A Year Later: The Anxieties and Depression of 2020

Before I begin this piece, I would just like to lay out a Trigger Warning. This article will include references to COVID-19, body image, suicide, self-harm, and depression. In no way am I writing this article to upset anyone, but just to share my own experiences in the hopes that someone might relate and decide to find help in the same ways that I have done and am doing. If you are currently in a situation where you might be in danger, please have faith in yourself and don't feel as though it's a weakness to seek outside help. Please find some helplines here that hopefully apply to the country you live in.

Just over a year ago, I made a post about my journey with anxiety and depression, largely focusing around the worst experiences I had at university. When I made that post in August 2019, I was feeling very hopeful and had a very relaxing end to 2019, with hopes that 2020 would be a fresh start for me. And it was until quarantine began.

In January 2020, I was officially no longer a student. I had graduated (with a 2:1, yay me!) and it was now time to search for work. I've done plenty of volunteering positions at university so my CV wasn't a blank slate, and I was feeling very positive. Come February, I was hearing responses and........ it sucked. It was rejection after rejection, and although my family were telling me this was completely normal, I couldn't help but feel a little downtrodden. Still, I kept on applying to different places and tried to keep my spirits high. Eventually, I found something that really interested me: a 6 month part-time position in a law library, and I was a little foolish to pin my hopes on it. The commute there was pleasant and the area itself looked fantastic and alive. It was my first interview ever and my anxiety went sky high because of it. Admittedly, I was probably a little under-prepared, but I think the overall interview wasn't a complete flop. One question I flopped at ("What would your previous boss say are your biggest flaws?" Like, how would I know? My previous boss loved me) and I think that damaged my position as a candidate, and I'm sad to say I got a big fat rejection after the interview stage.

I was a little inconsolable. I believed I was unemployable (and I maybe still do, but I will get to that), and it took me a while to want to put myself back out into the job-seeking market once more. Most of the places I applied to didn't even respond to me, and I did hit a slump. It wasn't until March that I felt good enough to apply once more, which was when a job agency contacted me to take me under their wing. Finally, I felt like I was making progress again. Unfortunately, there was another hurdle on the horizon, and this one was a big one.

I live in the UK, and I'm sure by now a lot of people have heard that our response time towards the rise of COVID-19 was, admittedly, appalling. Where most countries in Europe were beginning to lock-down in February, I was heading out to Central London at the end of March with no social distancing restrictions in place. No one could predict how devastating COVID would be, so although I wore a face mask and used hand sanitiser, it wasn't necessary at the time and nobody else was doing it. You could say I was ahead of the game (I even managed to buy a pack of face masks before the big rush happened). Despite this, I was not prepared for how life changing COVID was going to be. A week after I spoke with the job agency, quarantine began, and even when I spoke with them, they were admitting that employers weren't hiring. It was just the beginning of something I had hoped would last until July.

Life Under COVID

Come April, the world was a different place. Suddenly there were restrictions on how long you could be outdoors for, and British Twitter was taking the piss out of the 1 hour slot per day for exercise. Everyone was talking about COVID - your friends, your family, the news, the radio, the papers, Reddit. Literally everywhere. There was no escaping it.

I'm usually very introverted and tend to be an indoors person. I write at my computer or draw pretty pictures rather than go for hikes and whatnot, but the weather was beautiful and I was worried about how long I would be shut in for. I would take an hour walk a day, but people weren't keeping to a 2m distance in my area. I would try and avoid others, but if I was in a tight gap, they wouldn't make an effort to go around me. My parents aren't young, with my dad being in his 60s, and my sister can get asthma quite bad, so eventually I became too anxious to keep up these walks. I didn't want to be the reason someone in my family died of COVID. Before I knew it, I was trapped indoors and all I could really hear about was COVID. I withdrew from group chats and generally tried to avoid hearing about it. It was just stressing me out. I didn't need that, not when 2020 was supposed to be my fresh start.

Around May, a friend of the family came to live with us for 3 weeks. Her husband had died in June 2019, and she was feeling the effects of living home alone. My mum knew that would be terrible for her mental health, so of course extended the invite. Unfortunately, it was also during this period that my anxiety peaked. I'd had a tight chest (probably from anxiety of suddenly being in a limbo) and I had my first breakdown. I snapped at my mum, cried in the garden for a bit, and then apologised to her. Emotionally, I was becoming a total wreck. I wanted to have some alone time, but I also wanted to be comforted, to be with people.

