Living with depression and anxiety on my year abroad (a.k.a. just another freaking soliloquy to the magical realm of self-care)

Let me preface this blog post by saying that this isn’t about to be some shrill, boo-hoo piece about struggling with a mental health disorder which assumes its readers know nothing about. Nor is this going to act in any way to condescend you, or try to hook you in with vague, nondescript symptoms which literally almost everyone can relate to. I am not trying to make you feel special. I am not trying to make me sound special. But, like many an article written about mental health, I do think it’s important to talk about these things – lest we continue into our adult lives thinking any affliction we come across (whether in ourselves or others) which takes an unfortunate residence in the mind is something to quickly hush up about. On the other hand, I wince at the thought of making anyone uncomfortable; as with pretty much anything sensitive and personal, there is a fine line between ranting and relaying. Forgive me if my attempts at talking about my own experience end up a bit shit.  I am new to talking about my mental health/feelings/emotions/blahblahfreakingblah and I am still learning. Chances are I’m as uncomfortable writing this as you are reading this right about now, but bitch, we in this together now.

I’ve had a Major Depressive Disorder for a while now, and a Generalized Anxiety Disorder for even longer, as have many of you – an unfortunate but relatively underwhelming fact. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the statistic to your left. For four years I’ve been in and out of varying kinds of therapy four times, but never really opened up to it until this year. To be honest, I had a wall up that I would do anything in order to keep it there and I wasn’t even massively aware that I was doing it. Going to therapy was a chore, a bore, a motherflippin’ SNORE. But I assumed that going would be my long-awaited (da-da-da-DAAA) redemption and I’d walk out a new woman, Carrie Bradshaw style. Spoiler alert: it damn did was not.

This year was a turning point for me. A mere month into the academic year and I knew I needed help. Me and my DC pal Kirsten had been repeating the age-old mantra CHALLENGE YA DAMN SELF ever since we arrived, knowing that if there was any time to do things we wouldn’t normally do, this year was it. So instead of cowering away from seeking help, like I probably would have if I was home, I marched myself up to that counselling center and I got an appointment.

What followed was a year of the best therapy I’ve ever gotten, medication that actually helped and changed my life (thanks Prozac, u got my back), and remembering what it was like to feel things and give myself opportunities to be happy again. Which is pretty sick, I’m won’t lie.

But it wasn’t all progress; tonnes of stuff happened that set me back, sat me down, and made me feel like
Well…I guess this is what the end of the world feels like. L8r sk8rs xo

Back in my first year of university, I figured out that one thing that would help quell the anxiety, depression and all that bad stuff was to just full on sit in the damn shower and let the amphibian brain within me feel the warmth of the water against the wrath of the world outside. And god damn, did I spend a lot of time on that shower floor in that overpriced dorm room of mine this year just gone. I’ve gotten some weird reactions over the years, mostly either from people who do the exact same and are hyped to find someone else who does it too, or from people who wouldn’t even think of it and are some variety of surprised/disgusted/confused. The thing is, it worked for me and I’m glad it did and that’s called self-care, dammit.

Self-care is different for everyone. For some people, it’s a strict schedule of meditation, for others it’s a long bath or a bit of retail therapy. For me, it’s…well I’m not really all that sure yet. I know it’s a lot of different things, and some things work at some times, whilst other things work at different times. The main thing I figured out, though, is how to let go and stop obsessing – or, at least, I started to figure it out. Growth isn’t just triggered, nor is it over with the flick of a switch that I know of (although if it is and you’ve got some leads, hit a gal up). And so I am learning to be aware of the bad voice in my head and to know that, well, that just ain’t me thinking all that stuff. That bitch? I don’t know her.

Self-care, for me I’ve figured out, is self-forgiveness. I have a long and grisly history with guilt and all that bad stuff, but studying over in the US gave me the space to CHALLENGE MY DAMN SELF and to start combatting the unhealthy coping mechanisms I’ve collected over the years. Being away from my friends, my family, and the life I had been sitting comfortably in was already a lot – so why not just go the whole hog and make the most of it? As the year started to come to a close a few months ago, I realised that I had already forgiven myself for a lot of the things I’d been holding over my head, and that things that would usually be a trigger for ultimate self-destruction had just passed me by. I can even forgive myself for relying too much on humour as a method of self-preservation in this very blog post. As I’m writing, I can feel myself reeling back, not really wanting to pull the wall down too much – but you know what Soph? Something in you wanted to write it to begin with and you’re still going, and that’s what I call improvement goddammit.

So to close up, here’s a few tips that I personally would have liked to be told before going on my year abroad in terms of dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma and other mental health collectibles:

1. Expect to hate the place you’re in at first – and yourself for ever even considering you could do this

            If there’s one thing that’s bound to pile the pressure on, it’s moving to a different country halfway through your degree where you know literally zero people, have zero grip on the local, often confusing, and always very very very necessary transport system, and don’t even have a nearby chippy for your first dinner (damn you America, chips are CHIPS not FRIES). When I first walked into my new dorm room last August – which, in its stone floor and unopenable window aesthetic, immediately rocked the prison vibe – I cried. Like a whole tonne. And I genuinely wanted to come back home, give my mama a hug and slowly fold into my bed sheets and never return. But honestly? Those feelings are totally normal. My pal Kirsten (also a Southampton – DC gal) would later tell me she did the exact same thing at the exact same time. We just weren’t feeling it but that was a-ok. Y’know what we did the next day? We figured out the metro, ate at Five Guys and stared in awe at the Target shopping cart escalators. It was still hard for a very long time after that and it still took me a while to completely settle in but after that day, I began to enjoy being scared and being afraid of the unknown because It lit the fire that burned for the whole damn year.

