Pure sadness.

I cried last night. I have been so numb and emotionless for the past couple of weeks.

But…

It wasn’t a familiar cry. 

Lately, my crying has been a result of a panic attack or being too overwhelmed.

This cry wasn’t like that.

I wasn’t hyperventilating and my heart wasn’t beating fast when I was crying. 

All I thought about before I cried was, “I am not happy, I’m not where I want to be in life. I failed”.

It was very quiet when I cried and as more tears came out, I knew that this is something different. 

It was pure sadness. 

I could feel that this is something deep more than any depression or anxiety episodes that I have experienced.

I could feel the pain.

I can still feel it.

I don’t know what to do.

-Mel 

Advertisement

I don’t feel like writing this right now.

I don’t feel like writing this right now.

But I feel like I have to.

I have been feeling extremely anxious right now, well all day.

All day at work, I haven’t been social and have been keeping to myself. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Because I felt too anxious and felt like I was so close to a panic attack.

I woke up with a huge throbbing headache.

I felt like my entire body was in pain. My legs, shoulders, back, chest were all in pain.

My hands were shaky and my heart kept racing.

I don’t know what to do. It’s 3 hours since I left work and I’m still feeling those physical symptoms.

My mental symptoms is on a different level.

I can’t think. I felt out of it today. I couldn’t seem to focus on one thing at a time. I kept on going from one task to another and have that uneasy feeling that I forgot something. I was walking all over the place, not really knowing what I was doing.

My mind feels like it’s 10x faster in racing from one thought to another.

I feel like my headache is different from the physical pain I feel from the thoughts that are racing.

I don’t know what to do.

I just want to lay in bed all day & not go to work tomorrow.

It would be nice to call in sick because of my depression and anxiety.

But I can’t.

-Mel

The Importance of Understanding Mental Health.

I can’t express to you how important it is to spread awareness about Mental Health and ending the stigma surrounding it.

I got told yesterday, “Don’t be depressed” by a family member.

That I should liven up and be happy.

Another person asked to hang out. Told her I was actually physically sick.

Got the response “Ok”.

I didn’t want to go to a dinner because I was physically sick. It had nothing to do with depression. I was starting to feel early symptoms of getting a cold: my head was throbbing, my body aches, started to get a sore throat and coughing.

And no one believed me.

Without any warning, my body became tense, I was just screaming in my car from frustration and my mind just went to “Get away from here”.

It’s really hard when no one understands you.

Yes, I had to lie before.

& I had to. If I felt too anxious to go somewhere, then I would have to say that physically I didn’t feel good but in reality, I wasn’t feeling good mentally.

Which would get a better response:

“Sorry, I can’t go because I have a cold” or “Sorry, I can’t go because I’m feeling very anxious and upset and if I go, I might get an anxiety attack”.

Yes, the first one.

So now that I actually don’t feel physically good with a cold, people think that I’m lying about it now to get away from things.

It’s so frustrating.

It’s so hard to pretend that you’re okay when you’re not. Or to pretend that you’re physically ill when you’re actually not okay mentally.

It’s just so hard when people don’t understand you.

Please.

If you know someone with depression or any type of mental illness.

Please do some research on how to talk and reach out to them.

Be kind and be understanding.

-Mel

 

Mental Health Awareness Week: Day 4? 5?

I didn’t write yesterday. And I don’t feel like writing today because I’m exhausted.

But I did a lot of thinking yesterday (like always). Some resulting in tears.

 

I always see a pattern in my life.

Sometimes my depression mind thinks that I am an awful person that no one wants to be around.

People cancel plans with me or things change. My reality mind understands. Plans come up and things change. My depression mind thinks that person doesn’t care that I was looking forward to it and they just don’t like me anymore.

I have cried many times about plans that just don’t work out. It may seem stupid, but I don’t go out a lot. This has happened to me a lot since I was little. Friends forget or they have other plans and decide to cancel mine. Or plans have to be postponed, but days never work out and it just gets cancelled. I don’t have a lot of friends nowadays. And I get excited when plans come up, I will cancel everything else for that plan. It hurts when things don’t work out, because then I’ll be home again doing nothing.

