The stigma surrounding mental health has always deterred people, myself included, from reaching out and talking about it. As someone who has struggled with various counts of depression and panic disorders, I can first handedly tell you that battling these issues is harder than just “thinking positive thoughts.”
At just fifteen years old, I was feeling enough pain that I felt the need to self-harm. The thing about self-harm is that it becomes an addiction. It temporarily rids any emotional pain, but as the scars begin to heal the pain slowly begins to creep back—and so does the need to self-harm. It took me a while to find the courage to talk to someone about my addiction. I eventually reached out to someone who, at the time, I believed I could trust. I confided in this person, only to find out that they had been telling people that I was harming myself for attention. People would stare at me in the hallways and look at me strangely. Never in my life had I ever felt so alone despite being constantly surrounded by people. Every night I would go home and cry myself to sleep hating myself, wondering what I did to deserve to feel this much pain.
Sixteen was when my depression started to take over my life. Suddenly, I no longer enjoyed doing the things I once had a tremendous passion for like playing soccer, or the piano, or painting. The world seemed dark all of the time. It became a struggle to sleep and to find the strength to get myself out of bed in the mornings. I no longer had anywhere to call my safe haven. School was like a battlefield and at home I did my best to put on a façade and pretend like everything was okay. The truth is, I couldn’t explain to them, or anyone, what I was feeling. I felt like telling them would burden them, and I couldn’t do that.
In eleventh grade, I had my first panic attack. The worst part about panic attacks is the fear of having another one; you never know when or where you could have breakdown. I am so petrified about what panic attacks do to me that I fear going to my best friend for help. Panic attacks have stripped me of any comfort those words can provide. I used to live in fear of them, but then one day I stopped because I realized I was letting an illness win without me putting up a fight.
Some people have told me that panic attacks and depression are just in my head. That they aren’t illnesses and that it’s not the same as having the flu or any other physical disease. But it is. It is something that makes you weak, it makes your body hurt, it makes you want to stay in bed all day, and it makes you feel so pathetic. The worst part about it is that you can’t just take antibiotics or any other medication to make it stop. Only you can fight it by telling yourself you’re stronger than it, by finding a support system, and by figuring out how to not let it win.
I know people are beginning to become more aware of the importance of mental health, but I also know that it is so difficult to understand it unless you’ve lived through it or witnessed someone close to you live through it. I wanted to share a part of my story in the hopes that it would help someone; whether it helps them understand better or gives them the courage to fight harder. I’m now twenty-one, and yes, I’m still fighting, but things are not as grim as they once were. I’ll end on this quote that always seems to help give me an extra push when I’m down:
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light”—Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
[For anyone looking for more information or knows someone who is struggling, please visit uoguelph.ca/mentalwellbeing for a variety of services and resources about mental health]