Deterioration

Socialising was becoming difficult for me, and I began enjoying it less and less. Being an introvert, wanting to be alone is very important to me. Even phone calls are exhausting, because I have to put on a facade to behave a certain way around people, to be "normal" or "functional" or whatever. To be understandable. It's hard to phrase. I wanted to be alone, but there wasn't really a room I could sit in with my laptop without getting a back ache from not having a proper chair. I lost interest in my hobbies. Writing became a chore, and I couldn't find an escape in art, no matter how hard I tried. Frustrations were rising and I kept getting snappy, then apologising, and then getting snappy again. My mood was up and down, and probably an early sign that this 'mythological' "quarantine depression" that everyone was talking about was getting to me. I ignored the signs, more in denial than anything. To me, I was moved on from the previous chapter of 2019. I wasn't going to be depressed and anxious anymore, because it was 2020 and I had left a lot of bad things behind.

I think it was that denial that really wrecked me. I kept pretending I was OK, letting things simmer beneath the surface, slowly convincing myself that there was nothing wrong. In reality, I was slowly spiralling. I became more sensitive, social phone calls that I normally looked forwards to were exhausting me, when the UK finally eased restrictions and people could go out for dinner, I felt anxious to be outside. I felt sick or had a strange weight in my chest that I hadn't felt in a while. Anything upset me, and I built up a floordrobe (a depression pit, really). I was falling back into habits I had escaped all the way back in June 2019 and it was killing me, but I never wanted to admit it.

It didn't help that it was nearing my birthday. I turned 22 this year, and although I did enjoy the actual day, the build-up I dreaded. I was turning 22, and yet none of my goals for 2020 had been achieved. I was unemployed, struggling to write, unhappy with my body and basically exactly where I was a year ago. To me, it was a whole year wasted, another year of my life having gone by and I was still unexceptional. I had achieved nothing, and I sank.

Rock Bottom

Alongside my other old habits, the worst ones reared their ugly heads once more. It had been a year and three months (May 2019) since I had intentionally hurt myself. It was something I had been proud of, something I had considered in June 2020, but had managed to stop myself by calling a friend. And yet all I could do was think about self-harm. Fantasised about it. Even glorified how good it had made me feel. It was an old addiction that I had broken out of, because for me, that is what self-harm feels like. An addiction, a swift and temporary release to ease the worse thoughts. 

However, after May 2019, my family were aware that I was capable of self-harm. I knew how sad it made my mum and dad, and it hurt me to think that I would betray their trust and do that to myself again. And yet, there was this itch in my hands and this heavy weight dawning on me, crawling ever nearer. It had been festering for months, and then after a small bicker with my sister, my self-resentment came flooding over the dam I had built, and I convinced myself that I had to make myself bleed in order to feel better. I was suddenly back to last year, except this time on my ankle, where my family wouldn't see. I felt better for an hour, tops. After that, it was wave after wave of guilt and regret. How could I have done this to my family? How could I have done this to myself? It hurt so much, and yet it was my ugly little secret because I didn't want people worrying about me. I had crossed a line that I couldn't step back over.

I think sometimes I cried for help during this period. Maybe I hinted here and there, but it was small and vague, and it was never enough to tell people the whole story. As far as anyone was concerned, I was just a little under the weather. A little stressed. A little bit fed up. But no one would've guessed I was crying myself to sleep and hurting myself again. And it only got worse a week later when I was constantly plagued with thoughts of ending my life. God, it had been a long time since I had felt like that. December 2018 was the last time, and now it was in my face and I couldn't ignore it. I didn't make concrete plans. I didn't give myself time. I was lying in bed, having these thoughts, when I suddenly came to the realisation that I seriously needed help. I forced myself to sleep that night, and the next morning, I immediately called my doctor.

It Will Be OK

Being called an "urgent" case really puts a perspective on things. The fact that I hadn't attempted to end my life meant all preventative measures were being thrown out, just to make sure I wouldn't be added to a list of lifeless names. I was drilled for a solid thirty minutes about my habits, about my moods, about my medication (Sertraline 50mg at the time, and it was good for the every day anxiety), about my living conditions, on and on and on. At the end of the call, he told me to tell my family that I had self-harmed again and that I had suicidal thoughts, and damn that was fucking hard. My dad had just come up to bring me tea as the phone call ended, and I opened my door in near tears and just told him there and then, and my heart broke. He was so sad, and urged me to talk to him when I wasn't feeling right. I felt like I had broken a trust, and it was a startling reminder of just how much my dad loved me, how much I loved my family, and how much I could live. I was exhausted, and there would only be more phone calls. I was going to be passed around like a pin ball, referred to one organisation after another, and asked the same questions. It was repetitive, and it made me give up on the facade that I was OK. The more they asked, the less I wanted to lie.

"Are you crying?" the lady asked, and I was. I was crying because it was so hard to say that I had regressed. "Oh, you poor thing." She had so much care and sympathy in her voice that I couldn't help but cry more. I was finally talking to someone in the psychological field rather than just a university welfare officer or my GP. This was someone who used specific terminology, such as my friends and family being my "protective barrier", my reason to live. I had to describe my feelings, I had to make them concrete, something that always upsets me. I had to describe my self-harm, my thoughts of suicide, my insecurities, the things that had triggered these thoughts and feelings. Unemployment, weight gain, and social anxiety had finally wormed their way into my brain once more, and yet I was spilling all of this to a kind stranger over the phone. Someone who could listen and make sense of the endless ramble.

