Relationships

Been having a hard time the last few weeks.

My lows are extremely low and come on me violently out of nowhere. It exhausts me and strains my relationships.

My anxiety attacks have started up again. I usually see my therapist every week but because of the holidays I have to go 3 weeks before seeing her again.

I hate that life is harder because I can’t see my therapist. I have this perfectionist inside ripping me to pieces saying “you should be able to survive 3 weeks on your own….. if not you are pathetic”.

I run on two extremes, either I need a person to live and life is great or I am devastated and everything is horribly wrong and I have been broken and betrayed. I don’t know how to feel anything mildly. I don’t understand how “normal” people do it.

I am the definition of melancholic. I prefer to live there so I can’t be hurt. My brain keeps fighting it for survivals sake but as soon as I come out into the sunshine my brain changes its mind and drags my back down to the deepest depths.

I have whiplash.
#MentalHealth #Depression #Anxiety #ChronicIllness

This is my first time posting here, and even writing these words feels heavy.
Not because I don’t want to speak — but because I’ve spent so long believing that my pain was something I should hide, minimize, or carry alone.
Today, I’m choosing to be honest instead.

The last three years of my life have been hell.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just constant.
A slow, exhausting kind of hell that follows you everywhere — into your mornings, your nights, your relationships, your thoughts.

Depression didn’t arrive suddenly.
It didn’t announce itself.
It crept in quietly, disguised as tiredness, stress, “just a phase.”
And before I understood what was happening, it had already changed me.

It took the light out of my eyes.
I used to recognize myself in the mirror.
Then one day, I didn’t.
My eyes were open, but empty — like the person inside had stepped back and left the body behind to function on autopilot.

It took my joy, not just happiness.
The deep kind of joy that makes life feel worth participating in.

I used to love volleyball.
It gave me movement, purpose, grounding.
It was one of the few places my mind used to quiet down.
Depression stole that from me.
I could still show up, but I felt nothing.
No excitement.
No relief.
Just heaviness.

It took my relationship with food.
Eating became mechanical.
Taste faded.
Hunger disappeared.
Something basic and human was gone, and I didn’t even have the energy to mourn it.

Depression took my motivation, my focus, my creativity.
Simple tasks felt overwhelming.
Getting out of bed felt like negotiating with my own existence.
Every day felt like survival instead of living.

But what it really destroyed was my mind.

My thoughts turned against me.
The voice in my head became cruel, convincing, relentless.
It told me I was weak.
That I was failing.
That I was a burden.
That the world would be lighter without me in it.

And the most dangerous part?
Those thoughts didn’t feel like lies.
They felt logical.
They felt true.

Depression isolated me even when I wasn’t alone.
I felt separated from people by an invisible wall.
I could see life happening around me, but I couldn’t reach it.
I stopped planning for the future because surviving the present already felt impossible.

There were moments when I was so deeply tired — not physically, but mentally and emotionally — that I didn’t want to keep going.
Moments where disappearing felt easier than continuing to fight my own mind.
There were attempts that didn’t succeed.
And surviving those moments leaves marks — not just on the body, but on the soul.

I want to say something clearly, because this matters:
I do not blame my scars.

I don’t blame the marks my pain left behind.
At the time, I didn’t know another way to cope.
I didn’t have the tools, the language, or the safety to handle what was happening inside me.
Those scars are not attention-seeking.
They are not weakness.
They are evidence that I was trying to survive with the resources I had.

They are proof that I was in pain — not that I wanted to die, but that I didn’t know how to live with that pain yet.

Depression doesn’t just try to end your life.
It tries to erase your identity first.
It strips away everything that once made you you.

I am still here, but I am not the person I was before these three years.
And that loss deserves to be acknowledged too.

Today, I am different.
I am more cautious.
More aware.
Sometimes fragile.
I check in with myself constantly, afraid of slipping back into that darkness.

But I am also more compassionate.
More honest.
More capable of recognizing pain — in myself and in others.

I understand now how isolating this illness is.
How convincing its lies can be.
How hard it is to ask for help when your own brain tells you that you don’t deserve it.

That’s why I’m writing this.

I want to help the people who feel broken beyond repair.
The ones who feel like they are “too much.”
The ones who are functioning on the outside while collapsing inside.

If you’re reading this and see yourself in my words, please hear this clearly:
You are not weak.
You are not dramatic.
You are not failing at life.

Depression takes things that matter.
But speaking, writing, surviving, reaching out — those are acts of courage, even when they don’t feel like it.

I am not healed.
I am not fixed.
But I am still here.
And if I can still breathe, still tell the truth, still reach out — maybe you can too.

This is my first post.
This is my story.
And I’m sharing it because someone out there might need to know that even after so much is taken, survival is still possible. #MentalHealth #itsokaynottofeelokay #MentalHealth #depressionsurvivor

SHOPPING WITH KID, AND intimacy problems in relationship and yelling and successful visit from one end of GTA to the other, feeling Extremely broken n a housemate eating the food I bought for family Christmas dinner, Faith in tomorrow but today really really really really low, somewhere out there is Peace, confided in my kid about relationship hardships, at Rock sort of, Elder is sick and I'm not strong enough for any of this, Depression and SI incarceration in a hospital at this time of year is not my thing, What do I do God, waiting til tommorrow to know if I can hostess young and old n would be so grateful n honored to do so, there's a police station n a library near by for a few minutes of Peace, It's usually so easy for me, my heart goes out to those to whom it is not on a regular basis or those alone, Strength just Strength, that's all

The Three Stages Of Trauma Recovery
Trauma recovery typically follows three main stages. They are Safety and Stabilization which focuses on a person learning how to practice grounding and coping skills. Then Remembrance and Mourning, where a person learns to safely process traumatic memories and grief. Not to mention, the last stage or Reconnection and Integration, which involves a person building new relationships, finding new life meaning, and integrating the experience into their story without being defined by it