Where's your head at?

Just over a year ago, armed with our laptops, Karla and I met at a local cafe: warm, free wifi, the most amazing hot chocolate, a resident cat and laid back enough to allow you to bring your own food, perfect for two skint ladies on a mission!

We'd been talking about starting a blog for ages but this was the first time we'd met to properly bash out ideas.  In my head, and staying nicely within my comfort zone, this was all it was gonna be, pre-planning before we took the plunge. To my surprise (and alarm that I tried my best to hide from Karla), a couple of hours later we had a real life blog and our first post.  It was the push I needed to start making my things happen!

A lot has happened for both of us this year, some good, some bad, but for me, most of it has not been what I had hoped or wanted for 2013. This year was about moving forward, about seriously starting to sort my life.  I didn't expect everything to go my way, or not have any setbacks, but whatever happened I thought I would be able to handle it, pick myself up and keep moving.   It didn't happen like that.

Back in June, a few days after loosing my new job I wrote about how I was feeling.  Karla encouraged me to do this and to use it as a way of starting to look ahead,  but I felt totally rubbish at that time and didn't have much capacity for feeling positive.  Sorting myself had come to a screeching and premature halt!

I've found it hard to put into words how I was feeling, but I was, and sometimes still am, struggling with the feelings of stress and depression. I was reluctant for long while to use the D word. It's not something I thought I would ever experience personally.
Why? Why is it difficult to admit?   I know there's no shame in it, I know most people experience it as some point in their lives.
I lived with someone with depression. I saw how, for 18 months a close relative of mine struggled to get out of bed, stopped taking basic care of themselves and was unable to do the simpliest things. They became a shadow of the person they previously were, and gave up on the possibility of seeing any improvement in their life. Although this year I have felt as low as I have ever done before, I was never as a bad as that, was I?


2013 has been a merry-go-round of emotions. Consuming disappointment, regret, anxiety, sadness, frustration, emptiness, anger and loneliness.  I was feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope with the rejections and insecurities that were coming from different corners of my life.  I wanted to not feel so shitty, really, I wanted to curl up and have someone look after me so as not to have to think about the everyday mundanities that felt like a struggle.  The cycle of  stress and feeling rubbish was draining and I was finding it difficult to remember things.  I could sit for ages thinking about the same rubbish.  I would be reluctant to leave the house, but would always feel relieved once I had.  I wanted to get away from everything, to forget all the bad feelings and press reset.

Friends reassurances that things would get better felt hollow.  I couldn't see how in the short or long term that this was possible, that feeling like this would lead to something new and better, that I'd be able to look back on as just a minor bump in road, I was doubtful.  Not that long ago I was asked what the future looked like, and my answer was nothing; a big, black void of nothingness.  I began to see the similarities between how I was feeling and the things that my relative had told me they had experienced with their depression. Now I feel that I can empathise with them in a way that I couldn't before.

Trying to forget my feelings and immerse myself in something else was a good distraction, whether it was work or volunteering in my spare time, but it was only ever a temporary relief.  As difficult as I've found it to open up to friends, talking has been the thing that has helped me the most. It's been a real challenge.  A lot of the time it felt like there was a big barrier between what I wanted to say what I would allow out of my mouth.  When I did speak, sometimes it felt that others did not understand, but the more I talked the more I realised that many people have had their own experience with depression and their experiences could help me to understand how I was feeling.

One of the most important things a friend has taught me is not to be defined your past.  Let go of things that are dragging you down and realise that you will get past this horrible, sad time.  Also that there are always people willing to listen and help if they can. Even those that you don't know very well are willing to extend that offer. Take it, don't waste it.

Right now, I feel much, much better. There are a few moments when something will trigger a cloud of gloomy feelings to descend, reminding me that the bad head fug isn't so long forgotten.  That scares me, because the last thing I want to do is go back to how I felt. But now I'm a lot more willing to talk through this.

In terms of sorting myself out, I kinda feel I'm back where I was this time last year but + a couple of giant strides behind that. My direction's doggy paddling somewhere out in open water, looking for the nearest piece of habitable land to establish itself on.

Trying to regain the momentum I  had before it hit the skids has been tough. It's frustrating to be once again deal with the things about myself that I dislike the most, things that consistently stop me moving forward, but on a plus note the heaviness of depression that I've had for most of 2013 has faded, a lot.


I'm going to keep talking and writing, because these are the thinks that I know help me.  And they already have, even by having written this, I feel lighter. It gives myself a good structure and an outlet to build on and keep on progressing.


Kanika :) x