Tag: depression

Guest Blogger: Jess Hernandez – Authors for Mental Health

Guest Blogger: Jess Hernandez – Authors for Mental Health

sandybarker

It’s a pleasure to welcome Jess Hernandez to Off the Beaten Track today as part of the Authors for Mental Health blog series.

Jess Hernandez is a not only a writer, but also a librarian, teacher and all-around word girl.

When not being used as a human canvas for baby food art, she writes books for kids. Her debut book, First Day of Unicorn School, illustrated by Mariano Epelbaum, was published in 2021 with Capstone. 

Sometimes Jess writes essays, poems, and short stories for grown-ups, too. Jess lives in a very small, very loud house in Washington with her husband, their three children, a puppy and four chickens.

And now over to Jess.

Outrunning My Kidneys

It was an inconvenient time for a breakdown. I was four years into my marriage, five into my career and adulthood was in full swing. I had a dog, a loving husband, car payments, health insurance, and a 401K [superannuation fund]. Things were going pretty much according to plan.

Except I couldn’t have been more miserable if I’d tried.

An average night found me watching Food Network and binge-eating cupcakes on the couch, feeling exhausted and terrified by the things my mind kept telling me. “You’re useless. You’ll never be happy. There’s something wrong with you.” And most pervasively, “What right do you have to feel sad? Nothing really bad has ever happened to you.” For no reason and for every possible reason, it was the absolute worst time of my life.

Using Dr. Google, I tried to cure myself from the outside in. I filled my apartment with houseplants. I took up crochet and started playing the piano again. I prayed and I exercised. When that didn’t work, I quit my job, changed careers, and went back to school. I even moved to a tropical island. (Yes, really.)

But it only made it worse. My very soul hurt, and I fantasised about ways to make it all stop.

Trying to escape my depression was like trying to outrun my kidneys. My job, my apartment, and the weather didn’t make me like this. My brain did, and until I did something about that, nothing would ever change.

So I got help. I got a diagnosis, a therapist, and a prescription. And while the pills have saved my life many times over, the most helpful thing didn’t come in a bottle or on a therapist’s couch.

The best thing I’ve ever done for my depression is to accept it.

Unlike a lot of people, my depression will never go away. It’s not something I’m going to get over or leave behind like an outgrown sweater. I’m permanently and forever mentally ill. It’s part of me, like my crooked nose and bowlegs. I can treat it. I can ignore it. But I’m never going to get rid of it.

It was a tough truth to swallow. I wanted so desperately to be normal again. Every time I felt something like happiness, I wondered, “Is this it? Have I cracked it?” Tentatively, I’d wean myself off pills and declare myself better.

When the darkness inevitably came back, it knocked the wind out of me, and I would grieve the person I once was all over again. It took years, but eventually I learned to understand that this is who I am now. This person who gets hobbled by sadness and gutted by pointless guilt. This is me. I finally kept taking my pills and stopped trying to convince myself I was better. I know now that my depression isn’t going anywhere

It was a hard realisation. But there was some good news, too: there might not be a way out, but there was a way through.

I don’t always feel so bad. Not every day is an uphill slog through endless suck. Instead, it varies. Some days I have depression. It’s like having a cold – a nagging tickle in my throat that I can power through. But some days – not all, but some – depression has me. It kicks me in the teeth and shoves me down the stairs. It stands on my throat and screams in my face. Those days are bad. But I know now they won’t last forever.

What’s more, I survive them. With practice, I learned to see them coming and take cover. I learned to be kind to myself. I talk back to my brain when it tells me I shouldn’t be feeling this way. And I accept that this is not my fault.

Mental illness is not a moral failing or a lack of faith or will power. It’s a straight up medical condition that requires medication, not self-flagellation or guilt. I try forgive myself for being broken and glue myself back together the best I can.

I learned to do it openly, no longer hiding my struggles from people.

At first, I kept my diagnosis to myself. I was scared people would judge or run. Some did. But most didn’t.

Most love and accept me for me. Most wish I’d spoken sooner so they could help. They make space for my illness and try to understand. But that only happened when I stopped being afraid and talked about it. When I did, I discovered I wasn’t nearly as alone as I thought. Instead, my being brave helped others overcome their fear of telling the truth. So I learned to speak up and speak out. I learned there are people I can help.

I’m not saying this is some sort of blessing in disguise. It’s not. But it’s not a death sentence either. I will survive it. I just have to believe that the good things in my life outweigh the daily pain of living. And they do. The biggest things in my life are the good things. And the longer I live, the more good things I have. Like a family and a home and a job I love.

So I stick around.

I keep breathing, even when it hurts. Because there are beautiful things still on the way and I want to be here when they come.

Image ‘Holding You’ by li.fe fotografie. Flickr.

Authors for Mental Health Blog Series

Authors for Mental Health Blog Series

sandybarker

This month, I will be hosting some guest bloggers on Off the Beaten Track as part of the initiative Authors for Mental Health.

