My mom passed away and it brought out the worst in everybody’s behavior. We realized that the majority of the problems that we had came from the way we were raised. Normally, I’m a very self-aware person. That is why my mental health is something that I’m very conscious of. 

At first, it was different because I couldn’t find what the problem was. However, I knew there was a problem. And so a lot of it was soul searching, trying to figure out what exactly the problem was so that I could fix it. It was super hard for me, because of having a mental illness or being depressed, and then being aware of it? It was very hard.

Depression is a mood disorder that causes constant feelings of sadness and loss of interest. It affects how you feel, think and behave. Without proper treatment, it can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems with doing everyday things like doing work, day-to-day activities – and sometimes, you may feel that life isn’t worth living. 

And it was pretty hard because you’re responsible for doing work. With depression, if I don’t do the work, I know I’m not going to do the work. And it’s like, I’m keeping myself from getting better and that was hard for me as I’ve been there for a long time. I kept spiraling into more toxic situations. 

I kept going through more traumatic things. And this was last year. It sent me even worse down in that spiral situation and it started. It took a long time for me to realize that the reason for that was the lack of self-love and I had to rebuild that. I had to figure out what self-love look like for me.

What is your relationship with love, like from a child?

I never saw love. I didn’t have an example of it when I was growing up. There wasn’t any kind of parent figure that was there to do that. And as a child, I needed that. I spent my adulthood figuring out love when I was young. 

When I was working on my self-love and beginning living with it, I started to portray love everywhere.

When I was 17, I had my first time and that’s where I got to experience what love is. The only constant form of love that I had was my kids. When I was working on my self-love and beginning living with it, I started to portray love everywhere. However, when I didn’t have that anymore, and I didn’t have it nor know it, I wasn’t living my life. I was very angry. That was who I was. That is when I realized the problem, that’s where something clicked.

I realized it when I was failing. It felt like I was failing at everything in every single aspect of life.

 And from that I thought, let’s dig and see what the problem is. I didn’t get a therapist. However, I booked an appointment with a medium. It was like a spiritual medium and I felt like my life was gone. From that, I didn’t think a therapist would be a help because I felt like it was something deeper.

The spiritual medium said that I need to find some sort of spiritual healing. And I didn’t even know what I was going to do. She just laid me down and did something like a bar session that was supposed to help relieve the childhood emotional wounds. And it was an amazing feeling. I had so many emotions as I lay there in silence.

Right before my mom passed away, I was already struggling just because my mom was in the hospital. My sister and I were fighting about how to take care of her and all of that. That’s where I started to allow myself to become involved with an incredibly toxic guy. 

I have never been with anyone like that or associated myself with anyone that was truly toxic. I just looked up at it and knew the signs were but I thought, this is someone I thought I could love at that time. I believed that maybe I could make him into a better person, but instead, it pulled me into a gigantic hole. 

I experienced verbal abuse, somebody talking negatively to me. Calling me names, putting me down, things like that.

It doesn’t matter how much you love yourself or how strong you are. When you hear it enough times, most especially if it’s coming from someone you know, that really tears you down.

I got pregnant immediately. And for him, he was like, how does it feel to be my property now? I was terrified. And then I had a miscarriage. He then was like look at you, you’re a worthless kind of thing and that was hard. 

He had no room to tell me that I’m anything, then at the same time, I’m like, he’s right. I am that. I began to further believe the things he said and that dumped me into a super deep hole that it just took me forever to get out of because I couldn’t figure out what it was. 

And it was a lack of self-love. I was lacking self-love when I got with them. And so when my mom passed away, nobody ran to my rescue or my aid because I’ve always been that kind of person. 

I’m the runner, I’m the one that takes the head with so that you can maybe grow for a minute or whatever.

I realized like, wow, I’ve been putting all this effort into all these people and they do nothing. They do not care about me. And so that brought me down to like another level of loneliness and lack of self-love because now I’m like, they don’t love me. 

One day I was just sitting there in silence and the spirit was like, Hey, you need to love yourself. You can’t love anyone until you love yourself. 

I do love myself, but maybe I don’t like it. I needed to look at what self-love means. And so I did, and that’s when I started to realize I should be nicer to myself. But, I grew up in the streets – and in reality, I was not doing any favors to myself by talking negatively and cursing myself out for doing anything. I was floating around in limbo for so long and it was just failure after failure. 

I’m still struggling all the time. Every day, Monday, Sunday night. I’m like, I’m not ready for this. I can’t. I didn’t want to get up on Monday and be productive. I just wanted it to be Sunday again. And I could have let it be Sunday again, but instead, I got up, I did my affirmations. I was on the phone with my dad. And then with my cousin. If I hadn’t gotten up and done those exercises that morning, I would not have made any changes. 

And I had a YouTube video playing in it, the next one was a Ted talk and it came on and I’m sitting there thinking about how I’m not going to get up out of bed. And on the video, the speaker was like if you don’t get up and do anything nothing’s going to happen. That’s when I’m like, yeah. All right, okay. I’ll get up and do it. And I got up, put some makeup on, put my lipstick on, and went out there and I was like, let’s do this.

Better days ahead of me. I have stopped listening to the doubt. There’s so much doubt and doubt is just a fear and that’s what keeps you from everything.

I learned to recognize the characteristics of depression. So when I see them, I know how to act on them. If I don’t feel myself, I know that I was either going to waste the week. Every time I get those feelings now I counter them with an affirmation. 

Depression is not a sign of weakness. Although it can feel like the whole world is just against you and you’re the only one who has to deal with it, depression is very common. You’re not alone in this. Lots of people get depressed, and you deserve to have time to recover and get back to your best self.

SIGNS OF DEPRESSION

Depressive episodes can be tough to tell if what we’re experiencing is normal sadness or actual depression. This is because sadness is one of the most common symptoms of depression. To shed light on your emotions and prevent them from getting worse:

Here are some additional signs you might be dealing with depression:

1. You feel hopeless and helpless

2. You feel worthless or guilty

3. You have trouble sleeping (or sleep way too much)

4. You feel tired all the time

5. You’ve lost interest in things you used to enjoy

6. Your thoughts are racing/your head feels fuzzy

7. You can’t focus on anything for long and your concentration is shot

8. You can’t make decisions and you don’t want to do anything

9. You’re irritable, annoyed, or angry all the time

10. Your appetite has changed (you may not be eating enough, or you may be eating way too much)

References: WebMD; https://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/detecting-depression