I cancel plans or decline invitations a lot lately. My reality mind knows that my depression and anxiety mind won’t be able to handle it, so it’s better not to go. My depression mind knows that I don’t want to pretend to be happy, so I’ll just be in the corner sitting quietly on my phone playing games. So why go? They won’t care that I’m not there.

Like my depression mind tells me, who would want to hang out with you when you’re just going to ruin their day.

I have heard many times to go out, enjoy life, blah blah blah.

It hasn’t been easy.

I get anxious going out somewhere. My depressed mind is rapidly going back and forth to what people think of me. If they whisper, they’re obviously talking about me says my depressed mind. If I say something, they’re going to judge me.  If I walk away, they’re gonna say something again.

I am by myself a lot. And I had to learn how to be comfortable of the idea of being by myself. I go to Panera or a coffee place on the weekend just to get away from the house. I’ll go to Target or Michaels just to move around and stay out of bed even when I don’t need anything from there. I’m okay with being alone because that’s how my life is.

I don’t know. I’m tired.

(Hey Mel, reminder to self. write about your mind tomorrow or Saturday)

-Mel

Mental Health Awareness: Day 3

Here’s the reality of depression.

Today was rough.

Nothing bad happened, it was just a regular day. But I felt just so tired, not motivated, easily irritated, sleepy but can’t sleep. That’s depression for you. Nothing triggered it.

On Sunday, I felt motivated. I pushed myself to get my planners all done & to follow through. And I told myself to get this one errand done this week (one I’ve avoided for two weeks). I was going to do it today.

But there was so much anxiety in me and so much feelings of… (too be honest I don’t know). 

I can’t do it today.

And that is okay. 

It took me awhile to be okay with the fact that things can wait. If you’re feeling too sad and too anxious, you don’t have to do it right away. It can wait.

Take care of your mental and physical health first, that’s more important. I always tell myself to “sleep on it, and wake up tomorrow to a new day”. 

I was going to write about my room. What I do to make my room a safe place.

But I’ll do it tomorrow.

I’m giving myself a mental break.

Tomorrow is a new day.

-Mel 

Mental Health Awareness Week: Day 2

(I think this week is full of posts that I have been wanting to post, but never finished)

Things I wish people could say to me about my depression. 

Well first, let me state how people respond to depression, in this case: my depression.

I get :

• The “You can talk to me whenever you need me” (Spoiler: they don’t always mean it)
• “Oh I see”
• Advice that I never asked for and it makes me feel worse
• Silence. No communication whenever you talk about depression.
• The silence turns to awkwardness when you see them.

One of the hardest things that I have ever done is telling people about my depression.

I believe that it takes a great deal of strength to let someone know that you are depressed or mentally ill.

You never know how people are going to respond to it.

You don’t know if they’re going to be supportive or stay away from you.

We are telling you our deepest feelings and trust you enough to tell you.

I get it. It’s hard not to know what to say or do when someone tells you about a mental illness.

It might feel like we are giving you this huge responsibility to help us. But we’re not.

We are feeling a lot of things.

Especially loneliness…

We don’t want someone to solve our “problems” or to cure our mental illness.

In a dream world of mine,

I would want someone to simply text me “Hey”, even better “How’s it going?” (sounds easy, but I don’t get any texts).

I would want someone just to listen. If I’m ever anxious about something and need to let it out of my mind, I just want someone to listen. Even if they can’t find the right words to respond, I don’t care. Just knowing they’re listening will lower my anxiety.

I would like it if someone helped bring me back to reality. Texting that Crisis Text Line helped me so much. My mind was a mess. I couldn’t tell what facts were real and which were false pictures that my depressive mind made up. The girl who helped me brought me back down to reality. My mind can go from depressive thoughts to reality and back to depressive thoughts within a minute. She didn’t give up. I was sure by the third time that I doubted myself, she was going to end that conversation. She stayed until I cooled off and came back to reality and I noticed that I was fine. My mind can go through excessive cycles or worries and overthinking that having someone tell me the reality part makes me feel less worried.

