How I managed to survive depression

Good day dear friends, how was your day, I'm so sorry I've not been able to write since 4 days ago, I've been busy working on some graphics designs for a particular organization and it has been quite stressful and exhausting and I couldn't do anything else or even have time for myself. I hope I'm forgiven, thanks 🙏.

While I was going through @BCH_LOVER post about depression, I decided to share my own experience about depression and how I overcame it.

While growing up as a teenager, I was very slim and that made me to start feeling uncomfortable about my body because here in Africa, people tends to make slim people feel bad about their body like they are some sort of garbage. At first when I was around 14 years of age, I didn't allow what people were saying to me get to me, I always assure them that I would get fatter as time goes by but unluckily for me, I didn't get fatter up until when I was around 22 years of age. Funny yeah? I know 😁. Infact it looked like I was getting slimmer at some point in time.

When I clocked 17 and I graduated from high school, that was when the depression started, I would see alot of my school mate, they will look so big like they were older than me, some will even shout in a very open space that "Oyin, when are you going to get fat?" I would feel so embarrassed that all my daily activity for that day will be prosponed and I will just return back home gently.

I could remember one particular family event we had in those days, I was 18 years of age then, I started seeing my cousins that I had last seen four years back again. They look so big that I found it so difficult to recognize them. Some that was even younger than me looked so bigger than me like they were older, I was the only slim person in the gathering not even my own siblings. All of a sudden, one of my aunt said that I was too slim and she even doubts if I'm truly a member of their family or I'm just picked up from the street to be taken care of, I felt the way I have never felt in my life, I couldn't even do anything again till the end of the event. I just stayed at one corner looking at how everyone was rejoicing, dancing, gisting and doing all sorts of things but I couldn't and it looked like I was neglected. I then started feeling like maybe I'm not truly a part of their family.

The next time we had a general family event, I couldn't go, I had to pretend like I had malaria to my own family so they would allow me stay at home in which they concurred to but my mum didn't take so long in the party before she started coming back home cause she thought I was truly sick. But before she came back home, I just sat down on the bed of my room lonely and had cried myself out especially when I saw the several pictures each of them were posting online and how happy they looked. Even though my primary reason for not wanting to attend the event was because I don't wanna feel depressed but I guess depression for me then was inevitable.

Just when I feel like exploding, my mum arrived and I talked out my mind to her and so she encouraged me and started telling me stories about her own teenage days too, how she was also slim and how she later added weight and people started envying her shape so I felt encouraged and I decided to move on with my life and never let what anybody says get to me anymore.

Just when I thought everything was ok and I'm fine again, some other things would come up again that would make me feel depressed again, people would start asking me several silly and irrelevant questions like;

Are you sick?

Is your mother also slim?

Do you have a medical condition?

Are you on drugs?

Why are you so skinny?

Did you offend anyone?

Are you a sickle cell patient?

Do you have ulcer?

And a lot more questions I can't even remember now... .

It got to a point I started feeling insecure too about myself and I decided to visit an hospital to do a check up on myself if truly I was fine and I was not suffering from any form of illness. After series of tests and scan, the doctor said he couldn't find any thing wrong with me and that I'm very fine so I encourage myself and left the hospital.

One thing I noticed about depression is low self esteem because according to my own experience, I started feeling insecured about my body and the way I looked so I couldn't go to places I normally would like to go, even if I go there, I wouldn't do things the best way I can do it because I always feel like some other people would do it better than I do. Looking at my life right from when I was a child, I always took first position in whatsoever I do because I was always so good and never feel shy about anything but things changed when I started clocking teenage years.

One particular day as at when I was about 21 years of age, I attended a seminar about overcoming low self esteem, alot of speakers were invited to come give a talk about the topic and how they overcame the challenge, so many of them said their stories and I felt so bad for them that I started to thank God for my own life. I learnt so many things in that seminar that even my thinking ability changed completely and we were each assigned a mentor to watch our progress in overcoming low self esteem. My mentor was a very kind and lovely lady, she did a very great job in mentoring me, she would always call to check up on me, she would tell me beautiful things about myself like "you are might just be slim buy you are beautiful and your skin is as light and flawless as a milk" (in which they are true).

I started a weight gain journey in which I'm still on right now, I always go for exercises that focuses on building of abs and other necessary parts of the body and also changed my diet plan to meals that give more calories. Trust me when I tell you that I've really added so much now 😊.

List of things I did in order to overcome depression

• I got myself a mentor (very important please)

• I worked on myself and tackled the source of my problem

• I go out to positive places more

• I connected more with like minds.

• I changed my circle of friends

• I got busy doing things I love to do and never stayed idle for once

• Always count my achievements instead of my failures

• I try to be the best version of myself in whatsoever I do

• I guarded my mind so well and never allowed whatever anyone was saying get to me.

• I believed more in myself

These are the steps I tried out (maybe more) in order to overcome depression and it really worked well for me, you can give them a trial also if you are going through depression. I hope it works for you too.

I also want to say thank you to my new sponsor @Talecharm thank you so much.

Published date: 5th of May, 2022
Published time: 19 : 40 pm (WAT)
Author: oyinwrites

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