This initiative has two aims: increase awareness into the importance of good mental health and raise funds for Beyond Blue, an integral Australian organisation, particularly in today’s social, emotional and political landscape. Authors for Mental Health runs through to the first week of April, culminating in an auction (April 1-6) in which generous authors and publishing professionals have donated everything from books to their time and expertise.

So why have I raised my hand to be part of Authors for Mental Health?

That question is both simple to answer – I have suffered from anxiety since childhood and bouts of depression since early adulthood – and complex.

Mental illness affects me, and many of my loved ones – friends as well as family members – and colleagues. And good mental health is just as important as good physical health. Yet, we – as a society – still attach a stigma to mental illness. We make it difficult for people to put their hand up and say, ‘I suffer from mental illness’ or, ‘I need help.’ We don’t have enough support measure in place. For many of us, we don’t have the vocabulary to explain mental illness, even to ourselves, so how can we begin to understand it?

So, when Kate Foster reached out to ask if I’d donate an item for the auction, I said, ‘All the yeses.’ And then I offered to help with the blog series and other aspects that I could contribute to.

Because good mental health DOES matter. It is critical and should be a priority for all of us, looking after our own mental health. And for those who don’t yet have the vocabulary to understand it, or the courage to ask for help, maybe, just maybe, this initiative will make their path a little easier.

Depression has hit me hard at various times in my adult life. For me, it usually manifests as despondency, a feeling that creeps up on me until I am in the thick of it and see no way out of it – a feeling that it isn’t worth doing anything, going anywhere, seeing anyone. A feeling that it’s not worth participating in life at all, and yes, at times I have had thoughts of suicide.

With ‘lower-grade’ depression (as I think of it), something that has raised its head several times in the past two years, sometimes for weeks on end, I get frustrated and angry – from zero to fury in a matter of seconds – about things that really don’t matter. Or I’ll sob uncontrollably, my body wracked with pain and fear that it will never end – though, in the moment, not truly knowing what ‘it’ is.

And I still have the occasional panic attack, though usually in situations where I feel claustrophobic, as though I need to escape but can’t. For me, naming it is the most powerful tool for overcoming it. ‘I am having a panic attack,’ I’ll tell the person I’m with. In one instance, I had to ring the call button on a flight, so I could say, ‘I am having a panic attack.’ The man next to me quickly stood and let me out and the flight attendant ushered me to the galley where I was given water and space to breathe. My partner, Ben, has been with me for several attacks. At first, he’d ask, ‘What do you want me to do?’ He now knows to give me space, to speak to me in soothing tones, and to coach me to slow my breathing – his empathy helps.

With depression, I had a break-through when we were living in Seattle, a city I loved but one in which you live under grey skies for 10 months a year. I wrote about that in this post, The Gray, and it was only in retrospect that I realised I was smack dab in the middle of depression when I wrote it. Here’s an excerpt:

‘Your mood is gray. You crave nothing, hate nothing. Everything is neutral. Extremes have no place in your existence. Your soul has been doused in peroxide. Sometimes, just there in the periphery, you see glimpses of passion, of disagreement and debate. Yet you have succumbed to the numbing, and do not participate.’

When I showed up at the GP and she asked what she could help with, I burst into tears and sobbed through an explanation of what was going on. As a New Mexican (one of the hottest, sunniest states in the US), she had first-hand knowledge of the additional stress that grey weather puts on mental health. After listening to me blubber for a good five minutes, she said, ‘Honey, you’re depressed.’ More specifically, I had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

The relief at having a diagnosis was overshadowed by self-flagellation. How had I not realised? I’d suffered from depression before – how had I not recognised that it had taken hold again?

The doctor prescribed Vitamin D supplements and medication. The medication, however, made me nauseous and woozy 24/7 and after several weeks, I decided, ‘No, not for me.’ What else could I try? Well, if I was missing the sun, I could replicate it, right? I bought myself a blue light and I started going to hot yoga three times a week. I also talked openly about my depression. I asked for help and understanding from my partner and friends – and (I am so grateful for this), I got it. Though, I never raised it at work. I didn’t feel safe enough in that environment to tell my colleagues, my boss. That stigma! In the throws of depression, I was simply ‘difficult to work with’ and ‘surly’ ‘always unhappy’.

Now, 13 years after the SAD diagnosis, I am better at recognising the signs that depression may be taking hold. But only better, not perfect. It still catches me unawares at times, particularly during the ‘Groundhog Day’ existence of Melbourne lockdowns.

So, that’s why I have raised my hand to help bring awareness to the importance of treating our mental health the same way we do our physical health – by prioritising it, by be empathetic to ourselves and others, by building the vocabulary we need to talk about it openly and effectively – and without judgement.

Please, please, please – take care of yourself, make your mental health a priority, if you haven’t already, and if you need it, ask for help. It’s out there.