Lose the stigma. Please.

I've written here and there about depression on Holly's Hobby, it didn't seem to right to bring this, mostly lighthearted (lightweight perhaps), blog down with the illness.  Afterall this is about a mummy's life, the ups and downs of working for a living and bringing up two children 18 months apart.  It's a blog about parenting and all that goes with it.  Make you laugh, make you cry, it's just life really.

But here's the truth.  Bringing up two children that close in age is seriously, bloody hard work.  And when you add into that working almost full time (as an obligation to earn money)  which admittedly at times is a total godsend (deliver me from the tantrums dear Lord), at others it just confuses me.  I don't really know who I am most of the time.  A mother, a boss, a human being?   Post natal depression was, for me, just another stop on my own journey with the illness. It comes and goes.  It's going at the moment.  Thankyou God.

So I read Tim's post this morning about depression, and I read Jen's yesterday on her new blog Musings from the Madhouse.   I know many other bloggers who go under the cheerful sounding guise of Mummy Blogger who suffer from varying forms of mental illness.  Truth is it's a complete bloody nightmare.  You never know when it'll hit you, never know how long it's come to stay and when it does it consumes your entire being.  It's a vicious little bugger that doesn't take kindly to being told to go away.

We all find our own ways of dealing with it.  Medication, therapy, exercise, whatever works for the individual.  It's a personal thing and each of us has to find our own best way of managing it.

The thing is it does have a stigma attached.  The illness is not physical, you can't see it (unless you know what you're looking for and then let me tell you it's incredibly obvious).  It's hard to garner sympathy when it can turn you into a deeply unpleasant person who lacks any self belief or self worth. A person who seemingly has no patience, no motivation, no desire to battle on. 

The faint hearted tend to do a runner when it approaches.  If you're lucky, as I am, you have a strong support in your family and your partner.  If you're not then, well it's desparate.

The point is I'm talking openly about it now because I think more people need to realise that depression doesn't fuck you up for ever.  It doesn't stop you being succesful in your work, as a mother, as a human being.  It just pulls you down from time to time, but you can always rise up again.  With help you always can, as many of the posts on the internet will tell you.

People who suffer depression struggle immensely on a daily basis.  It's like another layer to the already myriad chores we do on a daily basis.  It's the blockade that keeps stopping us, keeps dragging us back. 

We need to lose the stigma and gain the respect we deserve for managing this virulent illness. 

If it has chosen you as its host, don't hide in the shadows, seek help.  Life can still be brilliant.