I'm going to go ahead and talk about depression again. My last post was more of an overview of my experience with the illness, but today I feel like it's time to go into a bit more depth. Relapse. A reoccurrence of the past or a past state. I'm writing this post because I relapsed hard this week and I want people to know that although it feels impossible to get up when you get smashed backwards by life, it is completely and utterly okay for that to happen. It's also completely normal if you're going through mental illness or addiction or any other kind of illness- we don't all miraculously recover from these things and it's just not realistic to think that we will. Obviously I'm no mental health specialist but I am an expert in my personal experience with it. Let's face it- sometimes shit happens that we're not in control of and I know in my case my mind usually reacts to that subconsciously. To be completely honest I don't know where this post will lead, but last time I spoke of my illness I felt so empowered and received an array of messages encouraging me and sending me such positive vibes. I don't see any councillors or therapists or anything like that at the moment so I find it quite therapeutic to pour out my story and my knowledge too. The world doesn't talk about mental illness, so damn it I will!
My birthday week back in October, I truly felt as though I was healing from depression, as if I was in recovery and moving forward in all the right ways. Since then I've been completely all over the place with my mood but just generally really down. I don't think it was a specific event that's caused the relapse but I have had constant issues with my stomach and bowels for like 3 months now, sometimes I can't eat at all, sometimes it's pure pain and other times I'm absolutely fine. The theory is that it's Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which is related to stress and anxiety and that makes sense because i'm a very stressy person in general. It's been so persistent in it's random phases of flaring up sometimes I genuinely feel like it's ruining my life! I feel like if mentally I'm in a good place I can get through anything and because I'm in a bad place at the moment, everything seems to be overwhelming me.
In my experience one of the biggest problems for us sufferers of mental illness is that we are so hard on ourselves and set such high and sometimes unattainable standards for example I will never relapse or I will not have a down day this week. We need to realise, I say we because Iv'e been so harsh on myself lately, that relapse will happen it could be mild or it could be extreme but it's almost inevitable. I have self harmed twice this week after many months of resisting the urge but I feel like sometimes unfortunately it has to happen. It shouldn't at all and it's not helpful in any way but it has because mentally I'm extremely fragile these days. The one positive thing that I can probably pull from this is that from that low point of despair and hopelessness it can only get better. It is also a little reality check that I'm completely damaging myself, moving backwards 10 steps and making it much harder for myself to get back up. I guess we should look at it like this; If we were to try and cut someone else's wrists or hack away at their hair with sharp scissors in a moment of anger, we'd probably get arrested for assault or attempted murder, so why the hell treat ourselves so badly? It's extremely complex, the topic of self harm because we all have different reasons for our actions but there is always a running theme of self-hatred/anger/despair/hopelessness- that's just the nature of mental illness.
It can be torture for the most part, but that doesn't mean we should surrender ourselves and let that bastard illness win. We must fight on. As cheesy as it sounds, when you love yourself and carry a great deal of self compassion (few do, more should) these actions and negative thought patterns simply do not happen because you realise your worth. I say it from experience. I'm in part perhaps having this relapse because of my self-neglect at the moment. I haven't been taking care of myself; my diet is all over the place because of my dodgy stomach, I haven't had my eyebrows done in well over a month and blah blah blah, sometimes it really is the little things. I plan to get back up though, because I always do and because I haven't given in to this mother fucker and I never will plus we appreciate the good days more than anyone else ever will. I need to remind myself more often of how many people I have helped by having gone through all this mess and now being far wiser about life in general. My compassion and empathy for the struggles of others comes in abundance because it's these very struggles that make us who we are and make our successes even more incredible. So in some ways, as painful and twisted as it is sometimes I'm actually grateful for my experience.
I know it's ridiculously hard to get back up from relapse, Iv'e had so many in my time and to be honest I'm still figuring this whole thing out after 4 years of living with it but I will hold on to the fact that I WILL GET BACK UP, and that will pull me through. We should treat mental illness as any other illness and I'm still healing but that's okay.
I hope this was helpful or insightful in some way because life really isn't always butterflies and unicorns for some of us but it shouldn't be all dark clouds either. Feel free to leave comments below and hopefully my next post will be a little more fashion- orientated, I think it was important to get a little serious for a minute though.
All my love fighters,
Ev
