Over the last couple of years, battling depression and anxiety, I learnt the importance of having a community I could lean on. Before being admitted into hospital, I never imagined people who looked like me battling depression. It was often unheard of because I grew up in community of masking one's feelings. I was raised by a single mother. I have been surrounded by single women my entire life and for the most part I saw them moving. Things always got done and people always had places to go to.
In between these spaces, no one made time to feel. People were always preoccupied with something. It took for me being an adult to understand that maybe the busyness was a way to mask whatever pain, trauma and hurt they had carried for all those years. This is why, when I battled depression, for the most part I felt alone. I looked around in my close circle, for someone who looked like me, who had gone through something or at the very least could relate to me. I searched for months, ashamed, desperate and hurt for a home for the way I felt. I knew something was different I just didn't know how to address it.
I am glad, through therapy my psychologist was able to pick up on my desperate plea for help. As daunting as I felt finally coming to the realisation that I needed help and would be admitted, I knew maybe that was the sign I needed for community, a sense of belonging. For the first time, walking into those hospital corridors, being assisted in settling into my room and given comfort for my pain, I felt validated. I felt heard even with the silent whispered that echoed with every tear that dropped from my eyes. Maybe my sense of healing was having someone reassure me I wasn't alone in this journey and that I didn't have to feel afraid. Community.
I just want to reassure someone who is battling any form of mental health illness to know that they are not alone. Your feelings are valid, I hope your voice is heard. I hope we never forget that while life may not always feel like a ray of sunshine, the storm that often rages is as equally important for this journey we embark on called life.
I hope that even in the darkest of days you carry the hope of knowing that someone sees you.
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