I would want someone just to ask me to hang out, even if it’s for coffee. The less loneliness I feel, the less depressed thoughts I have.

Basically, most of all…I want someone to stay and not run away every time I utter the word depression. 

I hope that sharing my: mental illness, my experiences, my struggles and my desires will help someone somewhere.

We need more love and support in this world today.

-Mel

 

Mental Health Awareness Week: Day One.

Hello.
Long time, no talk.

I don’t remember the last time I wrote a post.

Life has been busy and unfortunately,  one of my relatives passed away.

But I’m back.

It’s October 1st.

First day of the month and first day of Mental Illness Awareness Week.

I want to spread awareness this week.

& I am going to post everyday this week about mental health.

(I’m going to try my best)

But today, I wanted to share all the books that I have read (completed or not) about mental illness. There are some books that I have completed and some that I haven’t. It’s not because I’m lazy or anything. It’s because I need to be in the mood to read these books. If I’m feeling really depressed, I’ll read some books to understand I’m feeling certain ways. Or I’ll read some books to distract my mind or lift my spirits. But either way, these books help out for different reasons.

1. So Much I Want To Tell You: By Anna Akana.                                                             This is one of my most recent books that I bought and is the current book that I am reading. I love the whole basis of this book. I know Anna Akana as a Youtube creator, however I didn’t know that her sister died from suicide. This book are basically letters to her, things that she wish she could tell her sister now about life. I haven’t gone too far into the book. But after getting this book, I went back to her Youtube channel and found her videos on depression. (https://youtu.be/eK1luxZbuyU) So far, I have read about how she got to her career of being on Youtube, etc. I can’t wait to read more about it.
2. It’s Kind of a Funny Story: By Ned Vizzini                                                                            I don’t which one I came to first: the book or the movie. But I do know that this was the first book that I bought about depression. If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, it’s basically about a teenage boy with depression. He was suicidal and wanted to be admitted to the hospital and eventually helped everyone and himself. I cried during the movie and cried reading the book. I understood how the character felt and had a positive ending.
3. Undoing Depression: By Richard O’Connor, PhD.                                                       This is the best book to understand depression. This book has the most notes in it and highlighted sentences than all of my books because I want to reference this book whenever I need it. I can understand why I feel certain feelings and emotions. It also explains the biological aspects of it and how it affects our thinking. I feel like this book is great for those with depression and a great resource to those who aren’t living with depression but want to understand it.  
4. The Power of Habit: By Charles Duhigg                                                                              I bought this book a long time ago. I haven’t read much into it. I think I bought this book because I wanted to know why I always like a routine. Being depressed and having anxiety, I like having a routine. But if you want to get into a routine or habits, then this book is for you.
5. The Doctor’s Guide to Sleep Solutions for Stress & Anxiety: By Robert S. Rosenberg, D.O., F.C.C.P.                                                                                                             This is the most recent book I bought. I bought it about 3 weeks ago, when I was having trouble sleeping. I would always wake up in the middle of the night around 3 or 4am. Sometimes I would fall back asleep and sometimes I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I bought this book to read when I couldn’t fall back asleep. But lately, my sleep has gotten better for the most part, so I only read one page so far. But I like how it includes questionnaires,  it’s easy to read and has diagrams with it.
6. The Cognitive Behavior Workbook for Depression: By William J. Knaus, EDD.     I bought this book a couple of years ago. I wanted to study my own depression. I wanted to understand why I was thinking these thoughts and how it was negatively affecting my life. This is a workbook, you do tests, write goals, action plans, etc. If you are feeling really depressed, don’t use this as an alternative to therapy. I encourage everyone to consider therapy for helping with their depression. But this book is good for helping you take a closer look at your depressive thoughts.

 

  I just wanted to share all the books that I read for mental illness.

Please let me know if you have read these books or other types of books that help you.

Talk to you tomorrow!

 

-Mel