She decided to do three things, one of which I had hoped to avoid. The first was raising my medication dosage to 100mg. I hadn't wanted to do this originally, since I felt being on a higher dosage was being "closer to giving up". For some reason, I was so scared (and still a little am) of becoming solely dependent on little white tablets, but then she said something that really reassured me. The higher dosage doesn't have to be forever, she told me, and that meant the world to me. She explained that it would help me through a rough patch, and that the highest dosage they allowed was 200mg. I wasn't on a high dose, I was just average. There was nothing abnormal or special about me, and that was great.

The second thing was to research 'mindfulness', and that she would help find a professional who could help me with that. Mindfulness seems great. I really want to get better, and I know it will help me. It feels like the answer to all of my solutions, and for some reason it was out of my reach until that day. The final thing was a referral to my GP, and then they would search for nearby places to recommend my case. People who could help me. It was another thirty minute call and afterwards I was left emotionally drained. It really is tiring getting help, but I persevered because I knew it was the only way I could be truly happy.

My timing with all of this was incredibly poor, but you really can't plan a psychological breakdown. I had a holiday in the south of England booked with my best friend and her parents, but I was determined to go. I needed to be out of the house for more than a day, to see new faces and do new things. On the side, I had to arrange having phone calls whilst on holiday, but my best friend H and her parents were so understanding. H had explained my situation to her mum, and her dad caught on quick, too. They've also had mental health problems in the family, and the sheer generosity and kindness they gave me was so overwhelming. I could have my own space, my own time, my own anything if I needed it, and they even incorporated my necessary phone calls into their schedule.

It was my first time talking to a mental health service. There was another kind stranger down the phone who asked me the same questions, and I couldn't lie at this point. In fact, a lot of the time, I realised I couldn't even articulate how I felt. It probably didn't help her all that much, but she pointed me towards apps and websites that could help me on a day to day basis with tracking moods, and had me signed up for an Anxiety class which would be happening over Zoom sometime in October. I could have 1 on 1 sessions with her once she was back from leave, and she's going to call me again sometime around September 7th. After four years of on and off struggling, I was finally doing something about it. I had felt hopeful (or what I believed was feeling "hopeful") in the past, but this time, I was looking forwards to speaking to people. There was no procrastination or dread, only a fierce desire, because I want to get better. I want to be able to live life to the best of my abilities, but to also realise that I can live a full life, that I do value myself.

The Right Now

I had a wonderful holiday. It felt good to be outdoors, near the sea air, and to have some new experiences saved in my head. I felt better for it, even though I was super tired (I returned yesterday). I'm still adjusting to my new medication dosage, but it'll be a week of 100mg on Wednesday 2nd. 2020 has been very difficult for everyone, but I can at least say that the job rejection I got yesterday didn't upset me. I've finally gotten over the rejections.

And I do have some revelations. The first: I want to live. I want to get better and be alive. I am hopeful about the future, determined to follow the advice I've been given, and not to sleep on any festering thoughts. I'm tired of feeling guilty and regretting things, tired of disappointing myself and worrying my family, tired of upsetting people, and tired of being tired of all this crap. I was so scared of admitting that I needed help, but it's all out there now, and I can't believe I just did it one day and everything began rolling forwards. The amount of support and care I have received has been phenomenal, the kindness of people who have never met me and their desire to keep me on this planet. For so long, I believed myself weak and a burden on society, a very 'survival of the fittest' mentality. This has been the first time that I feel like having depression isn't my fault. It's there, but I'm not responsible for having it. No one is. It's just there.

My next revelation is a little more simple. In mental health, there is no such thing as regression. There can be ups and downs, but it's all one journey. Each stage always brings you forwards, you just have to keep going, even though it's so impossibly hard. I convinced myself I had fell back down into this deep dark pit, something I had to climb back out of, but it's actually a new hill that I need to climb and walk onward from. I am constantly moving forwards, and my ability to take the steps to accept help feels like a huge achievement to me. For me, this is groundbreaking, because this is the first time that I actually feel like I can truly get better.

Final Thoughts

This is just a small part of my story. It's my own experiences and feelings towards tackling my mental health problems, things that have plagued me for years. However, if you can find something in these words that you can relate to, then I hope my experiences can help you. I know not everyone can talk about the nasty little voices in their head, the ones that tell you that you're never good enough. I know not everyone wants to tell others. The fact that I can lends me strength that I might be able to help people who have felt the same way that I have. Feel free to share this. You might have a mutual who can take comfort from a stranger on the internet's words.

Forever love, XOs