Hey Nomi,
I have asked a few questions on your blog and always read it, so I’d love to get your advice. I have been depressed for a long time and I have good days and bad days. Now with counselling, it’s gotten a lot better but when I have bad days they still hit me really hard. What do you do when you feel low? It would be good to hear some distractions or things I could do to take my mind off it. – Amber
Dear How Low Can You Go,
I feel you. Sometimes I get in a rut so deep I can’t see a way out. I think this is just a human experience, but maybe you have diagnosable depression? Have you been to a psychiatrist? I know you mentioned counselling, but a psychiatrist would determine if you need meds or not. Being the daughter of a mental health professional, I’ve been instilled with the importance of treating mental health. We tend not to think of our mental health as seriously as our physical health. My mum always said, if you had a broken leg, you’d get it fixed, right? Mental health is no different. If it’s broke, it needs fixing, and only meds can do that.
Alternatively, you could just have bouts of the blues like we all do. Here’s what I have to say in response to you asking what I do to take my mind off it: I don’t. I explore it. I allow myself to feel all the funky feelings of being sad, or being riddled with self-doubt or self-judgement. I feel it, I write about it, I journal it, I dissect it. Those feelings are not allowed to be foreign to me. Darkness is simply that which has not had light shed upon it. So shine light on your depression. Do not allow it to be a hidden criminal who can sneak around in the dark. Understand that bad days will come, sadness will come, just be ready for them. We need our dark sides. They are a part of us. Embrace all that is you. Honour it.
I’ve always felt that if I weren’t sad, all I would write is crap.
