My fight, My Struggles with Anxiety and Depression

Facing the Demons

A young person's physical, emotional, and relational well-being forms the foundation on which they'll build the rest of their lives. Stress and traumatic episodes can rock this foundation. And if a young person is left to face these challenges alone, they may struggle to recover. -Unknown

Cape Town wasn't what I thought it would be, it looked like my demons had followed me, I thought things would be better but how wrong was I. I hadn't been going to work, I wanted to be in the house with closed curtains and stay in bed the whole day crying and contemplating suicide. I still had no idea what was going on with me, all I knew was that I was very sad and I wanted it to stop. I remember crying saying to my husband "I just want to be happy and I just want to be normal" (whatever that means). One day our boss suggested that maybe I should go for therapy. I wasn't so keen, what does a village girl know about therapy? Besides, how would talking to some stranger help solve the problem? but I agreed to therapy anyway, anything to help me out of the dark hole.

The first time I visited a therapist she suggested that I should see a doctor, she suspected depression. I then visited the doctor and I was diagnosed with severe depression. Knowing that I was depressed helped to make sense of everything that was happening but it changed nothing. I started taking antidepressants and continued with therapy, this is where all things began to make sense, where I got to understand what was happening, therapy helped to bring things to light. Suddenly all the dots were connecting, I realized that I've been dealing with depression for quite some time and I just had no idea that it was depression, or maybe I was in denial. I realized that I didn't get depressed by moving to Cape Town, but the move just escalated things, because I was now in a new space, around unfamiliar people, away from my comfort zone.

Therapy made me realize that my issues are quite old, they dated back to childhood. The bad childhood experiences, the trauma I never dealt with and everything else that happened in between. It was time to go back and face my demons, it was time to stop suppressing stuff and pretending to be okay. It was time to bring those bad experiences to light and talk about them, it was time to heal.