Overcoming Depression And Its Demons.

As everyday passes day by day on our earth, the more the world is waking up and realizing that there's more people suffering from depression than we think. This ranges from teenagers, new mothers, elders and even some of our role models celebrities, even just recently this Monday was the passing of the great comedian Robin Williams who is said to have committed suicide by drugs...when police asked his family for information they were told that Williams was actually suffering from depression - this proves that depression can happen to anyone.
And it is. Deadly.

In my opinion, depression is a long term illness. I've had the illness from the age of 10 due to my negative upbringing and I attended therapy and it only would make me feel better for a short amount of time. Unfortunately depression doesn't just disappear with the click of our fingers...if only we all had a genie to grant us three wishes, making my depression disappear would be one of them and then following my perfect guy, and my own sloth.

Depression can almost be seen as non existent; it can be extremely difficult to understand which makes it really hard for people to seek the help that they actually need.

Now let me state that yes depression happens to everyone at times throughout everybody's life...however there are some people who are constantly stuck with feeling down all the time and not being able to push themselves back up to being happy again.

My battle with depression

Well, put aside all of the physical and emotional abuse that I was suffering from, all of this abuse effected me mentally from such a young age. When I was in primary school,  I would look around and realise that I was very different from others...I noticed I dealt with things a lot more different to there friends; when they would cry they would run to their parents and then me on the other hand I wanted to be alone, normally I'd go find a corner in the playground to sit in until I felt better. I lacked a lot of love and attention from my parents which made my depression worse making me feel like I was worthless I wasn't lovable. I started to lie to my teachers like my dog just died or something like that and they would give me the attention that I craved so badly...sometimes they would even give me a hug when I really was secretly crying about my life at home which they had no clue about neither did my friends.

As I hit my teenage years things got a lot worse, my hormones were at a high and my mother had more reason to throw abuse at me. We would have these huge arguments...she would keep me up all night, just so she could vent her anger all out on me. I started to feel more and more negative...my confidence was so bad and I felt like the only thing that could make me better would be to self harm. One night I came in from school and I was texting my boyfriend she didn't really know about him just yet well until this night and she asked me who I was texting and I said my boyfriend. She wanted me to show her a picture of him, so I did and she mocked his looks and said "You're not really going for him, are you?" and I just looked at her and said "He looks after me". Next thing I knew she started ranting on to me about pregnacny and how it will happen to me, she said "I know what all boys are like, they only want one thing to get down your pants and they get you pregnant and then leave you". Fair enough yes she's my mother but she started to repeat herself over and over and wouldn't drop the subject...so i stormed out the room. I felt all these negative thoughts and feelings rush straight to my head and I just collapsed in the bathroom feeling a full heavy pain in my heart and it was if I was choking on my own emotions. Next thing I knew I had a razor in front of me, I woke up the next morning with cuts all over my arms and I realized that I was getting worse and it scared me. 

There was one occasion that changed my life forever though, I went on holiday in the August month of 2012 with my mother and my grandparents we went to the canary island Gran Canaria. The first week went fine, chilling by the pool and the food was to die for! however the second week all went to pot. I started to get really close to my grandparents as I never really saw them much, they told me the truth about my mother and everything seemed so much more clearer where her anger actually came from. My mother and I had an argument one night and she was screaming at me because she was jealous of the relationship I was having with 'her' parents, she told me "You shouldn't be listening to the shit they tell you... you only listen to me got it, I'm your mother at the end of the day". At this point I couldn't care that she was just my mother, she didn't know what she's put me through and how badly damaged I was, all I could think of was when I was going to get home I was going to run away it didn't matter where I'd end up even in a ditch I'd be happier then.
When we got back, I left home and went to go and stay with my grandfather which only lasted one night...  because my mother was so controlling she got the social workers and made one big lie up so she could get me back home. The social workers came to my school and said "You should be with your mother, not your grandfather" and they dragged me out screaming. When I got back to so called home, everything just got worse and I didn't think I'd ever live through it...this was the first time I attempted to take my own life. I just looked at myself in the mirror and thought what kind of life am I going to have? Is it always going to be like this? How much longer can I deal with this pain that I've been bottling up for so long. I tried to drown myself in my own bath that night and my body retracted it...most of all I simply just couldn't do it. This changed my life forever and I decided to actually tell my dad and my stepmam what had been going on for the past 14 years. The truth. It was about time they heard my story.

I remember it like it was yesterday, I had a huge breakdown just crying and telling them everything that had happened it was hard to get some words out because I was so emotionally damaged. It broke their hearts to see me in this state.
Thanks to them, they've turned my life around so much...when I moved out of my mothers they took me in to go and live with them, they made me realise that I need to focus on my education and to be able to prove my mother wrong... they've supported me this whole time along with my best friend Jessica. Without them, and the many counsellors I wouldn't be here to this day.

Quotes

Quotes always helped me to get through my depression and life in general. They made me feel like somebody else out there felt my pain and they also just gave me a better understanding of how I felt. This is one of my favourite YouTube videos with quotes on depression it's 14 minutes long but well worth the watch.

How can I help?

Unfortunately I'm not God... but I'm here to listen to you's, you can tell me your own personal story or even ask for advice. Thank you for taking time to read my blog on depression, I'd appreciate any comments below.

Nobody should suffer alone; I've got your back.

Charlie Bear x
Twitter- @CharlieBear166
Email me! CharlotteLewis17@outlook.com