my depression story Alex

By Alex  Source: lifewellwandered.com Hi, I’m Alex and I have depression. I’m not depressed at the time of this writing. But I do have depression. It sucks. And it likes to strike at the most inopportune moments. Isn’t that how it always is? (note/TW: this is how I have experienced anxiety and depression, and sometimes still do) But first, Anxiety: I’m very open about my experience with anxiety. Mostly because I feel like it’s more accepted. Sure, it might debilitate me, cause my mind to spiral out of control, make me cry, make me sick, make me too afraid to leave my home sometimes. But itRead More →

by Kurt Cunningham http://www.citizenkurt.net/ I tried to end my life one night after having a wonderful fun-filled evening with friends. It was in November 2012 — I had a plan in place for months. Not one person had any idea what I was planning to do. After a series of life-changing events that began in 2009 and included the closing my once- successful business of nine years, and culminated with the death of my mother in August 2012 life just seemed unbearable to me. My finances were a mess. My health wasn’t great. And I couldn’t make a romantic relationship last more than a fewRead More →

Being broke and having depression go hand-in-hand. I’m really sick of it. Even if money can’t buy happiness, it can buy basic necessities like food and shelter. It’s pretty hard to be happy without those things. I need more money, but my symptoms of depression make finding a job really difficult. While the average person in their twenties focuses on building a resume, I’ve been focused on surviving my depression. Instead of attending post-secondary school, I’ve been in depression treatment, learning about my own experiences and how to cope in everyday life. Living with depression is a full time job.Read More →

By Marisa Lancione Published by Healthy Minds Canada Living with a chronic mental illness can sometimes feel like waiting for the other shoe to drop (hopefully it’s at least something stylish). Up until this point, I have distanced my writing from my present by focusing on my past. Well, I’m going to take a huge leap of faith and discuss the state of my current mental health. And the fact is, I’m struggling. I’ve been battling semi-regular panic attacks for the past 6 months. My first panic attack in years happened in March. As with most panic attacks, they happen at the most inopportune moments.Read More →

Four days before Orlando da Silva became president of the Ontario Bar Association this month he heard the news that comedic genius Robin Williams had taken his own life. “I imagined Robin Williams alone in his room, what went through his mind,” da Silva told TorStar News Service this week. “I can understand the thinking, I can understand the emotions.” The new OBA president has also lived with the torment of depression, the sense of bone-deep worthlessness and lacerating self-disgust. He came close, in fact, to taking his own life.Read More →

BELLEVILLE – Michael Teasdale never thought about killing himself. But he did feel like curling up in a corner and letting life roll over him until it flattened him out of existence. The Stirling man and Loyalist College student was just one of the walkers in Wednesday’s Defeat Depression at the school, aimed at raising awareness of mental illness.Read More →

To some, anxiety is a taboo term. To one student, it was seven letters that defined her life. At the age of 12, second-year Ryerson journalism student Emily Aubé was diagnosed with panic and generalized anxiety disorder. Both conditions put her through great stress and pressure growing up. “In high school, there were no resources that helped me and I felt very much ashamed of my disorder in fear of being labeled as ‘mental’ or ‘crazy,’” Aubé said.Read More →

Last November, I was diagnosed with depression. Depression is an illness which provokes a wide range of reactions in people, depending on their own experiences. It is, to me, something intangible- just when I think I’ve understood its impact on my life and those around me, it slips away and mutates into something else. Some days I am able to brush it aside, other days it lies on me like a hot, heavy, suffocating blanket, preventing me from doing anything and leaving me tearful with frustration. I think for sufferers and for those who deal with them, be it friends, family or colleagues, depression isRead More →

When Elizabeth Manley opened the door and saw her mother for the first time in weeks, her mother collapsed on her knees and began to cry. Since moving to the United States to pursue her dreams of figure skating and Olympic gold, Manley had become a pale ghost of the robust athlete she had once been — she’d lost all her hair, gained 40 pounds and had almost completely stopped talking. “I wanted to wear the pretty dresses and the pretty makeup, but unfortunately sports don’t always come with the pretty stuff,” she told a packed crowd at the University of Ottawa on Monday, 30Read More →

I am telling my story, because if it means that it brings hope to just one person who lives with Social Anxiety Disorder, that recovery is possible, then it is worth it. I will start by sharing with you some of my experiences of living with Social Anxiety Disorder. I will then go on to explain to you how I believe I developed this illness, its symptoms, the effect it had on all facets of my life, the coping mechanisms I used, as well as explaining how the disorder was never recognised or treated for twenty years, and resulted in the development of more complexRead More →