For ten years I suffered with chronic depression. I felt like I walked around under a black cloud, disconnected from life itself, not feeling, not enjoying my existence, and in pretty much constant pain.
I had a nervous breakdown at 22. I used drugs and alcohol to cope (this is definitely not the way to go) and I quite regularly felt disconnected from my body floating up out of myself watching myself in situations. I couldn’t feel; it was like there was a padlock on my heart.
If you’re reading this and can recognise yourself in the above, I feel your pain. For years I didn’t speak up, I just thought it was me, I thought this was just what life had to offer, yet I knew deep down that it wasn’t right, but I did not know how to fix it.
I was lost, stuck, disconnected and depressed. While people around me moved on, got married, settled down, I felt like my life was ground hog day with no way out! This coupled with the highs of cocaine and the lows of the comedowns and the depressive episodes meant life officially sucked and I had no way of climbing out this metaphorical hole that was my life.
At 28 my paradigm shifted and a dramatic Saturn’s return awoke me from my slumber and was actually a catalyst for my recovery. Down a personal development rabbit hole I went and discovered I had the power to shift my depression and create the life I had so longed for.
Depression runs in my family, from what I have been told, for many generations. It runs down the female side of my family, my mum had it, my grandma was given lithium to control it, a cousin on this side committed suicide because of it.
If you’re reading this please know I get it, I have been there and I know how miserable an existence it is, you feel odd, different, damaged, broken even. But please know there is hope, possibility, and magic available to you. If I can come through it so can you.
In this blog I share with you the 7 most powerful things I learnt that helped me heal.
This blog is only my personal experience and not meant to be seen as medical advice, everyone is different and I don’t believe there is a one size fits all approach. I do know, however, that through the work I did on myself (personal development) my consciousness shifted in how I related to my depression and I was able to find a way out of the dark. I hope the you find something in this blog that makes you understand why and how you are where you are and how you can start to move out of the prison that you have built around you.
It took me ten years to cure my depression. I do hope this blog helps you learn from those ten years of learning and causes you to look at things differently and hopefully gives you some tools you can implement that will shift your thinking. I am currently writing an ebook on this subject so if what I write is helpful to you please do sign up at the bottom of the page to be notified about the free ebook coming out soon.
What’s your story?
Stories are meant to be rewritten but it is helpful to understand how and why you maybe find yourself suffering with depression. Have a look at the factors below and see how they contribute to your current situation.
- Family Patterning
Does depression run in your family? Generations of women had suffered in mine; we had suicides, bipolar, my grandmother was apparently treated in an asylum. Why is this relevant? Patterns run through families and through generations. What I discovered that was relevant for me, my depression and way of looking at the world was a learnt behaviour. What does this mean? Well, it means that my families way of looking at the world was to be very self-critical, we always looked at what wasn’t working, what was wrong with my life from here I internalised these emotions and they caused me to have a huge amount of negativity running around my mind and body, literally taking me down.
This self hate seemed to grow and grow. Which of course I now understand that what we focus on expands so if we keep looking at the negative that is what will grow inside of us.
What’s your family story? We can quite often unconsciously behave the way our parents do; how do your family operate? Make a note of any family members that suffered, what was your household like to grow up in. This is important as it is all we know as a child so we think that it is normality when it may not be. Did you pick up a similar pattern of thinking from your family?
- Diet, Lifestyle, Exercise, Where you live?
When my depression was at its peak I was seriously abusing my body drinking and doing coke to cover my pain. I lived in London and took no exercise. I had no green open spaces near me, I literally felt hemmed in by my surroundings. All this took a toll on my mental health.
As I was binge drinking I was eating badly which made me put on weight and further added to my self hate. Not getting out in nature did not help me either. London is a fast paced place as humans we need greenery and open space to reflect and ground. I found it hard to exercise as I had no motivation all this added up and compounded my downward spiral.
What about you, where do you live? Do you get out and about in nature often? Do you have a regular mediation or exercise practice? Are you feeding your body healthy food or are you living off convenience food? All this adds to how you feel. Even taking a walk daily can boost your mood and get the serotonin flowing.
- Environmental Factors, Your Tribe.
The environment I was in at that time of my depressed years was pretty toxic. I worked in a work hard, play hard environment. Binge drinking was the norm. But again this was my normal.
Everyone I knew behaved in this way.
We are human beings we like to fit in, we don’t want to stand out, so we tend to do what everyone else does rather than questioning the status quo. Are your friends out every weekend clubbing popping pills, do you go along with it because you like the connection you get from your social circle. Be truly honest with yourself does your environment serve you? Do you hate your job and live for the weekends? Maybe you are in a job you hate but the depression has taken its toll and crushed your confidence. Maybe you have withdrawn from a social circle your depression is so bad. As humans we also need to belong, we need a tribe, the trick is to get a healthy supportive one of people that are going in the same direction as you.
I remember not knowing how to change my social circle I felt so stuck I felt alone if I stayed in at the weekend but terrible after a weekend out up to no good.
My advice is find something that interests you, that excites you, where you find people you resonate with. Maybe you like to draw, paint, or you’re into entrepreneurship.
Take time to seek out positive people. When I lived in London, a great free event I used to attend was the Yes Group.
What about you? Do you have a positive tribe of people around you that have positive habits (ie no drinking and recreational drugs) Click here to join our Kitty Talks Facebook group.
