2023 passed by in a disconcerting blur and it’s safe to say it was not the best year for me. I’m not sure how long I lived with depression in complete unawareness but slowly over the years my mental health deteriorated. My personality shifted; I became incredibly anxious, emotionally reactive, possessed low self esteem, severe lack of motivation, extreme mental exhaustion, persistent thoughts of ending my life and experienced what would feel like the most intense panic attacks. Unbeknownst to me I was living in survival mode.
Years and years of disregarding my traumas had finally caught up with me. I desperately put on a brave face and tried to conceal all that I was feeling but as my mental health worsened this became harder and harder. I stopped looking after myself and developed an unhealthy relationship with food. Comfort eating when feeling down, then starving my body of any nutrients to account for extra calories. Unsurprisingly I developed body image issues which progressed to hatred of my appearance. In fact these pictures I never uploaded as they did not live up to my own unhealthy expectation and appearing attractive is all I craved. I tried dating, which shockingly in my mental state never worked out, but fundamentally this was caused by a more deep rooted issue; internalised homophobia and gay shame. When I forced myself to come out 3 years ago I naively thought I had accepted myself. The reality was I had not.
The awful truth slipped between the cracks of my facade and people in my life took notice. I had once again subtly distanced myself from everyone and became disconnected when socialising. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until friends expressed their individual concern that I realised I had a problem. I had been somewhat aware of my gradual decline but not the severity. I felt ashamed that something that seemed so well concealed was in fact much more conspicuous. So, the latter part of 2023 has been a year of focusing on some much needed selfceare. For the past few months I have been attending sessions with NHS Talking Therapies and been referred for separate support focusing on sexuality. To begin with I felt like I was getting worse, waves of anxiety and emotion consumed me when forgotten traumas resurfaced but as weeks passed gradual improvements began to form. I slowly gained back motivation, the tightness in my chest lessened and my depression which engrossed me for so long subsided.
Fast forward to the present day and I am feeling like my old self, or at least a happier and healthier version. You may wonder why I am grossly oversharing, to which I am cringing myself a little. Firstly, therapy has made me somewhat of a narcissist as I now cannot stop taking about my emotions, a welcome change from bottling up all my thoughts until they overflowed. Therapy also taught me to be more aware of my emotions, whilst forcing me to confront my issues in a healthier way and helped me discover a more well rounded individual. They say that depression affects 1 in 6 adults in the UK and when I was at my worst I needed a friendly face to tell me that I was capable of getting better. So if you’re reading this and can relate to anything that I have said, which in the kindest way I hope you don’t, then just know that you are not alone and although it might be scary the first step to improving your mental health is accepting that you need help and taking an even bigger leap to pursing that support and make a positive change.
Now 2024 is a very exciting year as I’m going into it the healthiest mentally and physically I have been in what feels like the longest time. Each passing day I am slowly growing into the person that I want to be and constantly learning something new about myself, which reminded me of a quote I once saw by Alexander Leon, “Queer people don't grow up as ourselves we grow up playing versions of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimise humiliation and prejudice. The massive task of our adult life is to unpick which parts of ourselves are truly us and which parts were created to protect us”. This year is a year of re-connecting with the true parts of myself, working on being an open person who is in-tune with their emotions, whilst remembering to always live life to the fullest…as the past few years I wasn’t really living life, I was just existing.
Below are links too rather information and support for those who should need it:
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