Its funny. I have always found friendships and relationships to be a mixed bag when it comes to mental health. They support you, but there is also this passive and constant pressure to be OK for them. I beat depression 3 years and 9 months ago (give or take) but I almost immediately started a relationship. I never learned how to be healthy and alone. I have come a long way and am pretty solid most of the time, but my wife has been away for 1-2 months and I have found that motivating myself when alone is right back to base level. Its not a skill I have developed since beating depression, but for her sake, I must be OK.
This isn't to say that I'm not ok, but I also feel the strain of a suddenly empty house, of how quiet it is, of having no help mustering the motivation for anything, no help doing anything. Its all just me. She has been my strength and my cause for over 3 years, so suddenly trying to find that within myself when I never developed it in the first place is a shaky process full of pitfalls.
Its not just family and friends I have to be OK for, but also for me. I spent my entire adult life clinically depressed until 3 years and 9 months ago, and the idea that this is temporary and not permanent is terrifying, so I also feel this strong pressure to be OK for my own sake. I so feel this pressure to be OK that I keep forgetting one of the easiest things I learned after depression: Its OK to not be OK. Its natural to have ups and downs, and to deny the downs, to not let yourself process it is what gets a lot of people depressed in the first place.
Sure that pressure to be OK kept me functioning through depression, but now I have to allow myself to not be OK, and to process and to pull it together on my terms, like a normal healthy human being. I need to take on board their intentions and that pressure and use it as encouragement, to push me to deal, not to pretend all is well. Nearly 4 years in, that's still so hard to do.
This isn't to say that I'm not ok, but I also feel the strain of a suddenly empty house, of how quiet it is, of having no help mustering the motivation for anything, no help doing anything. Its all just me. She has been my strength and my cause for over 3 years, so suddenly trying to find that within myself when I never developed it in the first place is a shaky process full of pitfalls.
Its not just family and friends I have to be OK for, but also for me. I spent my entire adult life clinically depressed until 3 years and 9 months ago, and the idea that this is temporary and not permanent is terrifying, so I also feel this strong pressure to be OK for my own sake. I so feel this pressure to be OK that I keep forgetting one of the easiest things I learned after depression: Its OK to not be OK. Its natural to have ups and downs, and to deny the downs, to not let yourself process it is what gets a lot of people depressed in the first place.
Sure that pressure to be OK kept me functioning through depression, but now I have to allow myself to not be OK, and to process and to pull it together on my terms, like a normal healthy human being. I need to take on board their intentions and that pressure and use it as encouragement, to push me to deal, not to pretend all is well. Nearly 4 years in, that's still so hard to do.
