Take for example the above two photos. The photo on the left was me last year, before I was suffering from depression and all the problems I experience now. The photo of me on the right is from this week, after being diagnosed with depression a few weeks ago. Simply looking at these photos, or any photos of me, will not really show you anything: you wouldn't notice a difference here, apart from my hair (of course), but the fact of the matter is that although I look happy/well in both of these pictures life was a lot easier when the one on the left was taken.
This therefore poses the difficulty, and perhaps the ignorance, which I have noticed over time. In a perfect world I wouldn't have to deal with my anxiety and depression, but unfortunately this is not a perfect world and I am suffering, but I do not deserve to further go through a bigger ordeal such as people making it worst. Sadly, quite a few of my closest friends suffer from depression, which helps me to not feel so alone at times, and being able to help them really does boost my mood. Life is unfair, everyone who I know who suffers as I do are literally the loveliest people you would ever meet, who would never wish harm on anybody, and are always loving in personality, and yet those who seem to be horrible and judgemental seem not to go through such things.
I guess that comes to another feeling I personally get (and I'm sure others may sometimes feel this too) which is that I feel weak and hopeless because of suffering like I do. I feel as though I'm alone and isolated, and long to just be happy without a care in the world. It angers me more than anything though when people refer to things such as depression or anxiety or M.E. as not real, and having comments by some being "just get over it!" or "you're just looking for attention." I confide in my blog for this, since I would never really post about this on social networking sites as they seem to be full of narrow minded and dismissive people who seem anything but supportive. This shows the ignorance of some in society today, why would people fake such things? Invisible illnesses all seem to have one thing in common; that they affect the sufferers daily life in a significant way, so why would anybody want to fake this feeling?
I personally feel like I'm in a really bad place right now: I can't deal with much social interaction without feeling constantly uncomfortable; I'm susceptible to unpredictable panic attacks which can happen anywhere, and as a result make me feel very anxious and scared of attempting anything; I can barely even speak to people I hardly know to even ask for little things like a pen or the time!
The worst thing about all these things is that I can look back to say a year ago where I was so confident and could manage to do so much, which now the very thought of doing certain things fills me with feelings of dread and fear. It's knowing that, I was once able to do these things with no trouble and yet, now I can't do them. All this does is make me feel even more depressed, and it feels like a never ending downward spiral that I can't seem to get out of right now.
I've been liaising with my universities student wellbeing service and I have received loads of very helpful information. The most important thing I need to remember is that I am not alone, and anybody who suffers from an invisible illness should always remember one thing: You Are Not Alone! There are many of us who suffer, but as the name suggests, it's not always so obvious, because the symptoms are mainly noticed by the sufferer and not observed by everyone else. This doesn't mean we are weak though, if anything we are strong. It is important to look at the positives, and whilst I may be at my worst right now, I know that in time I will start to feel better and that as a result of this I will come out a stronger person. Life can be incredibly hard and at times the feeling of giving up can sound tempting, but you must always remember that it is worth fighting for and that you can beat whatever it is that you're going through!
