"Once upon a time, there was a monster with a little girl trapped inside.
It would feel everything but nothing at all.
It will consume everything and starve her soul"
It’s been decades of feeling like this... Trapped, suffocated and exhausted. Completely detached and numb... So devoid of my own feelings that I could feel everyone else’s from a mile away.
For the longest time I held the mistaken believe that there was something terribly wrong with me. I was flawed, broken and damaged. I was so convinced of it, that I would unconsciously starve myself body and soul when nobody was watching. Maybe by shrinking physically, the pain would shrink as well. To me, depression was a sum of countless sleepless nights and skipped meals. It was a constant battle with everything and everyone around me.
At age 19, I was officially diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety, even though I’ve been feeling like that since I was 13. The diagnosis was not a relief or validation to what I was feeling, but a stigma that no one in my family could understand, even less accept. How could I blame them, if I agreed? I was “healthy”, studying the career of my choosing, at the college I always wanted. To the outside world, I was always a good student, witty and social. It was the moment I would turn around, close the door and leave that the mask would come off. My mom would reproach me that I was spoiled, how could I possibly be so damn miserable? It felt like a stab in the center of my being. It felt like a life sentence. Deep down inside, I believed her.
My way to compensate was to over-function. I would study harder, work harder and party even harder. I would drink too much and smoke too much. I was set on showing everyone what I thought they wanted to see. I so desperately wanted to be accepted for who I was. I wanted to belong, but the shackles of depression always kept me at the margins of my own existence. It was a slippery slope, because being functional on a day-to-day basis made it difficult for anyone to notice that I was in pain.
I have been in an out of therapy and medication as my depressive cycles went. Always weighted down by the shame of not being able to cope with the world like a “normal” human being. It was not until 14 years later that I would, enter yet another therapy room, thinking that this might just be the “last time I try” to find a better way to navigate this world… I had no idea what was going on. My health was at its worst. I had spent the previous 6+ years trying everything: quit smoking, change of diet, yoga and meditation to alleviate the numbing pain I just couldn’t put my finger on. It wasn’t until I started getting the nastiest flashbacks I have ever experienced, that I truly thought I was not going to make it without help. I knew something had happened to me when I was 4, and I always played down the fact that a family member had been “inappropriate” with me. I told myself that it wasn’t that bad and it had not really affected me, but deep down I could sense something was off.
I wasn’t really able to come up with the right words to express the images in my head. I was not able to grasp the memories that my mind seemed to be playing on a loop inside my head. I felt as if I were under attack, not one minute of the day would go by without these intrusive thoughts flooding my brain. I could only take refuge at work, where the stress and ever-flowing state of urgency would keep me from thinking. It was exhausting. By the time I sat down in the room and looked at my therapist, I was a bit like a robot… trying to go through the motion of giving her a summarized version of my family and personal history until I chocked trying to explain my current state of mind. At that moment, she asked me to pause and take a breath while she delivered the words I’ve been wanting to hear all my life. She said: ”Martha, are you aware that there is nothing wrong with you? What you are telling me is a natural way for your body to respond, not only to trauma but to the environment you grew up in”. I stood silent, a wave of relief washed over my body and for the first time in months, maybe ever, I felt like I could relax.
This realization marked the beginning of a long journey towards true healing. See, I don’t think this is common knowledge to anyone who has gone through trauma or is suffering from depression. We all think that there is something we need to fix. If we wouldn’t have done “x” or gone to “y” nothing would have happened. If we were like “so and so” or had “a,b or c” we could be happy and not feel like this!. Instead we should know that depression is just a way for our body to tell us that something is off. Whether it is trauma, or unprocessed feelings, genetics, a chemical unbalance or being subject to a highly toxic environment, even a combination of all of them…THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU. Your body is reacting to something that is causing you dis-ease. This is life’s invitation to look at your depression as a resource for healing. A place where you can begin to ask the questions that can lead you to a life where your emotions are a source for understanding what is causing you pain and what makes you feel joy. Right here is the place where you begin your journey back home.
Trauma is something you do not have to overcome alone, if you are survivor of sexual abuse or any trauma, I highly encourage you to seek professional help.
Two sites that I used to look for help and eventually led me to the right therapist are:
https://www.rainn.org/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us