10th October was World Mental Health Day. I posted something on my Instagram a day before that but I have been quiet about it here. I’m raising public awareness on mental health especially on depression through #IWillBeOkay ‘Fight Against Depression’ Awareness Campaign and I find it odd that I’ve been quiet about this important day.
Reason being, I fell back in depression.

I thought I had recovered. I haven’t fall into the depression hole since March 2017. I was happy, extremely happy. I was surrounded by good friends, I was busy with work. I was happy. Genuinely happy. But I was having anxiety attacks that I’m not even aware of. I remember my birthday 29th September just last week that I was out celebrating with friends. Everything was OK up until one point of time I shut down and needed to leave immediately. It is only the next day I realized that I had anxiety attack. I haven’t had any anxiety or panic attacks for quite a while so I didn’t realize that I was having one. That explains the need to get away from the place, situation and people asap. Most people are curious but never dare to ask me about life living with depression. I guess what they are curious are, how do you get on life with depression.

Here’s mine.

Depression is beautiful

I used to blame the God, the earth, the water, the sun, the moon and the star for having depression. Why me? That is one question that I constantly ask myself and friends. Why me.

Depression is a lonely, black and grey world. It seems that the world is nothing but a grey one. The world feels like closing on you or even crumbling down on you. Sometimes you may even feel lonely because no one understand you. It is only those who had been through or going through the same will understand what it feels like having depression.

I stopped asking WHY as I’m becoming better. Instead I tried to understand it. I still think that God had given me this challenge because He wanted me to see the world differently. You see, when you had depression, the world is different from the normal one. I see the good side of everything, but I also see the bad side of everything and everyone. When I understand it more, I knew I was in for a good one. And when I begin to feel much better, I told myself I need to help others by helping them to understand more about depression and helping them to go through it like how I did. This was when #IWillBeOkay was born.

Living with a time bomb

If you really wanna know how it feels like to go on with your everyday life with depression, this is how it is. Like living with a time bomb in you. You’ll never know when you will fall back into depression and how long it takes to climb out of it. I wish there’s an alarm for it. One minute I was fine, the next minute I couldn’t bare to stay in the same room with everyone else for the next minute. Sometimes I want to go out, when I’m out I suddenly needed to go home. It is unpredictable. The anxiety attacks, the sudden tears, the sudden sadness. It’s all unpredictable.

Each recovery is different too. Sometimes it took me a week to climb out of it. Sometimes a day or two. Worse is months. It’s all in the mind set, how you feel and think contributes a lot to recovery time frame.

Reconnect with long time friend

Throughout the most difficult time of my life in 2015 and 2016, I reconnected with so many of my long time friends. Friends who I knew for 20 years or more and that we kinda drifted apart due to life commitment. Among one of them is my high school crush since I was 14 years old <3 . Slyde, who used to be with Poetic Ammo and now he’s the man in Dragon Red has been my back bone support when it comes to depression. He shared with me what depression is, how to deal with it and he was the one who recommended a doctor to me. He would call me all the time to check if I have went to the doctor. And if money was the issue, he will be the one who give me all the money so that I could see a doctor. Psychiatrist is not cheap.

Slyde is someone who always like to sweet talk so when he speak to me on something serious, I take it seriously. He’s constantly checking on me to see if I’m okay. And if not, he’d be dragging my butt off to the doctor in Sunway 🙂 . Serious, I love this guy to death. I can literally talk to him about anything without any filter and he won’t judge. He is that kind of friend. That was us when I surprised him at Maybank Treats Fair. We used to hang out for days at the fair. Me watching him emceeing, he bringing me coffee haha. Always fun to hang out with Slyde at his events.

Always aware of triggering point

Joanne Kay from Ultron, who’s also my friend told me to beware of the trigger point. What she said to me was true. There must be something that triggers everything and fell back into depression. After what she told me I started rethink back to what’s my trigger point. It doesn’t take me long to know what’s my trigger point.

For some reason I always fell into depression whenever I’m planning for #IWillBeOkay campaign. Perhaps it brought me back to how I got myself into depression unknowingly but I never stop. People has been asking me why I’m still doing it if it brought me back to the bad memories. I said because by being in the campaign, it helped me to go through it in a way. And I didn’t want to let go any opportunity to help others to find the solution like how I was lucky to have. So I suck it up and go through it. Eventually I always climb out of depression. It’s just the matter of time.

The question is, how do I stay away from the trigger point when mine is heart break? As I am writing this, I’m still trying to find the way out of this depression that I’m having. To the someone who’s reading this, yes you are the trigger point of what I had now. I know you read my blog and I hope this time you really read through and see this.

Conclusion

Everyone go through depression differently. There’s not a right solution to each and everyone unless you start to find one for yourself, that only works for you. Whenever I was approached and ask how do one snap out of depression, I always tell them to find a distraction. Something that can divert your mind away from the trigger point. My case was more complicated. Not only I have to redirect my mind, I also have to redirect my heart. Heart as you know is the hardest of all.

My ex-boss told me this yesterday and I find it to be true.

What you can’t control, if you focus on it, will paralyze you.
What you can control, if you focus on it, will set you free.
If you don’t move on, you will get into sinking ground.

That pretty much sums up depression.