My Confusion and I

So it has been a while and to be honest my interest in writing has kind of disappeared at the moment, mostly because I spend at least 8 hours everyday in front of a computer expressing myself via code. For me that has been a way to express myself because I haven’t been able to get my feelings out in any other way. Maybe that’s just me swallowing everything that I’ve experienced or it’s simply my cope mechanism. Anyway, I can go on about what’s been going on in my life for sentences, well essays, but that’s not why I’ve started this post.  Moving swiftly on, the topic I want to discuss in this post and that has given me a tiny bit of will to write is the TV-show: 13 Reasons Why. After hearing about it for about a month I decided it was my turn to take a look into the mind of a 17 year old girl who committed suicide. I am not going to tell you the story because I think it’s something that can’t properly be expressed with my words but for the ones that haven’t seen it, the show is ...

Dear Independent, There is an article about mental strength that keeps popping up on my social media news feed. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/mentally-strong-people-dont-do-these-13-things-a6760646.html This article is explaining what people that are mentally strong don't do. As someone who is suffering from mental health issues I took offence by this article. You are explaining traits that some people have and basically saying that if you don't have these traits, you are weak. First of all, thank you! Thank you for making me feel even worse about myself than I already did. Now when I've said that I think I might need to give you an explanation for why I think you've simply got this all wrong. Everyone is different and priorities varies things in life, for some pleasing others might be the most important thing whilst others might just want to think about themselves. Some people enjoy taking risks, others don't. These th...

Today is yet another day created to raise awareness for mental health. It's time to talk about the my experience of depression because believe me, each experience is different. It's been a while since I expressed how I feel here and shared the difficulties I've had with this mental health lately. It's always been there inside of me, bubbling and trying to get out but I have pushed it away. So I cried myself to sleep? So what? That is probably because I had a stressful day. It's completely normal. So I cancelled my plans with my friends? I'm just tired after a long day. These were the excuses I constantly made without realising that I kept shoving my feelings deeper down. By doing this I ended up being filled with so much hatred and anger that I didn't even know how to express it anymore apart from taking it out on everyone, including myself. I blamed the people around me for my feelings and I avoided to accept the truth; I was not myself anymore and I needed...

As mentioned in my previous blog post, coding has helped me to handle my depression. After some research and discussions with other people that like coding I came to realise that there might actually be some kind of connection between code and depression, at least it seems like other people share my belief. According to a thread on reddit there are a split view on this topic. These were some of the different opinions on it: Some people believe that due to people with depression sometimes can feel intimidated and overwhelmed with a lot of people around them and also being uncomfortable interacting with people, coding gives them an ability to avoid these situations. As one member said "You can hide in your office/cubicle and nobody really cares." By doing this, people with depression can feel comfortable in their work environment and that way be able to channel their worries easier; at least at work.  Other people argue that being a programmer is one of the reason...

I have recently on this blog mentioned how I am suffering from depression. By living with a mental illness, bad days is a re-occurring thing in my life and sometimes it can be for no reason at all apart from the fact that my brain simply won't produce enough serotonin for me to be able to feel the happiness that other people feel. This challenge in my life has led to me having to find ways to distract my brain from thinking all those negative thoughts that come and go constantly. I've tried mindfulness, therapy, breathing exercises and the list goes on and on. Even though some of these things have helped at times there is only one thing that has actually been able to calm me down recently; coding. I started learning code a few months ago but I immediately grew to love it. I am not always able to solve the issues but there is so much information out there that I will always be able to get around it somehow. So why do coding help me to relax? Well to be honest I think it's  ...

I've previously written a long post about being depressed and I don't want to repeat myself. However, depression is a subject that I think needs to be mentioned more often. After Robin Williams died everyone seemed to care about the importance of talking about depression but as I feared, that has all gone and with that gone we tend to forget that a smile on someone's face doesn't mean that person is happy. I know many people that are suffering from depression and I know many people that have been hiding it until I admitted my depression to them. I'm not saying that we always need to tell everyone but there shouldn't be an issue if you tell your friends that you have some form of problem that you might need support and help for. Personally my depression has been an issue I've always been scared of dealing with. I've denied medication, I've denied help from a psychologist and what's worse of all, I haven't been willing to help myself. I am fu...

