Depression Taught Me to Love Myself More

Those of you who follow me know that I have battled with Persistent Depressive Disorder since I was a kid. Depression molded me into someone full of anguish, desperateness and longing for death. Throughout my life depression has lied to me in so many ways. From thinking I’m ugly, to I’m not worth, to no one will truly love me and that life will never get better. I wasn’t living, I was surviving. I’d just go with the flow like a zombie. I felt no pleasure what so ever. I completely forgot what happiness is. It became a vicious cycle of suffering, because I was afraid to feel and be happy. I truly believed that if I were to be happy, life would take it away instantly.

DepressionYears later I learned that to be not true. Life will always have its ups and downs, but you can be happy. After deciding to get professional help and making drastic changes in my life. It got a whole lot better. By taking the first step and accepting my mental illness, my life started to shift in the right direction. I learned how deceiving my depression was. I started to eat the correct foods, drink loads of water during the day and exercising. I was able to fix my sleeping schedule, it wasn’t easy and till this day sleeping can still be hard. I let go of people who didn’t want the best for me and even eliminated all triggering social media accounts.

Hitting rock bottom made me realize I had no where to go but back up. When I began to rise, I felt anger. But the good kind of anger. The type where you had enough, and want the best for yourself. That’s when I realized that the only one truly making myself suffer is me and that is something difficult to admit. Yes, there were horrible people in my life that caused damage, but it’s because I allowed their opinions and actions to define me. I started to face my inner demons. It was the toughest thing I had to do in my life. At times I felt stuck, but with therapy I saw my situation from a different perspective and that helped immensely.

Depression I had to let go of everything I had learned throughout the years. I had to trick my mind to see things differently. To question my inner beliefs. To shift my perspective of life. Through this process I saw my self-value. I started to love myself. I no longer wanted to spend time with those who didn’t want the best for me. I began saying no more often because that doesn’t make me a bad person. I stopped doing what other people thought I should be doing, and started to pursue my dreams. You see when you live a life full of suffering, and your fed up with it. You no longer want to be a slave of life. You want to be the master of your life.

I now cherish the small moments, like a funny movie with my parents or a good conversation with my best friends. Through this journey I learned that I was addicted to the idea that happiness was in the next relationship, or the next place. I was always postponing my happiness to what would come next and not in the present moment. So, I gave up that idea and began to build a life that I’d be proud to live in each day.

DepressionDepression is a sneaky illness, at times it still wants to control my life. But after what I went through I’ve decided not to let it win. I will continue taking care of my body and mind because if I don’t, depression will be victorious. So, I invite you to take control of your life. It’s simple, but not easy. It will be challenging. But I promise you, if you do it will be worth it.

Related Stories: 

Depression Made Me Compassionate

Depression Almost Took My Life

Did you know Psych2Go has a book about Mental Illness Recovery? 

depressionCheck it out here: Mental Illness Recovery Book, “Something I truly enjoyed about this book is the simplicity and the variety of stories which are all focusing in one subject; mental illness. It’s amazing to see how this book connects each story to one another and to the reader. It provides a direct insight of living with mental illness and tips on how to overcome some disorders. If you feel lost, or if you want to help a friend or family member then this is the book for you.” -Carelyn

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  1. You obviously come from a heart of loving care and a clear desire to serve, love, help others. I find I can completely empathize, resonate with, and take my own courage from what you have shared — it is a great gift, and I love your courage. I too have suffered from desperate depression since early childhood.

    As part of my own disorder, I find I’m a fairly good proofreader of everyone else’s work but my own. (My son, who falls close to the tree, as the saying goes, proofs my work). I want to offer you (with fear you might use it to feel criticized, a few typo’s or phrase errors I have noted in your wonderful web page, if you are interested in materializing it as you originally intended. Not a complete review in any ways, but only the stuff that jumped out at me.

    You might change “Metal” to “Mental”, though everyone knows what you mean, it might be nice. It’s in “Metal Illness Recovery Book”.

    The two sentence fragments here separated by a period and the word ‘Then’ should be one, separated by a comma. As such “I will continue taking care of my body and mind because if I don’t. Then depression will be victorious.” should be “I will continue taking care of my body and mind because if I don’t, depression will be victorious. ”

    The sentence “Yes, there were horrible people in my life that caused damage, but…” would feel better to perfectionistic grammer mavens if ‘that’ were replaced with ‘who’. Generally, “that” refers to objects, things, and conceptual entities — even to things like companies. On the other hand, “who” directly personifies things which many try to be represented as “human entities and consciousnesses”, like “companies who…”. Your sentence seems more appropriate to read as “Yes, there were horrible people in my life who caused damage, but…”

    “I started to eat the correct foods, drink loads of water during the day and exercising.” uses the infinitive “to eat”, leaves it behind but in my opinion, would feel better to read “I started to eat the correct foods, to drink loads of water during the day and to exercise [regularly?].

    The sentence “. From thinking I’m ugly, to I’m not worth, to no one will truly love me and that life will never get better” is an orphaned fragment. Consider something like “depression has lied to me in so many ways, compelling me to think and feel that I’m ugly, that I’m not worthy, that no one will truly love me and that life will never get better.”

  2. Very nice.. I can relate to your story in so many ways.. I am almost fifty and so far I yet to live!! I’m also an addict alcoholic.. I have been working on my dual diagnosis for 17 years, but have been miserable for 28 years.. It seemed as though I just couldn’t grasp a manner of life worth living.. So my mom died four years ago in March, and boy let me tell ya, there were many times between then and now that I wanted to die!! But I also have been experiencing many forms of spiritual awakening, but still remained depressed, but I think that I am finally on the right path to mental success.. It’s proven to me to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done in life period!! Changing every thing that make me, me.. Thank you.

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