- Psycho/Emotional issues
What’s your past trauma? And have you dealt with it appropriately?
For me two things really took me down and destroyed me, one caused a nervous breakdown and the other near as damm it. In my early twenties I had a relationship with a man I knew that had a girlfriend, innocent enough but in my head I hated myself for what I was doing. Growing up in a household where any form of adultery was shamed I felt terrible about what I was doing. I of course told no one as I was ashamed and these feeling of shame guilt and bitterness took me down. Emotions have vibrations, negative emotions literally weigh us down. Do you have some past trauma you have buried that you don’t want to look at? Maybe you had a terrible relationship or a divorce you never dealt with. Maybe you have lost a parent or sibling but never grieved. It is essential we deal with and process any trauma we have not just ignore it because it comes back to bite us. That repressed emotion is stored in the body and has to come out somewhere that somewhere can mean we feel depressed.
Beliefs – our beliefs can trap us and keep us locked in a cycle of depression. As a single 30-year-old woman I made myself miserable as I felt life was passing me by and I should be married with a child. The story I told myself was that everyone else was perfect and I was different, odd, weird even. In reality I just had not met the right one! There is no right and wrong in life just what we perceive to be true. Learn to disbelief your thoughts. What are you telling yourself about life? When we try to control life that is when we get out of flow with it. Learn to be with what is, accept it and be ok with it, let go of the resistance and let it flow.
What are your beliefs about life? Are they serving you? You should be x y z …… its just a belief its not real. Don’t get trapped by your thinking. Start to see it for what it is and come back to the now, where nothing is wrong. Once I got this it was huge for me.
- Not Telling anyone
Don’t suffer in silence my advice would be to talk to someone who has successfully recovered from depression and can show you what they did that worked for them. The amount of times I have heard; “oh I did not want to trouble anyone.” By speaking about what is going on for us this is another way of processing our thoughts. I always feel so much better after talking to my husband or family. It’s a great start because it means you are now willing to do something about how you are feeling.
- Repressed emotions.
The word depression comes from Latin meaning to press under or press down. Boy did I do that, I had no way of releasing my low level emotions.
Imagine if you never went to the toilet how full your bladder would get! Crazy analogy right but that’s what happened with my sadness I never let it go. I didn’t cry as I viewed it as weak and had never seen anyone crying in my family, so I literally never let my sadness out my body, it went round and round sending me loopy. I did not understand that I had to find a way to process the negative feelings I have, that ignoring them distracting myself with a night out would not work.
Emotions need to be felt so they can dissipate and leave your body.
Is it normal for you to express negative emotions in your family, what do you do when you feel upset to let go?
Crying is a release it makes you tired because you are releasing the negative stuff you are holding onto. You feel tired but better after you cry. Often we don’t have space to grieve or don’t know how to let go of what we are holding onto.
Have you had anything happen that made you feel sad recently in your life at all, chances are you did not process it correctly. Learn to go into the feeling and really feel it, not block it off and ignore you. You will literally have to retrain yourself as the chances are that you don’t do this. All of us tend to push on in this modern-day world not allowing ourselves to be true to ourselves and feel.
If we don’t empty our emotional bladder the repressed emotion turns into a dark cloud that follows us around, literally weighing us down. I remember having counselling about the fact that some old school friends ostracised me. It affected me deeply I was so hurt they could do it (I do realise I was not easy to be around at this point in my life) Talking it through with the counsellor, we did a forgiveness process and I shocked myself at how much trapped emotion I had stored in my body three years on after the event. Talking about it caused me to cry and cry it was like the emotion I had been holding onto finally popped and it came flooding out.
The simplest way I have found to process trauma is too write about it and clear it out. Write three pages a day write about how you feel about yourself the situation anything that wants to come out, be sure to cry too.
If you can’t cry, try using a sad film to get you too but know it is normal for both men and women to cry regularly; we are designed to feel. Now I meditate (TM Meditation) daily; it helps alleviate the stress that builds up, its like brushing your teeth really but to clean my mind.
- Purpose and Growth
Do you have meaning and purpose in your life? As humans we are hard wired to feel good by helping others.
It’s a high that money just can’t buy. Actually, even less known is that this is what we are actually suppose to do in our life time, when you uncover your purpose you come alive, you are happier, healthier, and will live longer. Each of us have a unique set of gifts and talents that we have been given that we need to use and when we do it makes us feel incredible. We are also designed to evolve, so learning is a must in life.
Do you know what you want to do with your life? Are you growing daily? We have never been taught about ourselves, we go to school, get a good education but come out knowing nothing about who we are and what we want. I created the DYD course as it is what I wished was around when I was lost stuck and depressed.
The Do Your Dharma course offer a complete, step-by-step progression on how to make this essential change. From a place of having no idea where to begin, to developing and implementing an action plan for life.
The course is broken down into 7 key steps. Each module includes lesson content in both PDF and walk-through video format, with an exercise to take action on what you’ve learned, and a checklist to recap
Also, Click Here to sign up too mailing list to be notified about the Ebook – Depression Detox.
Putting all the pieces above together really helped me understand how I had ended up where I was, but also how I could start to change them too. If this blog has been of interest, please sign up to my forth coming ebook… Depression Detox!