After living with depression for many years and lately experiencing a difficult time I have noticed that there are different type of people you meet. 1. Some people simply can't understand what it means by being depressed. They tend to think of it as someone just having a bad day when in fact someone who is depressed is very likely to feel like they have a bad life. It's completely understandable that it is hard to grasp the concept of a mental illness that causes so much problem that it might even cause physical pain. I guess it's like everything in life; if you haven't experienced it you won't know how it feels like. 2. Some people are good at adjusting to the person with depression and understand the concept even though they won't know how it actually feels like. These people are the ones that will listen to you when you need to talk but won't treat you any differently or be worried what they do will trigger your depression. They know that when you have...

Dear NHS, 8 months ago I went to my GP and asked for a referral to a psychologist. At that point I had just recovered from depression and I felt ready to get support from someone else, something I was scared of before. As any GP would do he sent a referral straight away which led to a phone assessment only a week later. This gave me hope. Finally medical care that takes me serious. Since I was in a stable position in my life at that time I explained to you that I was currently not in a bad state but I wanted to prevent it from happening again. In my opinion that was a logical way of moving forward since I was more likely to be responsive to the treatment when I felt good than if I was at rock bottom. Due to my case not being as urgent as others I had an understanding of that I would have to wait in line as everyone else. You told me it would take 2-3 months. After 4 months I hadn't heard anything from you and I could feel the depression and negative thoughts sneaking up on me. I...

As my regular readers know, I have depression. This has been going on for many years and I've had my ups and downs. The last 3-4 months or so have been bad, really bad but I am finally feeling that I'm emotionally stable to some extent. I know that this has been mainly because I've been working on myself to achieve the things I wanted to achieve in life. I've reevaluated what's important in life and I've learnt how to deal with certain things that hurt me before. But this is not a post about how I've dealt with depression, no this is a post to say thank you to the people that have been there for me. I would say thank you for helping me to get out of it but that would be a lie. Depression is unfortunately not anything someone else can treat and as selfish as it sounds, I am the only one who has got myself out. However, I can thank you for being supportive, understanding and patient. The last 4 months made me antisocial, negative and sometimes very difficult...

Everyone wants to achieve things in life. Some people want a career, some want  a family and some want to beat the boss in the latest computer game. Regardless what you are doing you are constantly trying to achieve something. We often compare each other's achievements and decide whether someone is successful or not depending on what they've done in their lives but what we don't take into consideration is that everyone has different lives which means that some people will be able to achieve something easier than someone else and that makes this whole system wrong. My last few months have been a living hell, at least in my opinion. I've suffered from depression and even though it's not the first time, this time has been the worst. However, even though I still have depression I'm starting to feel that I'm not suffering from it anymore, it's simply a part of my life that will make me stronger. But why does this make my achievements different from others? W...

I am glued to my phone. Or I used to be at least. With the technology now-a-days I felt that I had every reason to have my phone in my hand constantly because I could always be contacted, as if I had enough friends to actually be contacted constantly. According to research by Pew Research 67% of smartphone owners in America check their phone even though they haven't heard it or felt it vibrate. This behavior led to an addiction, at least for me. I became so obsessed with my phone that I would check if people had been online and seen my messages and if they had I wondered why they hadn't answered me. In short, I expected people to be as glued to their phones as I was and I expected them to constantly wanting to talk to me the second I wanted to talk to them. So I made a decision, I turned of the internet on my phone. Not just the mobile data, no all of it. I turned my smartphone (that in my opinion only makes us dumber) into an old fashioned phone where the only functions I ca...

