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Talking Point with Sam Billingham

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Talking Point columnist Sam Billingham

It’s deeper than feeling sad, unhappy or fed up. It suffocates you, it stifles you, it stops you.

It won’t let you wash, shower, take a bath or get dressed, but it prods and pokes you with so much guilt flowing through your body that it completely drains you, mentally and physically, making you feel as heavy as lead as you attempt to go about your day.

It stops you liking yourself and it brings every mistake that you ever made to the forefront of your mind, sitting there as stubborn as a mule, completely refusing to leave.

It fills you up with doubt, in its most pure form, a huge and overwhelming sensation that can be impossible to shift.

It takes away your sense of belonging, and your sense of direction.

You feel completely in the dark, in a rut with absolutely no way to get out.

You feel isolated, ashamed and embarrassed to speak out through fear of ridicule and your brain humiliates you from inside reassuring you that you are a complete failure in all you do.

Depression is a demon that feels like you are fighting a losing battle every single day.

It’s something you simply can’t snap out of or make things better by pulling yourself together, and it’s not something that you can address in a matter of days.

It means that when you are so tired that you fall asleep at every opportunity, when it finally becomes time for you to climb into bed you are still left unable to sleep, awake in the dark listening to your own tortured thoughts.

It leaves your mind racing at moments when you should be at ease, like a dripping tap that we just can’t turn off.

The walls of your chest feel as though they are caving in as you go about doing your daily business, making it difficult to breathe.

Depression is a sensation that means when you so much as step outside, you are confronted by a wall of noise and light so bright that it hurts your eyes.

You have no pleasure in doing anything, even those things that you really love.

Sometimes you find yourself eating so much that you feel like you could just burst, then on other days you just can’t force down anything at all.

It makes you feel like a complete failure and like you have let everyone around you down.

I’m not ashamed to say I suffer with depression and no one else should be either.

It’s important that we all realise and understand that we are not the only person going through this.

We need to understand that our family and friends do love us, and that we are not failures, no matter what the nagging feeling inside may be telling us.

We are strong in our own right and no matter how long we think the storm will last, even when it feels as though the winds that buffer your spirit are eternal, it won’t go on forever.

*If you would like to become a contributor to the Talking Point column, please e-mail heather.large@mnamedia.co.uk

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