From Barbara

Dear You

I know how hard this is to hear, when hearing anything takes effort through a fog of indifference, but things will get better.

If your experience of depression is anything like mine, then right now, you are scared, at the bottom of a dark pit, with no way out. You can’t do all this exercise they keep telling you will release endorphins and make you feel better, because getting up and dressed (on a good day) is enough to exhaust you let alone anything else. You can spend a whole day doing nothing, thinking of nothing. People will ask you how you feel. What a ridiculous question. You feel nothing. If pushed you cry. A lot. Many things make you cry, and when you cry, you can’t stop crying. What is the point of anything?

Does that sound familiar? Believe me, this is familiar to me – I’ve been there on and off my whole adult life.  

Now just look up. Right up there, at the top of your deep, black, pit, there’s a glimpse of sunlight. That’s your hope. And there are hands reaching down. Those are my hands, and the hands of everyone here who knows that level of despair. They are reaching to give you a touch, one human being to another, a touch that says ‘We’re here. We have got better, we’re up here in the daylight, and one day, you’ll be back here too. And we’re not going away. We won’t abandon you. We understand’.

I don’t know what your ladder out will be – friends, counselling, time, medication – I’ve done it lots of ways, but each time it does happen – hold on to that thought – It Does Happen – This time I got new medication. Horrible side-effects to start with, but now I’m stable, and depression-free for a couple of years. That’s amazing.   That might not be your ladder, but there will be one. For now, just know it’s there, and that we want to bring you comfort and hope. Someday you will reach for that first rung and you will be on your way to a brighter time.

I wish you well. I love your strength to make it through this. Have a big hug.

Barbara