“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
The issue with depression is not that it exists, but that we don’t open up about it enough. I can only imagine how different my experience would have been if I had only opened up sooner about my struggle.
Face planting into that emotional rock bottom will change your whole life. Either you learn to love yourself way harder than before, or you fall into the deepest depression ever. I did both, and I’ve since then learned that loving myself is always the better choice.
Depression started small for me. It grew over time.
· When I didn’t get my dream job after completing my graduate program
· When my mother got sick
· When my dog got sick
· When I gained stress weight
· When I was constantly smacked in the face with the reminder that I will never be perfect
· When my aunt died
· When my partner became distant
· When my other aunt died
· When I left one job for something far worse
· When I was left with no job at all
· When my hair broke off
Depression found its way into the tiny crevices and holes of my life and it grew. And I let it. I knew I was feeling off, but I didn’t do anything to fix myself. I kept thinking that the best thing to do would be to ignore the feeling and it would disappear on its own. But depression continued to grow. The only thing that was holding me together and keeping me happy was my relationship. That’s a lot of responsibility to throw onto someone. No one should ever be the keeper of your happiness. It is your job to build and keep your own happiness, but I didn’t understand this at the time. I thought that my partner was supposed to hold me up until I felt strong enough to carry my own weight. This concept would have worked had I been putting forth the effort to get better. I wasn’t. Instead, I was throwing all my dead weight onto my partner and expecting it to just work itself out. The day that my relationship ended I felt depression swell. It became so big and so wide and bloated that I couldn’t grab hold of it. I couldn’t get around it, through it or over it. I was stuck. I couldn’t even breathe. I had no idea what to do next, so I did nothing.
I went to Chicago to stay with my brother, sister in law and niece. I will never forget the look on my brother’s face when he realized that this was something that even he could not pull me out of. My brother has been my superhero since birth and he just couldn’t save me. This was something that I had to save myself from. My four-year-old niece, Zora, came into my room almost every day. It was usually late in the day and I would still be in bed. She was always cautious, because she didn’t want to disturb me. Zora would ask if I was ok and proceed to tell me about her day. I would put on a fake smile and invite her to chill in bed with me, but she knew I wasn’t normal she just didn’t know why. My sister talked to me day in and day out and prepared food for me that I barely ate (I lost nineteen pounds in one month). My mother called everyday just to talk to me. She has always been the superwoman of my life, but not even she could save me. I say all of this because there are people in this world who love you so very much. People who would do anything for you. If you find that depression has disrupted your life and you don’t feel like fighting through it for yourself, fight through it for the sake of your loved ones. They need you to fight. They need you healthy. They need you happy. So, I tried to get better.
I came back to Maryland. I hung out with many friends. I smoked a lot of weed. I drank a lot of alcohol. I did everything that would turn me numb and make me forget that I was grieving. I spent a full month feeling like I was on top of the world. Finally beating depression. But you can’t fake yourself out of being depressed so I crashed. Hard.
The following months I threw myself a pity party. I had all the pity party necessities: endless Netflix, endless Hulu, rolls of toilet tissue to clean up my tears, melatonin, jammies and head scarves to protect hair that was already damaged. I had no idea how I was going to get myself out of this hole, but I also wasn’t trying hard enough.
For months (six months to be exact) I stayed in bed. I watched ALL the episodes of Shameless and Black-ish. That’s A LOT of time in bed feeding my brain years’ worth of television series. I had no intentions of getting better. Eventually I got tired. I was exhausted from being in bed and doing nothing, but sulking. Can you imagine staying in one spot day after day with no goals or plans or motivation? It is draining.
I didn’t know at the time that I was in my period of mourning. I was losing the Zakiah that I had been used to for so many years. The same person that I had become comfortable with and settled in her ways was leaving me. I was transitioning.
Then, one day something pulled me out of bed. I looked in the mirror and I had no idea whose reflection was present. I had the deepest, darkest rings around my eyes, and these huge bags that sat in the center of those rings. I looked deflated from not eating much. My skin was dry and peeling. I lost my spark. This wasn’t me. I knew it was time to find happiness again. Not temporary happiness, but genuine, true, pure joy that wouldn’t vanish at the very moment that I didn’t get what I wanted, or someone decided to leave my life. So, I put in the work to heal my soul. I decided that I would be happy. I spoke life, positivity and daily affirmations into myself each day. I started to believe that I was stronger than my depression and that I would beat it.
Pulling yourself out of depression takes sooo much work. You must be willing to take the time to be uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with being in just your own company (Learn the difference between being alone and being lonely). Uncomfortable with your own thoughts. Take the time to calm and organize your thoughts so that you can hear what you actually need to do. If you allow your thoughts to go untamed and uncontrolled, you will find yourself falling back into a place of doubt, sadness, anger and frustration, which all lead to depression. Happiness takes work. Real hard work. You must want it.
One hard truth that I had to face through my depression is that no one is responsible for my healing or my happiness. It is MY JOB to be happy. I had to stop playing the victim who constantly wonders why bad things happen to me. I had to start looking at life differently. I learned to find lessons in the storms. I learned to be grateful that those storms didn’t drown me. I learned to accept everything that happened and recognized my past as a blessing. I made peace with the chaos, because I knew it wasn’t going to leave until I figured out why it was present in the first place. There was absolutely nothing familiar about this new space in which I found myself. That is when I knew I would never go back to the old me. She was gone. That life was gone. It was time to grow and I was being forced to do so.
I began to study myself as if I were my own science experiment. I learned that in order to be the woman that I am becoming some things had to be shifted, removed and set aside for later. Letting go of the old Zakiah and the things that made me feel safe was hard. I had to be made so uncomfortable that I had no choice, but to learn how to heal myself, because what other options did I have? There was no plan B. I had to be knocked off of my feet and learn how to stand and realign myself. Healing is not an easy process, but consistency helps a lot. I came out of depression through:
· Exercise
· Music
· Self-help books
· Motivational speeches
· Journaling
· Praying
· Being gentle with myself
· Conversations with family and friends
· Muting and unfollowing any Instagram or Facebook accounts that did not fit into the life that I am creating for myself.
· Following motivational Instagram and Facebook accounts
· Spreading love and good vibes
· I try to motivate others as much as I motivate myself, because I’ve learned that our pain is not in vain. Sometimes our struggles happen so that we may become teachers and guide others through their tough times.
Once I decided that depression could no longer have control in my life, I found Zakiah in a new light and I learned to love every curve, bend and fold. I fell hard in love with myself as any lover would, peacefully yet fiercely. I had been in love with myself before, but this time was different. This time I would fall for a different version of me. I love this new Zakiah so hard so that no one can ever love me more than I do. I taught myself how to respect my softness even though the world is tough and hard and cold and the very thought of being soft is frowned upon.
Moral of the story: Don’t ever minimize or doubt your struggle’s purposes. You’re being prepared for something far greater than you can ever imagine and the old you simply won’t fit into that new space. Be grateful for every failure. Be grateful for every rejection. What is not for you will not work for you. No matter how much you try to force it. It will never work. BUT what is meant for you will always make its way into your life.
Whatever you are going through don’t hesitate to believe that you’ll come out of it. You have the right to cry, scream, shout and be angry, but do it while holding on to your faith. You don’t have to see your better days to know that they are coming. You just have to believe in them.
Please don’t think that I am fully healed, nor do I have it all together. Every day I open myself up to learn new things. Every day I forgive myself for the mistakes that I made yesterday. Every day I am loving me in brand new ways.