In the past five years (since my psychiatric hospital stay) I’ve been happy. Sure, I’ve had bad days, but for the most part, I’ve felt good, absent of depression. But lately I’ve started to feel a bit fatigued, and I haven’t been enjoying things like I once was. I’ve also been more irritable than usual.
At first I wasn’t too worried; I’d felt like this before and had bounced back quickly, but this time my symptoms weren’t going away.
Weeks went by, and I finally admitted to myself that something was wrong. That my depression was back, and I needed to act fast. It took me a while to understand what was happening because I was so shocked. I felt as though my brain and body were betraying me (again), but this betrayal hurt more because I was doing everything right: going to therapy, taking my medicine correctly, eating well, getting enough sleep, practicing self-care, etc.
Leading up to my hospital stay in 2019, I was doing everything wrong: abusing my medication, binge eating, compulsively shopping, cutting myself, lying to my family, just to name a few. In my opinion, I somewhat deserved my breakdown.