Mind of a Christian

Anxiety and Depression 01 - My ongoing experience

Man, where to begin? I guess I'll start with talking about my personal experience with depression. This should cement my credibility, if I may, as a person who can provide something useful in the discussion of this whole topic.

I can safely estimate that I've had depression since the start of 2019. My best friend has kept close tabs on me and journaled about my mental state, and looking at those entries, I've exhibited symptoms of depression (in particular, seething self-hatred) that I had missed or assumed to be a normal part of my existence.

At the start of May 2019, the semester workload, club responsibilities, and personal crises ground me down to an unstable mental state. But, since I had a lot of work to do, my mental state manifested itself in high-octane stress, instead of the dead-pan feel that's commonly associated with depression.

That dead-pan, dejected, hopeless feeling came in after the semester ended. My work load finally eased up once final exams and projects passed, but some of the issues going on in my life were still present. And so, I found myself constantly having bad days. I wanted to wait a few weeks before going to the doctor, in case this was just a temporary thing that will pass in a week or so. I kept a small fridge calendar, and in the month of June, I marked down two or three days where I didn't feel like I've hit rock bottom.

So, with that, I decided to go to the doctor late June / early July, and that's when I was diagnosed with depression. Early this September, I saw a psychiatrist, and I'm looking into seeing talk therapists. So, I'm taking the steps to get professional help.

Throughout the journey, I've come from being stuck in dangerous spirals of believing that not even God can save me, to being able to come to Him when I'm going through mental crashes. Yet, even now, it's not fully managed, and I still have a hard time connecting to God for help. I'm still very much in this journey; if I can have enough to write about it, I'll make a separate chapter on that.

Now, onto the day to day things.

I've found out that I don't like going to sleep. I try to push it off by watching YouTube or just sticking to my laptop. Most of my dreams involve emotionally stressful scenarios (eg. losing my best friend and trying to find her, getting exceedingly mad and violent towards someone, etc.). I've recently been waking up at around 4am and have a difficult time going back to sleep. When I do wake up again at a more reasonable time, around 7-9am, it takes a lot of effort to have enough motivation to get out of bed.

If I have idle time throughout the day, my mind just sinks into a generally-down "steady state". I easily get drained in large social gatherings, but I have to be active and talk to people or else I'll slip into a mental spiral.

I guess that's enough to get a picture of my experience with depression. Thank you for the comments in the Q&A chapter that's before this - keep 'em coming.

I'll see you in the next chapter.

- ethan