Rain Cloud In My Heart

I have wanted to write this post for a long time. It's something that it is constant struggle, and something that is so honest and personal. This post is not for attention, so there's nothing I expect in response. The goal is to help. To help myself get over this part of myself I feel ashamed of and to help others realize they are not the only ones who have silent struggles. Another goal of this post, to just have more compassion for others, because you NEVER know what they are facing. Advice that I need to take myself.

Enter december 2011. 

not significant in many ways. 

no boy trouble. not much friend trouble. school was great.

I remember that I was drowning, inside myself. I couldn't find happiness. I tried the whole, "fake it til you make it" or "grin and bear it" methods. Happiness came in spurts, but it wasn't there always. Happiness came through friendships, but it wasn't always genuine. The light was hard to find, when I walked around with a rain cloud pattering my heart. The moments this darkness consumes me, I panic remembering those days, weeks and months. Where I silently suffered. Afraid to admit to myself or anyone else, that I was depressed.

Look around you. The happiest person you know, could be suffering silently.

Depression, it's not something you can control. It's not something you can just turn off. It's a process, it's a long and sometimes lonely process. If you have never had experience with depression or anxiety, it's hard to be empathetic toward anyone suffering. For you, it's like, "just cut it out." For them, it's just not that easy, almost impossible feeling.

I wrote this song during this time... Some of the loneliest insecure moments of my life. And why? I can't even explain. It just happened. (ps my favorite part of it is when my little sis who was recording starts singing along, she was 7... I recorded this on my ipod with my brother six months after I wrote it)

Looking back at the lyrics I came up with... I cringe at the emptiness. How could I feel so lonely, surrounded by so many people I loved? I sat on my living room couch at home. I felt nothing. Numb to so much of the beauty that surrounded me.

And I wrote these words...

my heart will pound louder than the others

the pain could sting if I leave my covers

i'm happy, sad, scared, sometimes mad

CHORUS

oh love where are you tonight?

I'm lost and alone... in my own home

The tears, bleed down from my heart

I must force a smile and laugh for a while

where's love? where's love?

insecure and lost, trying to be me

many people try and change who that should be

breathe in, trust, breathe out

fall for love

CHORUS x 2

where's love? where's love? where's love?

Yeah, I'm a big time romantic, but this song, this time wasn't about that kind of love. This song was just about finding love in my heart. Depression affects relationships, and all aspects of life.

I felt so empty inside. With no idea what was happening to me.

Shortly after I wrote this song. And felt this emptiness. I trusted people around me with this struggle. It was the first time, I let myself admit that I think I have something going on inside of me. I lost friends, but I gained some of my closest. I found out I was iron-deficient and SUPER vitamin D deficient. I was weak on the inside and outside. And I finally admitted I was depressed and had anxiety.

I wrote this in 2012.

"This isn't me. I'm happy. I'm the happiest person I know. Ha. And I want to find that happiness again. Until then I have to smile through the tears.

All I want to do right now is cry and sleep... not eat, not go to school. My health already has made me take a break from work. And I just feel like I can't go on. But as I kneel and sob to God, something inside of me forces me to stand up, forces me to walk forward. And now it will force me to move on."

In some of my darkest days, all I could do was kneel and pray out loud to my Father in Heaven. With faith in his plan, I was able to move on from that darkness. And continue to do so each day. Faith will move mountains. When I laid in that bed years ago, I didn't see hope. My vision was clouded with this cloud of pain. I believed in hope. And I am so glad I did. Faith.

I think it took my six months or a year to figure it all out.

And it's been almost two and I'm now admitting it, trying not to be ashamed.

Almost everyday can be a battle.

But I have realized who I am & I am not my depression.

It's just one of the trials to help me grow stronger and closer to my Savior.

If you or someone else is having one of these silent struggles.

Know that there are SO many more people than you think dealing with similar situations.

Know that you won't just snap out of it. 

Know that you have a Savior who bled from every pore and died on the cross to feel everything we feel and help us through these impossible-seeming trials.

I have more to say, but I'm all tuckered out for tonight.

good night.

I would be happy to hear your experiences,
other people sharing their experiences with me,
has helped me to understand myself.
afewpaceswrite@gmail.com