2. Give yourself some space, cut yourself some slack, and girl, go buy yourself a kit-kat because you better give yourself a damn break

            Think back to your first year at university and remember how many things went wrong. Living away from home for the first time means you’re bound to make a slew of mistakes, all which fall between a scale of minor inconveniences to catastrophic consequences, and it’s much the same on your year abroad. Once again, you find yourself in a new place with brand new people and the freedom to do whatever your giddy mind wants to – not all of it for good and most of it without the safety of your usual support network. Having the certain thinking errors and unhealthy coping mechanisms my depression and anxiety kindly gifted me with meant that I’d find myself riddled with self-inflicted insecurity and guilt. The whole of my first semester I was totally overcome with paranoia that not one of my friends liked me and everyone would rather be hanging out in a place that I definitively was not, all of which was the snowball effect of not cutting myself a break from what my depression wanted me to believe. Outgrow your insecurities, your coping mechanisms, your guilt; healing is outgrowing and outgrowing is healing and maybe I’m just full of shit, but doesn’t that sound right to you?

You’ll make mistakes and they might even be worse than whatever you did in first year – but that’s okay. Forgive yourself, move on and tell the voice that’s telling you you’re worthless to shut the god damn hell up because trust me, it don’t know shit.

3. Remember your pals back home, but also don’t close yourself off to anyone new you meet – more importantly don’t isolate yourself

            Listen, things are bound to change on your time abroad

because chances are, you’re near enough to several time zones away from everyone you’ve ever forged any kind of relationship with. There’s going to be so much pressure to keep those relationships going at full steam whilst making handfuls of new ones every damn day. Please don’t underestimate the amount of people you’ll meet on your time abroad.

I used to be the most socially anxious and shy person you could imagine. I remember when I was in year four and I wet myself in front of the entire class all because I was too scared to ask the teacher if I could go to the toilet. That’s a level of social anxiety totally separate from what most people probably have to go through and it followed me for twenty damn years. Being around so many new people this year conditioned me to become someone who, when I tell new people I used to be incredibly socially anxious, people genuinely laugh at the idea that I was ever that person. But it only began to be noticeable to me in my second semester when I stopped isolating myself like I had done in the first.

In that first semester I found myself in a bit of a vicious circle – feeling rejected and unliked by everyone around me and isolating myself from them, which then, surrounded literally only by my escalating insecurities, made me feel more unliked and rejected. Through therapy, I realized what I was doing and made a new start in second semester. I rejected the insecu

rities as much as possible and threw myself into my social life, acting confident when I felt the opposite inside. And y’know what? That fake it ‘till you make it shit is TRUE my pals. I am more confident now than I have been in my entire life and thank god for that.

4. Find the things that make you feel good

I’m going to keep saying it – self-care is different for everyone.

And if you take just one thing from this post – please, reach out. Just because hot baths and face masks send your pal into deep sedation doesn’t mean it’ll do the same for you. Personally, baths make me feel sticky and I’m not about the sweaty life. This year I figured out that listening to Animal Crossing music before bed helps me fall asleep faster and that showing affection to my friends made realize that I too am deserving of the same kind of love. Which is kind of a big deal???? Find the things, big and small, that benefit you – and when you find things that don’t? Honestly bye, girl. Trust me, you don’t have to be as self-sacrificial as you think you do to be a good person.

            I don’t just mean to your pals. One thing I have a lot of trouble with is talking about my feelings with other people, especially my friends. I used to get very drunk and then just blurt them all out in a puddle of emotional vomit and ignore it the next morning, none of which was fair on my friends who were forced to ride that rollercoaster with me. For the last few years I’ve more just got very uncomfortable with the idea of talking about my true feelings in any capacity, mostly because of guilting myself that telling my friends about them would in some way inconvenience them. The feeling is not uncommon, I know. I’m well aware that talking to your friends about your mental health is daunting and uncomfortable and, maybe, pretty much impossible.

But, especially on a year where feeling alone will most likely be amplified, you should know that feeling alone is a circumstance; being alone is a choice. There are people (oh my god so many people) qualified to help, wanting to help, all that good shit. I was really reluctant to go back into therapy on my year abroad because I didn’t want to talk to yet another person only here to listen to me because they’re being paid to. But that was my depression telling me that no one would dare choose to listen to my problems. I thought friends would try and then leave when it got too much, and therapists would listen because they had an obligation to and then try to discharge me whenever I happened to have a good week. You know what I was? FLIPPIN’ WRONG. Therapists care, not because they’re paid to, but because they’re qualified to in good and healthy ways that will benefit you.

You don’t have to suffer alone, no matter how much you think you should. You don’t have to deal with this solely on your own, no matter how much you think you can.

The truth is, life is hard and sometimes shit and then we deal with it in very different ways. Sometimes we need help with it too, and that’s a-ok. But sometimes life is pretty fucking cool too. Sometimes we need help seeing that – I know I did, and holy shit pals, I’m so so so glad I did.