There’s a reassurance video for you below, but I’ll share some of my thoughts behind it first x
Some thoughts about what’s really needed when in depression (from my perspective anyway)
When I am in depression the thing that I am craving most (apart from it to be lifted) is to be seen and recognised and held and allowed to be just exactly where I am. I need my struggle to be at least noticed and validated instead of wished away. In that validation I feel acceptable and a rush of love comes in, and all that ‘unacceptable-ness’ lets go of it’s grip.
The well intended need of the other to think that it is their responsibility to make you feel better can feel excruciating, if you’re sensitive enough to feel that. For me, this is mostly what keeps me isolated, as I cannot bear that ‘needing to be fixed’ by someone elses inability to be with where I’m at.
When I am in ‘it’ I feel monumentally worse if someone else is feeling bad for me, pitying me, or tutting and ‘Oh! shame, shame’ ing away, like ‘it’ and ‘I’ are terrible things.
When I am in depression I want to feel equal with the rest of humanity, not wrong and lowly and like I’m not good enough to fit in, belong. I want every ounce and step of my journey to be as valid as each other.
Of course, all this is happening within, but it sure feels like the world judges this way too.
When I am in a depression I need it to be recognised that where I am is taking immense courage and strength. And I need it to be seen that through the waves and patterns of fears and thoughts and beliefs and doubts and conditionings that are coming through me in abundance, that I am striving, always, in every moment, to feel love for myself.
Often it seems that it’s assumed that you’re not loving yourself, because you’re in depression. It’s the exact opposite sometimes – It takes profound love to keep catching yourself where you are and to keep choosing to be gentle with yourself each time that happens, choosing to hug and kiss and stroke yourself, despite the demons inside. When you are in depression this is when your ability to love yourself gets really tested. It is so easy to love and hug yourself when you’re feeling balanced or high. When you’re feeling atrocious, frightened, unworthy and hopeless, when you’re feeling like that, when you are completely taken over by pain and mind, yet you still remember over and over and over again to be gentle, to kiss yourself, to do something kind for yourself, that is love at work.
And when I’m in depression I don’t need to be reminded again and again that I can get myself out of it if only I decided to. I’m sure anyone who has ever suffered deep depression will recognise the absurdness of such statements.
When I am in it’s clutches I want someone, with strength like mine, to sit with me and love me exactly where I’m at in that moment. I don’t need it to be made a fuss of. There’s a difference in being recognised and seen exactly where you are at, to being fussed over and sympathised with. It’s a very fine line but there’s a magnificent difference between the two. Basically one is non judgemental and the other is judgemental.
I need the reassurance that it’s OK to be me at that time.
When I am in depression I just need love, the kind of deep love that KNOWS you don’t need to be fixed because it KNOWS and understands that you are not broken. Full on just letting you be.
When I am in a depression I need my soul, my Divine nature, my beauty, my humanness to be allowed just as she is, I need to be reassured that there is still value and worth in me, despite my feelings and thoughts. In fact I don’t need that reassurance, I just yearn for it. I yearn for that understanding to be at the core of my relationships and interactions.
When I am in depression I need to be met at a level of deep compassion and understanding. Being understood is a universal need.
Unfortunately those of us who suffer with depression often don’t get any of these needs met. Part of the reason why I isolate (a symptom) is because I know that the people around me don’t have the unwavering depth of acceptance that I need. Or, perhaps in my skewed ego state I just don’t trust that it’s there. My experience so far has been that there’s is usually that need to fix me.
That’s just some of my thoughts. Of course, depression is all encompassing, it affects and reaches and distorts everything, but you may be able to relate to some of the thoughts above x
I made a little video for you and for me, of me just speaking to you in your depression. When I am in depression I talk to myself like this internally (I imagine someone really strong and unwavering talking to me this way) Or I talk to myself like this in the mirror. It is a way of me accessing and receiving the deep strength and compassion that is within me, even if depression is the experience I’m going through. Through this video I am offering you some reassurance, if you feel that will nurture you. I’m just doing what feels right to me at this time x I can be shrugged off by a million, but if I bring some love to just one other it’s worth the share x
So today I share this video of reassurance with you x x
Reassurance for depression