I am a high achiever. A perfectionist. I hate being wrong and I hate losing. I also have been diagnosed with depression and ADHD.
Yes, I love my depression.
Danielle Adele
Now if you guessed that that is an annoying combination, you’d be correct. If you experience those things as well, you know what I’m talking about. My depression, is a part of me as much as my drive and goal-oriented nature is. It’s a part of who I am. I say that not as a cop out or excuse but lovingly. Yes, I love my depression. Not because I want to stay there and definitely not in the middle of an episode but because it has taught me so much about myself. It challenges me in a way that few other things do. It is the reason I was put on a self-development path when I was. It is the reason I have pushed myself to learn things like boundaries and standing up for myself but also knowing when to feel and listen.
If you have never experienced depression or been depressed for a period of time, let me enlighten you. First, know that depression can be different for everyone and my experiences are in no way cookie cutter. Second, my depression has changed as I have changed. When I was a child, I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t understand that the pain I felt for no reason had a very logical explanation and wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know I could help myself.
It is like a fight between how I feel and what I know.
Danielle Adele
As I’ve grown and been diagnosed and got help, I have learned to recognize it. Now, it is like a fight between how I feel and what I know. I mean imagine the most frustrating fight you have ever had with a loved one. Where you know you are right but they just don’t see your side and keep telling you things that you just know aren’t true. Maybe they insult you, maybe they tell you you aren’t worth the effort (you are). Now imagine that you have that fight with your own brain. Imagine two sides of the same brain fighting with each other in the most frustrating ways possible all while being contained in a tiny space too small to house the emotion that results. That is what an episode is like for me. I experience physical pain when depression takes over. I can honestly say that it is unbearable and hurts more than anything I have ever experienced in my 25 years on this earth. It hurts so much that in the moment, I would do anything to make it stop.
Anything.
So, why in sam-heck would I love the part of me that causes this emotional and physical pain? Because with the pain comes immense strength. With the pain comes compassion. With the pain comes the ability to know the important things in life are not monetary. My pain, while I fight to lessen it each time and fight to eventually control her so she can’t hurt me to that extent again, has made me who I am. It’s like after you go through a horrendous breakup and you are able to look back on that abusive relationship and say man, that sucked, that really, really sucked. But look at you Boo! You got out and you are strong and fierce and better as a person since you came out.
Que Arianna Grande’s “Thank you, Next”.
We don’t have to love every piece of our self or our experiences, but we should love our self or our experiences for that piece they played in creating who we are. And if that piece is still ruling your life, if you have not got on the other side of that episode or that relationship, just know that there IS another side. The trick is, you aren’t granted access until you level up. You aren’t granted access to the peace or the lack of pain until you fight. You have to fight through the now, to gain access to the future (the other side).
This Blog is a place for us to gather, for us to understand that we are NOT alone and that there is another side.
Danielle Adele
This Blog is an unedited outlet and telling of my story thus far and on to the other side of each struggle I face. This Blog is a place for us to gather, for us to understand that we are NOT alone and that there is another side. We might have to trudge through waist high mud, but if we fight, if we exhaust ourselves then get up another day to fight again, we WILL get to dry land.
As I said in the beginning, I am a high achiever. Most people have no idea that I have depression or how much of my life has been consumed with emotional toil. Most people don’t understand how I could be where I am in life and yet struggle so much behind closed doors.
This Blog is about chasing your goals while battling demons that some people will never understand.
This Blog is about empowerment and learning to love yourself for every part of who you are and what you have experienced.
I will share my story in hopes that you can find some understanding or assistance for yourself or someone in your life.
This Blog is for HOPE.
This Blog is for PEACE & JOY & LOVE.