Much as you blame yourself, you can't be blamed for the way you feel...

‘I was so low, getting out of bed wasn’t an option’…

Have you ever felt so low you can’t even function?  Having suffered from depression for 5 long years now. I know this statement rings true for me. The outside world seemed so hostile, so cold, and so bleak it’s frightening to even place a toe on my bedroom floor. I felt like my bed the warm comfortable confines of it offered me more solace, more peace, more protection, more comfort than I’d ever felt before. It was safe, it was a sanctuary. To just close my eyes wishing I could just turn down the voices in my head and fall into the blissful quietness of a deep sleep. Just to be unconscious for a while.  I was so low, getting out of bed wasn’t an option. My excuse was I am just tired. More exhausted of even breathing, having to deal with the constant bouts of depression it is so exhausting everything seems so difficult so challenging to even contemplate doing menial tasks. Washing wasn’t an option either I would just stay in a pit of misery for days only bothering to get up to go to the toilet. Nothing could entice me out of bed. Even on a good day and I’d manage to sit in front of the TV just blankly staring at it I would long for my bed again. To be surrounded by my duvet to not engage in anything. To completely isolate myself from my family and from work was my way of coping with stress and anxiety that I faced.

To my sister my long ‘lazy’ days in bed seemed obscured to her. Nasty comments saying “All you do is sleep” and “You are not going back to bed again you’ve slept all day!”. To her I was just some lazy teenager who looked a mess. Unwashed, sleepy and wearing my pyjamas all day seems alien to her but to me it was all I could do. Sometimes if all you do all day is just breathe at least that’s something. My mum did stick up for me saying that ‘I was tired from working’. When you are so low and the comments people make when you do eventually get out of bed are so damaging it made me want to retreat more to my bed. So what if I spent more and more time in there? It made me feel safe and comfortable.

Looking back now I know that is no way to live a life. Being a prisoner in your own house isn’t lazy or enjoyable it’s more degrading and debilitating than anything. To get so consumed by depression that daily tasks are completely impossible is not laziness but depression at its worst. It may be easy for people to think depression suffers bring it on themselves by not actively doing something to change their mood or outlook. It’s hard to describe how overwhelming depression can be how it strips you of everything turns you into a zombie, a person that is not living but just existing. Please support Time to Change and change people’s perceptions that depression is just an excuse for being lazy. It is far worse than that it is a mental state that can be life threatening. To make it out of bed, the house, go to work, go to school or the shops is a major achievement in trying to reclaim back your mind, your self worth and your ability to engage in everyday life.

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I wrote this for Rethink.

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I'm on new anti depressants Duloxetine. Sounds like Dulux doesn't it? anyway they've made me feel so sick I haven't been able to eat which is a bonus as I got weighed at the dietitian and I'm an awful awful awful 51.7 kgs my highest weight ever! I just want to keep losing now. Its easy on these pills coz my appetite is really suppressed. I think I'm relapsing...

ER 

xx