The world is filled with misunderstandings and inaccurate depictions of mental illness. Those who haven't experienced it envision a severe panic attack as a crazy, hyperventilating scene rather than the reality, which definitely varies, but typically involves an overwhelming, inexplicable feeling that you are definitely going to die. Similarly, depression is understood as a 'can't-possibly-move-from-my-bed, gut-wrenching sadness.' Sometimes it is that, but sometimes it is much sneakier.
Some people will always have a brain that keeps accidentally inviting demons along for the ride. I was certain I was an expert on mental illness. I knew all about crippling panic attacks, about keeping a Xanax prescription on hand just in case, about three hours of sleep each night (if you’re lucky), about the physical agonies that can accompany mental illnesses. I even knew about late-night journal entries with words like, “If this is what life is going to be like, I don’t want it.”
Making a very long story short, I learned to reason with my anxiety. I created my own systems of management. I fought my way back from a space so dark that finding any light felt like lifting a house from its foundation. My severe depression was a symptom of my severe anxiety, so slowly, as the heavy anxiety veil lifted, so did the depression.
In my experience, the most dangerous part of mental illness is the way we tend to beat ourselves up over it. Initially, many of us put pressure on ourselves to just get over it or feel somehow differently. Unfortunately, you can’t control your feelings. You can control your choices and try your best to mitigate intrusive thoughts, but you can’t control your feelings. Further complicating everyone’s lives, mental illness is always evolving and changing form.
Since I had personally gotten to know so many variations of anxiety and depression, so many debilitating and problematic off shoots, I was certain I had everything figured out. What I didn’t notice until a few months ago was how subtly depression can creep into your life and take it over when you aren’t paying attention. I knew severe panic and the issues that spiraled from it, but I didn’t know why I was always finding myself back in my bed, why I couldn’t motivate myself to do much of anything, or why I didn’t seem to like the things I liked anymore.
I had become such a spokesperson for ‘successfully’ managing different degrees of mental illness that I forgot how sneaky they can be. Since my first experience with depression was so specific, I never considered the possibility that I could suddenly meet a new form of depression that was much less obviously crippling. This depression was more subtle in that it easily disguised itself, and I was left wondering why I lacked any motivation, or why my optimistic personality suddenly transformed into a permanently pessimistic one. I couldn’t understand why my previous decisiveness had evaporated, or why the space inside me where my passionate drive used to live was suddenly replaced with a weird sense of numbness.
Although many major aspects of my life have been shaken or changed in the past year, I know that’s not really why or how this tricky depression snuck into my life. I stopped checking in with my brain, and started taking my mental health for granted. I stopped taking all of the steps I designed and adopted to take care of myself.
Just like in my previous experiences with anxiety and depression, I find myself wondering how much more easily I might have noticed what was happening to me if others were more willing to speak unapologetically about their unique experiences with mental illness. I am still very much a work in progress and, like all of us, mental illness or not, I always will be. The point is, I only started to get better when I stopped judging myself or wishing I had been born with a different brain. In the end, mental illness isn't just one thing. I may be born with a problematic brain, a brain that often makes life more difficult for me than I'd prefer, but I'm up for the challenge. I know that little by little, I'll figure out any issues that may present themselves, even the little demons my brain picks up along the way.
