Looking back at the old me

As the title suggests i have turned my life around and cannot believe what i used to be like. I used to suffer from severe depression. After multiple events my life took a severe downward spiral, combined with my being seventeen stone i was miserable. I think i spent around a year and a half to two years in the house, mostly in my room and excluded myself from everything. I would wake in the morning with no energy, often just pulling my covers back over my head and lying there. Looking back now i see that my depression stole almost two years of my life from me. It is roughly a year ago now, perhaps a little more, that i decided to start over.

Quite literally one morning, instead of cursing myself for waking, i got up and out of bed and went for a walk. A few months before my family had been made aware about my depression by my cousin. My mum was quite shocked to see me up and about. So i went for my walk, wrapped up in clothing to hide my body, my posture was horrendous, shoulders right forwards, back hunched. Trying to make myself invisible. I got back from my walk and headed for my room, i stopped halfway up the stairs and turned back around. I asked my mum if she wanted any help, her second shock of that day.

Anyway i ended up helping my mum in the garden and then went for another walk. I don't think it was until about a week of doing this that i realised i might actually be enjoying myself, i had shut down all emotion previously. It was my turn to be shocked. I kept this up, dieting at the same time as walking. It took me just over two months to lose six stone. Perhaps not a healthy weight loss but i didn't care, for the first time for as long as i could remember i was happy. I was venturing out into this big bad world i had somehow become so frightened of, i was meeting new people and speaking openly to them about how i used to be. It felt incredible to tell people that i USED to be depressed.

Of course it is not as simple as that, i still have my up days and down days but have since faced a death of a close family member and refused to let myself spiral again. It is an odd thing depression but i want you to know that if i, a boy from a little village in the middle of nowhere, can defeat it then so can you. You just have to believe in yourself and get up and do it. It may not be something that leaves you completely but it is certainly something that can be kept under control. After all, you are the master of your body, take control.

That's great, and you know why you had such success, well of you course you know, because YOU decided to get better. You did it for yourself and no one else. To me that's the strongest and healthiest thing one person can do. It would have been very easy for you to crawl back into bed but you didn't, you stopped yourself and decided to break that cycle.

Your story is hopeful, and I love that. We need more of that.

Thanks for sharing your story.
Ever since the school holidays have started, I've been trying to coop myself up in the house.
I thought I've always hated shopping malls because I seem to have endless bad memories. But I've started to realize something... for the past two years or so, I've been avoiding social situations.. not just shopping malls. It's the fear that I'll embarrass myself, it's the fear that I'd get a panic attack.

I'm glad that you look back and think to yourself, "Oh man, I used to be that person."
Sadly, I don't always regard the old me as a different whole to the present me, if that makes sense.

I've started to figure it out now. Afew days back, I thought to myself, "I'm being silly. The old me isn't the same as the person I am now. I've been trying to make improvements all this while just so that I can finally be ready for the world and yet now I'm still stuck at square one."
So I decided to say _|_ to myself and just stop over-thinking on matters, "The world doesn't revolve around me, no one would really give a honeysuckle whether I do XYZ and make a fool outta myself. I'm only human." Then I just went out and did stuff with the kiddies in school. I felt so happy when I went back home. That was three days ago.

I'm trying to stop putting myself down over how I was in the past.
I'm about to go to the bookstore now and I guess I've rambled on enough.

Sci-Fi that is exactly it and that is all everybody here needs to know, it is down to THEM, nobody else is going to sort your life out for you. We need to be strong and take control!

Lynx I hope people take hope from my situation and know that they too can end the horrible cycle of depression!

Apathy that is great, i used to be the same and still shy away from shopping malls sometimes (but not often anymore), telling myself i 'hated them' when i knew the real reason. As to making a fool of yourself, i have come to realise that is what life and being happy is about, be foolish, act the fool, draw attention to yourself by doing something outrageous and bask in that attention. Soon you will see the changes in yourself and never look back. Keep getting out there, especially on the bad days, don't become a prisoner in your own body. And don't worry about rambling, i do it all the time! !

Sci-Fi that is exactly it and that is all everybody here needs to know, it is down to THEM, nobody else is going to sort your life out for you. We need to be strong and take control!

Lynx I hope people take hope from my situation and know that they too can end the horrible cycle of depression!

Apathy that is great, i used to be the same and still shy away from shopping malls sometimes (but not often anymore), telling myself i 'hated them' when i knew the real reason. As to making a fool of yourself, i have come to realise that is what life and being happy is about, be foolish, act the fool, draw attention to yourself by doing something outrageous and bask in that attention. Soon you will see the changes in yourself and never look back. Keep getting out there, especially on the bad days, don't become a prisoner in your own body. And don't worry about rambling, i do it all the time! !