I've mentioned in previous posts that I am depressed, something that took me a long time to admit to myself but also to other people. I long thought this was something that affected only me since no one had to deal with my problems and when I was depressed I closed my door and dealt with the issues by myself. Recently though I have come to the realisation that this isn't the case. My depression affects the people around me and I let other people play too much of a part of my happiness. I'm not saying my friends aren't important in my life and that I don't have them to thank for some of my happiness. What I'm saying is that I shouldn't rely on them to be happy, which is something I've done my whole life and probably would have continued to do if it wasn't for a huge wake up call. There wasn't any particular thing happening to me that made me realise it, I simply came to the conclusion that I have been blaming the wrong thing for years; other peo...

We were recently informed that the hilarious and extremely talented man, Robin Williams had decided to take his life after a long battle against depression. When I got the news I was sad to hear about yet another person who found no other way to get out than to take his own life. As a person who has suffered from depression I know how it feels when you don't see any way to get yourself back up but I've been fortunate enough to never lose that last spark. What I noticed quickly after the news hit the world was that suddenly everyone seemed to acknowledge how depression is an issue in the world and that we constantly need to speak about it and we shouldn't be ashamed of it. This is something I realised a long time ago but for some reason a famous person that was popular amongst many of us had to die for the world to realise it. Suddenly I had friends, that had told me to cheer up when I was down, saying that we need to understand that telling someone that is depressed to che...

I recently met a few people for the first time. After spending less than 5 minutes with them they had already made at least 5 jokes about depression and other mental illnesses. Normally I would have told them off for it but I was a guest in their home and therefore laughed politely and pretended that everything was ok. But everything wasn't ok. Inside I was thinking that these people are fortunate enough to never have experienced enough bad things in their life to realise that mental illness isn't a joke and I don't actually find it funny at all. I started becoming jealous, wishing I could joke about mental illness and not see anything wrong with it but I quickly realised that I'm not jealous at all. As I've explained in a previous post I've been through depression. I still am and I have people around me going through similar things. It has taught me to appreciate the things that make me happy because I know that happiness isn't something that everyone expe...

L'Oréal has told me that I'm worth it many a time. Everytime I see an advert they try to convince me that I'm worth it. What IT is has remained a mystery to me. A new hair color? Better skin? Makeup that stays on for longer? Or maybe they are on about something completely different. So instead of taking this slogan and trying to find L'Oréal's meaning behind it I have adapted my own. My last blog post was an exception to my rule about me not writing about personal things on the blog. This was my second exception in about a month and it seems like I am making my 3rd exception now but I've realised that being personal and sharing your own experience can have a positive effect on people. So first of all I want to thank the people that have showed their support after reading my last post. I wasn't expecting people to be understanding but I have received a few reactions, all of them being supportive. So how am I going to make the exception this time? Well l...

I am depressed. Not in the way that you think about how you're feeling a bit down and having a rough day. No, I'm depressed in the way that I can lie in my bed for hours doing nothing except for crying, wondering what is wrong with me. I can wake up in the morning thinking that there is no point to life and I secretly wish I hadn't woken up. Or I can go to bed in the evening with my brain being a blurr and the only clear thought I have is: What can I do to end this suffering. For me it has never been in the way that I consider ending my life but there have been many times when I've considered if life is actually worth living. You might wonder how someone that has everything sorted out for them can feel this. Well the truth is, I don't have everything sorted out for me. No one ever does but sometimes people go through things that trigger a depression which is what I've done recently. In our world it is taboo to discuss how we feel. I've mentioned it before ...

We all have feelings. If you say you don't you must be a robot because having feelings is one thing that defines us as people. What you and me feel changes constantly and no one can ever feel exactly the same thing as you do. My happiness might be different from yours and your sadness might be something completely different from what I'm feeling. Because of this no one can tell us that what we're feeling is wrong. However, we can try to understand other people and relate to what they are feeling to similar experiences we've had in our lives. One thing that has struck me recently though is how we seem to think we can relate to other people's feelings when in fact we often close our eyes to what is really going on. Especially when someone is going through something difficult. I find this strange because it is completely normal to have bad days. We wouldn't be human if we didn't. We all have bad days, some people more than others but we have all been there whe...