around his wrists. He had cut himself so badly the nurses said that he was lucky to still be alive. Bev the lady sitting next to him was one of those chatty ladies, you know the type that had the inside scoop on everything and everyone. You would always find her chatting to someone asking them about life and speaking about the future but this very chatty woman had scabs around her mouth, her skin was starting to heal from her drinking something she shouldn't have. She too wanted to end her life. Tia the girl who was also my roommate at the hospital was known as the girl who had a crazy sense of humor, she was always making people laugh yet I would hear her crying herself to sleep every night. She was also the only person in our ward that never had any visitors. These happy people weren't really happy at all and I was one of them.
It's strange actually how we become so good at hiding our feelings behind our smiles and laughs yet we struggle to reach out to people and ask for help. Sometimes it is not that we don't have anyone to turn to, we just don't know how to. We feel like people will judge us, they won't understand! Or worse, it is frowned upon in our cultural groups so it just gets brushed aside with an " Our people don't suffer from depression", "Everyone gets sad sometimes you just have to learn to get over it." "Just pray more, or exercise more you don't need anything else." You're surrounded by people yet you've never felt more alone. It's become something were embarrassed to speak about.
In my case, I was always the friend that everyone came to with their problems. I was there every step of the way for many reasons, one being that I cared about these people, I loved them and I wanted them to be happy but something that I would not admit to was that being there for them was also my way of ignoring my own life that was falling apart around me. The thing about ignoring your problems is that it will always catch up to you. There was a period in my life where being alone was something I feared. To everyone else I was the happiest person they knew, I had it all together. When it all came crashing down I could not turn to anyone. Mainly because it felt like I was being selfish. I knew what they were going through and I couldn't be adding my problems to theirs but I also didn't know how to tell people that I didn't have it all together as they thought.
Yes, I eventually sought out professional help but then I thought about all the people who don't. I thought about all the people that have been in these difficult situations. The ones that cry themselves to sleep at night or the ones that tried to end their lives, the ones that failed and those who succeeded and I thought about the survivors. As much as people have finally been speaking about issues such as depression there are still far too many people who shy away and cringe when the topic gets brought up. If people were a little more open about it I feel like a lot more people struggling with these issues would find the courage to reach out and seek the help that they need.
I learnt early in life not to take things at face value but my experience changed my entire outlook on life. The most important lesson that I learnt is that you can't always judge a book by its cover because everything might not be as happy-go-lucky as it seems.
Much love my Britzie’s XOXO
" I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I really know who I really was"
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