Depression: “But you’re so happy!”

So after a long long time, I’m unfortunately back on anti-depressants. Over the last few months, my mood has dipped gradually despite my best efforts to do all the things that usually give me a boost. I’m still working on picking apart why I’m feeling like this so you’ll have to bear with me. Luckily I’m “experienced” enough that I was able to get myself to the doctors before doing anything drastic. So while I’m not thrilled that I’m back on tablets I’m glad that the doctors were so responsive.

People always seemed to be really surprised when I tell them that I suffer from anxiety and depression. The common response I get is; “Really?! You always seem so happy.”. And yeah, I always try my very hardest to be happy and if I feel rubbish then I at least pretend to be happy because sometimes, it almost tricks my brain into believing that I’m actually happy. But you’re right, it can be strange that people who seem so chipper can be secretly suffering in silence (not that I suffer in silence. I’m very open with my mental health.).

It can be really terrifying for someone to admit that they have depression and even harder to ask for help. If you know someone who’s been brave enough to open up to you about their mental health please support them. Even if all that means is supporting them to go to see the doctor. Or something as simple as checking up on them every once in a while.

I’ve been given a few days off to recover and been told to not do anything but I’m struggling. Lots of sleep and movies for me I think.

Before I finish and try to eat some good I want to share this:

image
This is the face of my depression and my experience back on tablets. Sleep deprived, puffy red panda eyes, nauseous, paranoid, extremely emotional, migraine filled, low on energy, no appetite (which has never happened before).

Its okay to ask for help, it’s okay to feel (and look) like this. I’m at a low point of an uphill struggle to get better but I’ve taken that first step (again) to admitting I need help which is half the battle.

A

4 thoughts on “Depression: “But you’re so happy!”

  1. I’ve heard that phrase far too many times in my life already, in fact, I think we should just remove it from the English language. Wishing you all the best to move forward again and hopefully make it off the meds after not too long.

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s