Depression and searching for love

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By Chemene

You never really know yourself until you experience depression. It forces you to examine and re-examine your thoughts, your fears, your love, tests your limits and it breaks your boundaries. It made me realise I’m still searching for love – the love I wasn’t given as a child.

Searching for those pieces to make me whole again

I feel as though there was a picture of me once drawn on a piece of paper; I was 7 years old, I was happy, a little girl. Then changing events and things happened to me that gradually tore up that piece of paper into smaller and smaller pieces. They were blown away, scattered to far reaches and my job now is an endless search for those pieces to make me whole again.

Depression has placed me into a dark hostile world, there is no map, there is no compass, you have to try and find your way through the dark. I have spoken to many people that suffer with depression, and ‘searching’ for something seems to be a common feeling.

I suffered as a child

As a child, I suffered sexual abuse, physical abuse. Lived in a home shrouded in domestic violence, drugs and rationed amounts of love but copious amounts of rejection. I was painfully neglected. I know my story is not uncommon, and there are many people who have suffered the same and who are still suffering.

For me it’s all about love. Everything I feel and what my depression feeds on is my desperation, my searching for love. I imagine a father who I can count on, to protect me and just to be a Dad. A Mum that is proud of me and loves me for who I am and who in turn inspires me.

Searching for love: it’s exhausting

When you’re not accepted, when you’re not loved properly, like when a flower isn’t nurtured or looked after, it’s as though your soul resembles a neglected garden. It’s untended, vacant and nothing grows properly. Searching for love is exhausting, continuously pleasing everyone in the hope that you will be accepted. It’s an addictive bad habit of giving your all and seemingly getting nothing in return.

Knowing how to love

And yet I have a wonderful husband and I have 3 beautiful children. If my past has taught me anything it’s knowing how to love and nurture those 3 flowers and protect them everyday. It’s remembering that my husband is my husband, he is there for me and loves me unconditionally. He is not my Father nor is he my Mother.

However, still and everyday, depression will make me sad, make me tired. Everyday it will strip me of any self-confidence and remind me of the loves I’ve lost. Everyday I’ll continue to search, because it’s what I do….it’s what I have always done.