Photographer: Maggie Smith, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=172

One day my head went POP! Was I scared? Hell yes i was. Did I understand what was going on? Hell no!  Do I still know what’s going on? Nope and to be honest i might not ever know. It can take the smallest of things over a long time or the biggest of things in one go to cause depression but a life time to learn to live with it.

For years I used to wear “masks” I knew I was and I know now why I was doing it.   The “masks” life was better than my own and helped me forget but I didn’t just have one – I had many!

It wasn’t until a few years ago when I found out I had depression that I actually woke up and knew why I was wearing ‘masks’ an even then it took months to understand.

Before I “woke up” I went down and was driven down many roads a few being drink, sleeplessness, sometimes drugs and even nearly ending my life just to try an escape and hide from the problem.

Then I thought things were gonna get better when I found my ex partner but little did I know it was only gonna make things worse.   The first few months was fine – new person, new relationship (first relationship for a few years) – then it all changed things started to go wrong which helped put the last nail in the depression coffin.  My ex decided to show her true self and turned into a mad woman ‘to put it politely’ I went threw physical, mental and verbal abuse, she was controlling my every move (even wanted me to quit work at one point) not allowed to see my family or friends and all the fights she would cause because I couldn’t answer my phone in work and silly things like that,  even nearly lost me my job a few times because of the way she was.

I stuck with it for three years tried not to worry and threw on the ‘masks’.   It wasn’t till I started fearing my ex would do something serious too me that I plucked up the courage to get out of the situation which was OK for a while even took a step back from all the other problems and tried not to think about them ( threw myself into work little did I know it was the wrong thing to do) until the backlash off the ex  came with force.  (At this point i must add I left her after finding out she was cheating on me which I got accused of doing many times and never have or never would cheat on anyone even though I was not allowed out of her sight and she went away for a dirty weekend took that as my cue to get out) All the bills etc that I had cancelled were coming to my new address in my name and with the old address on I couldn’t understand what was going on as I knew I had kept it all quite at the time and after I had left her.  Later found out a so called friend told her and brought her round to where I live all the time this was going on I was ignoring it and carrying on wearing the ‘masks’ saying it was all going to OK.  I took two weeks off work to sort out my new place, had it done within a week, this was my undoing too much time to think  and the last week was when I went to the doctors because I knew something was wrong and I went POP.  At one point when he was asking me questions he looked across at me as if to say how are you still alive with everything you have just told me?  And that’s when the healing started.

Now three years on am not gonna say I am better or fixed which is what I thought I would be when the doctor found the right pills to help me but I am getting there slowly.

Depression is with you for life you have to learn to live with it and you will still have good days and bad days and other days you will still have really bad days but with one step at a time you and I will get there.

I guess what I am trying to say  is no matter what the cause was or is if you don’t admit to yourself that something is not right and get the right kind of help things wont get better it wont go away on it’s own and depression is not to be ignored.

With help things do get better in time. You’re not alone!