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I’m Depressed: We Speak Our Own Language

The community here is growing and I couldn’t be more excited. After just two weeks of activity here on the blog we’ve passed over 1,300 hits and have gathered almost 100 followers. We’re all in this together. You are not alone and you are loved. For this post I thought I’d focus more on what it feels like as I gradually get more depressed. As I’m sure all too many people can relate to.

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When I often describe that I’m in a low or slipping some people have a hard time understanding what I mean. These words usually have different meaning in every day use, but when I’m in a depressive state they are accurate descriptions of how I feel. It can start in a room full of people I know and love and will gradually feel myself start to slip. My senses start fading, my eyes get heavy, I feel like I’m moving backwards into myself. I slip. And in that feeling I find myself in that low. I feel reduced to nothing but my thoughts, and those thoughts themselves are useless. They’re meaningless, and they’re negative.

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On The Outside Looking In: Mental Illness

About a month ago I was wasting time browsing through my Facebook newsfeed wondering why I’m still friends with as many people as I am when I came across an article an old english teacher had shared called “My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward”. That’s an interesting title I thought. Upon further observation I realized that this was a personal tale from a man named Mark who knew almost nothing about mental illness as his wife, Giulia, descended into madness from hers. But here’s the best part you don’t hear too often. He stayed by her side and still loves her after two check-ins with a psych ward.

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Coping (Rituals) – Entry 1: Depression

We all have different ways in which we cope. Tragedy can often leave the strongest people on their knees, resulting in desperate attempts to do something, anything, to make whatever pain they’re feeling go away. Even if it’s temporary. Some of these things however, can be destructive. They can develop habits that walk next to them for the rest of their life. Have you ever lost someone who you loved? How far did you go to numb that pain? If you’re one of the people who has experienced this already, can you remember what that felt like? The complete loss of care or self worth, filled with sadness, grief, maybe even anger? And at the time there’s nothing anyone can really say to help or make those feelings go away. It’s something that takes time. But in time you learn to live with the fact that they are gone, and you do little things to remember them by. To carry their legacy, you move forward.

Coping: This Is Who We Are dear hope
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Mental Illness: The Numbers

How many people do you think suffer or fight with a mental illness?

According to these numbers and statistics the chances that you know someone with a mental illness is pretty high. And you may think: No way, none of my friends or family have anything like that but when you look at the statistics it says only 25% of people who fight a mental illness feel like people around them are compassionate and understand. So for every four people they may open up to, only one of them will make them feel okay about what they have said.

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We Are The Same

I’m excited as this moves forward. I think it’s worth noting that my main reason for starting this blog was initially for a class I’m taking this semester in college. So some posts will seem more assignment like then others, and I apologize if that makes things a little less cohesive as the weeks go on. But something changed already. I’ve been meaning to start something like this for a while and it’s like as soon as I started posted on here I was flooded with a newfound passion and inspiration to share these kinds of things. If there’s one thing I want to encourage on this blog, it’s a sense of community.

(Assignment Time) What do we all share here?

Three things this community shares…I could probably name a bunch. The most obvious place to start is probably that everyone who is here either has personal or immediate involvement with mental illness. Whether it be depression, anxiety, bipolar (I like to refrain from using the word “disorder”) or anything else. A second thing that everyone has in this community is fight. Because no matter what someone may tell you it is a battle. One that many fight everyday. And sometimes you’re the one fighting. Or maybe you’re fighting for a loved one. Or even, possibly, fighting for someone you barely know. Which brings me to my last shared part of the community. Empathy. This I believe to be true more than anything else. When people are put through these kind of challenges in life they see life itself from a very different perspective. And I know, at least personally, you never want to see someone as low or as in as much trouble as you have been in. In future posts I’ll dive more into empathy and the positive and negative effects in can bring when used too little or too much.

But like I said before, this is a community I hope to start. And I think these are things that we all share. All are welcome.

PF

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Dear World,

Hope is a word that has always held weight for me. In fact, Dear Hope was the name of the first cd I put out in a band back when I was in a high school band called Scan The Sky. A lot of times in life it feels like this abstract concept, sometimes not even an actual person or something concrete, can get us through our toughest struggles. My name is Paul Falcone, and in my life I’ve personally fought Mental Illness with depression, anxiety, and periods of insomnia since I was thirteen years old. It’s not always easy, and some days are a lot harder than the others. But I’m here still with my 21st birthday approaching next week and still have things I want to share, explore and learn.

That’s where this blog comes in.

I hope to use this blog to bring awareness to many different mental illnesses, and educate those who are willing to listen. Something that bothers me more and more day to day is the stigma that is still attached to these conditions, and the little knowledge many people have about them. I hope to create a kind of community where people can share there struggles and stories, learn about these conditions, and hopefully find themselves through the process. There will be some serious posts about what it feels like to be in these kind of conditions, along with hopeful stories of redemption and continuing the fight. I look forward to this journey together! PF

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