An Open Letter: Depression’s Survival

Dear Reader,

When somebody says to you, ‘I have cancer’, are you going to tell them to snap out of it? Would you question the credibility of that persons suffering? Would you want them to feel ashamed? Of course not. Because it wasn’t their choice. They may have lead a lifestyle that contributed to the development of that cancer (e.g smoking) but even then, they are sick, they need treatment, and most people would understand and support that.

There is another condition, which at its worst can be just as life threatening as cancer. You don’t choose it, it chooses you. It kills more people per year than skin cancer does in Australia. But where cancer has become a community conversation, this condition remains a community cop-out. Enter Mental Illness. Hearing somebody say ‘snap out of it’ or ‘get your shit together’ when you are in the depths of living hell because of it, is akin to demanding a chemotherapy patient to climb Mt Kilimanjaro, naked, on all fours. Your mother would whack you. That would be unachievable, insensitive and rather barbaric. It would also be a total and complete undermining of the severity of that condition and the credibility of that persons suffering.

Hearing somebody say ‘snap out of it’ or ‘get your shit together’ when you are in the depths of living hell because of it, is akin to demanding a chemotherapy patient to climb Mt Kilimanjaro, naked, on all fours. Your mother would whack you.

Yet all too often the credibility of mental illness is dismissed. Some don’t ‘believe’ in it, like it’s some kind of ideology, not a debilitating fester-hole and at times life-threatening medical condition. ‘All hail depression!’, said no one with depression, ever. To someone who suffers with this illness, that is equivalent to you being shoved in front of a moving train and being told to ‘Just stay there. It doesn’t hurt!’, because that thunderous tonnage of killer-machine ‘doesn’t exist, ok’. Actually, that’s going to fucking hurt, believe me. This miss-understanding is unfathomable to someone who has suffered depression. Yet somehow there is still acute shame associated with admitting that you have a mental illness, and the fact that these outlooks and attitudes still exist in society does little to help that. This goes beyond the individual. It is the symptom of a larger society issue.

The day I was diagnosed with chronic depression was one of the best days of my life. Yes, that sounds strange. But it was on that day, aged 16, perched on an overcompensating chair in the psychologists office that I had a realisation. I realised that the quiet and lonely hell I had been going through for the past 4 years of my life was a treatable condition. I knew that many had come through it before me. I wasn’t a freak anymore, I wasn’t weird anymore, I wasn’t someone that could never fit in, and just maybe, I wasn’t the girl that would never be kissed, either. I was just very sick. Thankfully my family understood that the suffering was a treatable condition too, otherwise I may not have been here to write this today. Somehow I hung on for those first 4 years of undiagnosed depression. They were the loneliest of my life. As much as I tried I couldn’t fit in at school, I pushed my parents away, and my relationship with my little sisters changed. I’m sure to them I was just old and moody. My big sister was in Europe meeting future hubbies and things so had no idea either.The first psychologist my concerned mum eventually took me too said I was going through ‘normal teenage insecurities’. On the outside I was getting straight As in class. On the inside I was choking back suicidal thoughts and crying myself to sleep each night. I told one friend. He didn’t believe me. I was twelve.

On the outside I was getting straight As in class. On the inside I was choking back suicidal thoughts and crying myself to sleep each night.

This is the first time I’ve written about my personal battle with depression. In fact, I am on the road to recovery from another bout as I write this. Apart from my direct family and a few close friends not many people have known. The people I have told lately stare at me in disbelief when I mention the words ‘chronic depression’ and ‘generalised anxiety disorder’. I do not strike as the stereotypically ‘depressed person’. People have described me as chilled out, confident, in control, apparently happy. People who pass me in the street have no idea I was contemplating my place on this earth only a few weeks ago. With the tragic recent loss of one of the world’s most ingenious minds to suicide, Robin Williams, people are slowly waking up to the fact that depression can affect anyone. Come 5pm, whilst you return home to your dinner, your stellar colleague might be returning to a bed of suicidal thoughts. The girl getting straight A’s in class might be crying herself to sleep every night. You DON’T know, until you ask. And while the culture of silence and shame maintains around mental health issues, people are going to have to keep on asking.

With the tragic recent loss of one of the world’s most ingenious minds to suicide, Robin Williams, people are slowly waking up to the fact that depression can affect anyone.

I used to think that my private struggles with depression and anxiety weren’t really anybody else’s business. I refuse to accept that now. Mental illness needs to become this society’s business, whether we like it or not it is here and it needs to be dealt with. Out of respect for those who have suffered directly and those who have suffered indirectly, we need more people to stand up.

It can take one person’s understanding to actively help to shift public attitudes toward mental illness. To someone suffering with depression, having just one person there to help them seek help and treatment can be the difference between life and death. It’s cheap treatment but all too often it doesn’t come cheaply. I encourage those who have suffered in silence to say a big fuck off to that, talk about your experience, speak people through it, help them to understand. Help yourself and other people. I encourage those who suspect someone might be going through depression to speak to them, check in, make sure they are ok. Give them a chance to one day climb that Mt Kilimanjaro. You might be performing a life-saving operation. One that people don’t need a doctorate to perform. For those going through it, do NOT feel ashamed to seek help. You deserve a beautiful life and you deserve understanding.

I encourage those who have suffered in silence to say a big fuck off to that, talk about your experience, speak people through it, help them to understand.

This has almost become a ‘coming out’ of sorts. I feel no shame. If we have any hope of dissolving the unhealthy belief systems around mental illness and moving toward a road of understanding and empathy such as that toward cancer sufferers, then this NEEDS to be spoken about openly. Who am I to say all this? I’m a survivor. This is what has tortured me, but it is what has shaped me into the person I am today. A person that is learning to love herself for the first time in her life. A person who knows she was never crazy, only sick, and is stronger for her survival, but only with the help of others.

Who am I to say all this? I’m a survivor.

Thanks for reading,

X Skye

**If you need help, contact (AUST)

Lifeline 13 1114 or lifeline.org.au

Headspace (12-25 yo) 1800 650 890 or headspace.org.au

For more information on mental illness in Australia and how you can help someone in need visit Beyond Blue