Depression is like trying to lift weights that are well over your max. You might be able to get it off the ground a few inches, but lifting it all the way up without injuring yourself can feel like trying to pick up a ton of bricks that are pulling at every muscle in your body. It pulls you down while you struggle with everything you have to lift it. Here is what they don’t tell you, no one said you had to lift those weights alone. Just like at the gym, we all need a spotter. Someone to help us lift the weight when it’s too heavy to lift up on our own. Someone to help keep us safe when we push our limits and can’t quite get there alone. The hardest part is believing we deserve it enough to allow them to help us.
Now I am not saying that we don’t build strength as we continue to lift and work hard at pushing through to be able to lift more. I’m also not saying that we aren’t capable of doing it on our own. I’m simply saying that we don’t have to. Someone recently asked me what they can do to help. My answer to everyone is always “I’m fine, it’s fine, everything is fine”. I was then asked, “you know how you always want to help your friends? Well, I’m here to be that for you”. It was in that moment that it really hit me that it’s OKAY to not hold the weight of the world on our shoulders and that we do deserve help.
The hard part? Depression convinces us that accepting help means we are a burden on those around us. It convinces us that we don’t deserve the good and that we are on our own. We replay every scenario and find reasons as to why we are struggling and why we shouldn’t be loved or cared for. Our minds convince us that those we love are better off without us around and that accepting their help only proves that we are a burden. Accepting help becomes a failure in our minds, like we are a disappointment because we can’t do it on our own. That’s not the reality of it though. That’s a twisted and messed up version of how life should be based on stupid chemicals in our brains that aren’t balanced.
I had a patient recently who was really struggling with depression and kept asking me what was wrong with them. I told them that they are not to blame for what their mind is telling them. That I understand and that it’s a chemical imbalance to which they have no control over. They kept calling help the “crazy house” and medication “crazy pills”. I told them how much it has helped me. That it doesn’t make you weak or mean that something is wrong with you. It simply means you need something different to give you the best chance at feeling and thinking what comes naturally to so many others. The tears in their eyes to realize that they are not alone was everything to me.
I guess my point is that life is hard enough without depression and anxiety kicking our butts every step of the way. The weight to be a good mom, friend, person, girlfriend, employee and everything in between is overbearing at times. I can’t speak for everyone else but it’s in those times that we should be leaning on others, not pushing them away. I tend to do this (ask any of my close friends-they hate it). Doing this ends up hurting them in the long run, which is exactly what we try to prevent by pushing away. Take a breath, squeeze your people, and limit your circle to people who don’t ever tell you how you should feel or think, or tell you that you are wrong because it doesn’t necessarily make sense. Find people who validate your feelings, try to understand, and stick around anyway. Those are the people that will never see your struggles or weight as a burden. Those are the people that grab one side and lift that shit up with you.
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