Looking back now, I find it hard to remember a time when I didn’t have depression, I had a normal enough childhood and was a happy enough child, albeit very quiet and shy and rather introverted. I didn’t know how to communicate well with other children or make friends and as such I was often alone playing by myself but I was happy enough. I had one or two friends at primary school but at secondary school things were different. I was alone and I was bullied and I became a ‘school refuser’.

I moved to a different school in the end but by then it was a little too late. Then, when I was 15 my friend died in a car accident and it hit me harder than I ever could have expected. I couldn’t manage my grief and loss and that was when I started self harming. It started off small at first but my need for it grew as it was the only way I knew how to cope with the pain and my own feelings.

A little while after I got an older boyfriend but when I turned 16 I was forced in to doing things I didn’t want to do by his even older friend. I still struggle with that to this day and I have trouble calling it what it was, but I know it wasn’t right and my self-esteem and self-worth was at its all time lowest. I had a deep depression and I didn’t know how to fight it other than to harm myself. I felt like I’d lost everything.

Self harm was the only way I knew how to deal with my emotions and frustrations and I used it as a release. The physical pain was better to me than the emotional pain and I didn’t care who else it hurt. That those who loved me hated seeing me in pain but at the time I didn’t know what else to do. I was taken to my GP and I saw various counsellors but it only ever helped for a period and then I would relapse and stop going. I had discarded myself emotionally and written myself off as a lost cause.

Then, when I had not long turned 18 I met someone who accepted me for who I was and to me that felt like the first step although looking back I see that he helped me to accept myself for who I was. I couldn’t see how anyone could want to be around me but this person did and he made me feel like I could learn to live with myself. That was my real first step to recovery; being able to accept myself. A couple of years later we bought a house together and we married the year after that and although it hasn’t always been easy, he has always been there for me and I couldn’t ask for anything better.

Sometime after that, I can’t quite remember when exactly now, I was diagnosed as having Bipolar Affective Disorder. It took a while to get a diagnosis as it is hard to recognise the ‘highs’ when you have them yourself but it felt good to have a diagnosis and to know that I wasn’t alone and could have the help that I needed. I was put on medication and learned more about my illness and the depression along with the mania and how to cope with it. The medication took a long time to get right and I still had a few bouts of self harming in the time that followed but they became less frequent as I learnt other ways to cope with my feelings and eventually, naturally, stopped altogether as I learned to make peace with myself and my past.

I was told by one of the mental health nurses that of the key things is to just be kind to myself. I didn’t know what that meant initially but now I do and I try not to put too much pressure on myself now or allow the anxiety and guilt to eat me up, if I can help it and I ask for help when I need it. I have a full time job and sometimes it’s easy to put pressure on at work but it’s important for me to try to disassociate while still working as hard as I can and to leave it in the office when the day is over. Talking to people and reaching out to others has been a huge help and the mental health services are always there when required and there are so many places you can turn to nowadays for help and support and it’s so important that people know the struggle of depression, self harm and mental health. I still have the scars from where I used to cut my arms and although I don’t hide them I do see people looking sometimes. I don’t say anything but if they ask, then I will tell them, to help promote awareness and understanding. I am lucky now, blessed even, and have a good circle of friends and family but I also go to support groups and have made a good support network with people who feel the same and who understand the same feelings and emotions.

Sometimes though, to quote HATW, I do just have to ‘anchor down and wait out the storm’ but I am reassured that it will pass. That things will get easier and good times will come around again.

I also find that taking time to relax helps as well, when things get too much, I make myself make the time, to allow myself to do the things that I know will help: taking a long bath, even though I might not feel like it; watching a ‘security blanket programme’ (mine happens to be Buffy or Angel) or listening to calming music. Personally, I like to listen to piano or cello solos and maybe even try a bit of guided meditation. I find that concentrating on the music and nothing else helps to put my mind at rest and I feel more at peace. Sometimes I go for walks in the park or to the beach as well and just walk and walk until I feel better, taking in my surroundings and listening to the birds or the sea. It is then that I feel small in the world and comforted and the exercise combined seems to put things into perspective.

I also find solace in my favourite poems; knowing again that I am not alone and am not the only one to have suffered, because goodness only knows it can feel that way. My favourite is by Alfred Lord Tennyson and to paraphrase, he wrote:

Come my friends,

‘tis not too late to seek a newer world…

for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles…

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

Or I write things down. I like to be creative where I can be and write my own stories or poems or just general musings and I have a journal with an inscription on the front which is a quote from the movie ‘Dead Poets Society’ which, in itself, is a quote from a Walt Whitman poem and it reads:

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

In the movie, Robin Williams goes on to ask ‘What will your verse be?’ and I feel empowered.

And I am looking forward to the future and to making my own verse.