How Did I Get Here?

"Why are you depressed?" "But how did you become depressed?"

I feel like these are the two most asked questions by people since I 'came out' with my depression. I never really thought after coming out as gay at sixteen, that I would ever have to 'out' myself as anything again, but here I am. They're both hugely difficult questions to answer - why are you not depressed? Why do you love the person that you do? Why do I not even truly know the answer to these questions?

Life veers us in strange directions, places we never thought we would be emotionally, physically, mentally. Even if we could pin point one thing that caused our current hurt and pain, there are so many other correlating instances and interactions throughout the years that build up and cause us to implode when we least expect it. ..


The only thing I could use to describe it would be to say it feels like I've been hit by a car. My bones feel broken and shattered, my head feels disorientated and sore. As hard as I try to focus on other things in life, I can't ignore the trauma that I've endured mentally and I am trying to recuperate from. Peel back the bandages and you would find years of hidden wounds and hurt from that thing we call life. Something we take for granted yet struggle to survive at times.

There are some things I can't even talk about, so for now let's focus on the things that I can say.

I'm not going to blame everything on "big mean bullies" in school, but a lot of the issues I still have today, at twenty-eight years old, stem from those days. Feelings of seclusion and like I'll never be good enough or fit in still haunt me from back when I was targeted for my skin colour, my weight and my lack of masculinity. I'm still very socially awkward, quiet and on edge about what someone will say or think of me. In my eyes I'll never be good enough to be around others, regardless of them saying the opposite, and that's a really difficult feeling to bury, no matter how hard I try. Even typing these words right now, it doesn't take away my feelings of self-hatred, it just officiates them.

When I left college, I fell in love and it became my life. I was truly happy for the first time that I can recall, though still struggling with the person that I was. Over the years I gained weight, to the point that when I saw my wedding photos two years ago, I was repulsed by how I looked. I took it upon myself to change and fix the disgusting fat beast I saw when I looked in the mirror and I changed my eating habits, took up walking, did whatever I could to lose weight. After less than a year I had lost sixty pounds and weighed the lowest I could recall weighing but I still wasn't happy, so I took a giant leap of applying to pose for an article in Attitude Magazine called Real Bodies with the hope that it would boost the confidence I was still struggling to find.

Myself in October 2013 and in September 2015

The photo shoot was an unusual experience for me - being naked apart from my underwear in a room with five or six other people staring at you...then the interview about how proud I was of my body since the weight loss...I gave them what I felt they wanted and people would want to hear. Despite the good response I got from doing the shoot and my continued weight loss, I still wasn't, and am not satisfied. I even took to chewing and spitting out my food into napkins whilst nobody was looking in the vain hope of controlling my weight. I've never shared that with anyone before, but now I guess I have done. The more weight I continue to lose, I'm still disgusted with myself. I could draw up a list of everything I despise about my looks, but it would take too long. So much for me telling myself that weight loss would make me happy, because it didn't.

Relationships are hard. People come and go in your life. Some are truthful, some are not and unfortunately sometimes you learn the hard way. You can care about somebody as much as you want, but you can't control their feelings for you, no matter how hard you try. It can trigger so much hurt and negativity about yourself, so much disdain and frustration, feelings of loss, abandonment and isolation. As much as I can try to tell myself "it's their loss", it's impossible to make myself believe that. It's hard to tell yourself that you're good enough when clearly that isn't how others see you.

It was July of this year when I started to get thoughts of suicide. Continuous, brutal, harsh thoughts that won't leave my mind, no matter how hard I try to dispel them. I'll talk about the incident that finally led me to visit a doctor soon, I just need to pluck up the courage to write the words first.

Thank you to anyone reading this for sticking with me and reading one persons' journey with depression, your support after just one post has been remarkable and unexpected. Hearing your stories lets me know that I am not alone in this and you are not alone in this either, so please feel free to tweet me and keep discussing the D word that the world just doesn't seem to be talking about.

- Chris