How My Depression Started …

Hey guys,

So recently I started counselling for my depression and anxiety, it hasn’t been easy in the slightest getting to the root of where it all began. However I’ve decided to share my story because I feel it may help others as well as myself … It’s a difficult journey but I am determined to get to the finish line and finally start my life anew.

So after a few sessions I realised my depression and anxiety started nearly four years ago when I was with a certain ex-boyfriend. An ex-boyfriend who whether I like to admit it or not shaped me into this person, an empty hollow shell of the person I used to be. When I met him all that time ago, he seemed so sweet, a little damaged as we all are but a nice guy, someone I thought I genuinely connected with and someone I gave my very heart and soul too. It felt almost like true love at the time, I was young and in love but as always in some love stories things did take a nasty turn.
It was about three months in when it all started, we were out one night, drinking, having fun when his mood suddenly switched, it wasn’t until we got home did the abuse really begin. At first it was all verbal saying how I was fat, ugly, how he could have anyone he wanted and didn’t even know why he was with me in the first place. We slept in the same room but I won’t lie that I did cry myself to sleep while he slept peacefully next to me.
That was the beginning of the anxiety, I started to feel very self conscience the next day, constantly looking in the mirror, and it all escalated to a point where I was checking my weight every day, being careful not to eat too much and then I started smoking a lot more than before. He did apologise after a while, when he realised it had hurt my feelings and affected me but the damage had been done …
A few weeks later, the same situation happened again except this time, the abuse wasn’t just verbal, it turned physical. Being pinned down, alcohol forced down my throat, my head ricocheting off a door and then darkness … I woke up where I’d been left, near the front door lying in my own blood and vomit from what had happened. I left and went back to my mother’s house to clean myself up, I wasn’t gone three hours when he knocked the door begging forgiveness, saying he had been spiked in the club and he would do anything to make it all right. I hung onto his every word, blinded by some sort of twisted love I had for this vile human being stood before me, and I went back with him. That was the beginning of my depression.
Then it became a routine, something I learnt to grow accustomed too. As if I felt I deserved it, what was a drunken weekly bit of abuse turned into a daily routine where it was a mixture of verbal and physical attacks, constantly grinding me down as if I was his pet he was trying to tame. Whenever I went to work and I had bruises I would make excuses and say I’d fallen down the stairs or I’d walked into a door or lamp post. They never questioned it further so I never said more than I had too and got on with my job. The job was my escape, my safe place where no one could hurt me. I was scared to go home most days, afraid the next time I walked through that door it would be the last time I would see anyone I loved and cared for …
However things all changed when I decided to fight back, it was the worst night of my life. He had decided to get drunk once again, and he decided he wanted to attempt to inject me with heroin. It was the final straw, I fought for my life that night, it ended with the syringe on the floor, still full, him on the floor out cold and me standing against the wall holding a broken bottle from where  I had smashed him across the head as hard as I could when he came towards me with it …
I packed my bags, took all my belongings and moved back to my mother’s house. I didn’t see him again for a very long time. He knocked my door about six months later asking to talk, I couldn’t do it, I didn’t stand up to him or tell him what I really thought of him I just closed the door. I thought it was the end, I’d get over it.
He destroyed the person I used to be, before him was so carefree, bubbly, joyful and full of life and now … well I’m still bubbly but not so carefree as I used to be, it’s like there is a constant weight on my shoulders and I am always on edge to the point where I will have a panic attack on just a half full bus because of what he did to me.

Saying all that though, I got out, granted I should have left sooner because it was the most toxic relationship I could have ever got into. But I am stronger than I was, and I am stronger because I am brave enough to share my story with the world.
I was told by someone recently my smile could give others strength because although my eyes reflected sadness, my smile shows how much strength I have and I can pass that onto other people. So while I wrote this, please know no matter the flashbacks I am smiling because I have come out the other end stronger. I am still taking everyday as it comes, but now knowing where and how it all began, my journey will be easier and I will get through this no matter what. 
Before I end this though, I just want to say something to all the people in the world who may have gone through or be going through what I have right now:

You are enough & you’re going to do amazing things.
You probably have a smile hidden under all that pain that could change the world.
You can do more than you think & you are more than you think.
No one get’s to control and manipulate you, you are the master of your own fate.
So get out of it before it’s too late, be free and please … Be Happy x