Jo

I'll have the combo, thanks.

Over the course of a few months, things started slipping out of my grasp. The outside and inside worlds appeared bleak and overwhelming. I felt tired beyond exhaustion and didn't have the brain power to initiate basic tasks. I had a partner, but I felt distinctly isolated and started believing in the negative self-doubt that plagued my mind. I just wanted to hide, shut the doors, bolt the bolts, turn the lights off and hibernate.

I now know that this feeling was powerlessness, the fear that nothing good would come to me. It was a feeling so profound it felt like things would never get better. I am not proud of the resignation that crept into my head. Thankfully it was support and love that pulled me through. Or, as someone so eloquently put it, "you were the one who pulled yourself out, I just held the rope".

It started when I lost all confidence in who I was and what I was capable of - I highlighted the crap stuff, the things that went wrong. The guy I was seeing at the time considered my behaviour to be irrational, hopeless and dare I say it, psycho. Who was I turning into? And why did it feel like I couldn't ask for help? Or so I thought. It didn't help that people around me didn't understand; they thought I was behaving completely without reason. This didn't help my state of mind; it exacerbated it and added to the illness.

To anyone on the outside, perhaps my behaviour was causing some sideways glances: the acute paranoia, the inability to be within a crowd, the feeling of constant failure and the sheer lack of enthusiasm for anything. I don't blame my partner for the way he acted; I merely put it down to ignorance and very little knowledge on the subject of mental health. We are no longer together and this is a healthy result.

Perhaps if I had had a cast on my head, people could have seen I was not well. But the mere fact it was something that wasn't so obvious baffled many friends, acquaintances and exes.

In addition to the chaos in my own head outside factors such as changes in home, work and relationship were all taking toll and adding to the strain.

Empowering Support

The support and love I received was truly amazing. I felt an enormous power wash over me at these people's willingness to help me through the pain, hurt and confusion of facing depression alone.

Anna, a great friend, support and true legend opened her home, heart and ears to all I had to say or not, to help me through the days where I was too afraid to eat, too afraid to go to work, to go anywhere, too afraid to live.

The ‘combo' element of this article refers to the elements that got me through the darkest periods of my life: medication, counselling and support.

Medication has so much taboo attached - I think it was a godsend, though I have a healthy attitude to wanting to help myself. Counselling should never be looked at as fluffy cardigans and warm cups of milky coffee. The counselling services I received via Youthline were absolutely imperative to my wellness and recovery. Sure, people may consider counselling to be an unfamiliar avenue, but an outside approach can really work wonders, as well as constructively breaking the old patterns that can be created to our detriment.

I fully support both medication and counselling to work in a solid unity in the recovery from mental health challenges.

Support and love would be the icing on the cake for me. My family is afar and at the time they were too far to stretch a phone call or letter to, both tasks seemed too overwhelming in the midst of my depression. Any self expression halted when I was sick.

Now, several months on, I am considerably better than where I was. It is, however, a constant work in progress. I still see my counsellor, still take my daily dose, and still have the great support network. I try to remember one thing though, and that is not to take anything for granted. I live in the moment and I am not scared anymore. I have achieved a few goals, not massive in the grand scheme of things but considerably further along from the hopeless Jo of months ago.

You cannot predict the reaction of others, especially those that you have put your faith in but I strongly suggest you hang onto those who have patience, understanding and the ones who don't judge and just let you be you.

I am by no means recovered, but I wanted to relate the feeling of achievement I have gained from coming out from being in such a dark place - without the combo, I would still be there.

This article is dedicated to Anna and all those that help me get back to being me.