My unknown battle with Depression

This is going to be quite a difficult post to write as you may have guessed from the title, but it is a story that i feel i need to tell for myself and for others who have felt the same or do feel the same right now.
What i am going to try and do is explain my battle with anxiety and depression by going through what has happened to me over the years, how i have felt, how i have dealt with things and how i have only just realised what i have been through.

There have been a few sparks in my life that have slowly made me turn the corner as of late, one of these being my lovely caring girlfriend, someone i did not expect i would ever meet. The other was passing my black belt karate grading yesterday, something i have been working towards for the past 15 years and fills me with alot of pride and confidence as well as a huge sense of achievement. And this is where the story starts...

I started karate when i was 12 years old as i was having a terrible time at school with bullies. I was bullied on a daily basis for reasons that i still to this day are unsure of, and even when typing about it now i can feel all of the emotions returning. The bullying would come in a variety of forms from verbal abuse, to being spat on, to being beaten up, the problem was that it was always a gang of people, it was never one and one, which meant that i never had the chance to defend myself making me feel really helpless.
I am only realising now how the many evenings of me crying as i walked home from another awful day has influenced how i have perceive people as an adult. I would never wish what i went through upon anyone, although in a way i am proud to be the man it has made me.
As i started my A Levels this upheavel was replaced by another which was my parents divorce and to cut a long story short it was horrible, basically 5 years of court cases, crying, emotions and me doing my best to keep the family afloat (thank god for the football team at uni, those guys saved me). During this i had also had to deal with the loss of my grandparents who helped me through the divorce as well as a massive family fall out due to some inheritance, which will never be the same again (my friends are my family now). All in all it has been one hell of a rollercoaster but a rollercoaster that i felt was normal meaning i kept everything inside.

I am not writing all of this to get sympathy (i do not like sympathy as there are alot more people worse off than me), what i am trying to say is that in the past i never really understood how all of these pressures and upheavels affected who i was as a person and how the negative thoughts i felt and created would eventually set in to make me anxious and depressed and eventually persuade me to seek help.
One of the main problems i had was that i did not know i was depressed, i just thought i was a normal person with normal problems and that i was just weak for not coping like everyone else, which i realise now was actually the depression kicking in. I was certain that i was burdening people with my problems if i spoke about them which meant on a daily basis for a good two years (especially when i was in Africa) i was battling myself inside, battling my thoughts, anxieties and confidence issues and crumbling emotionally bit by bit whilst doing it.
You see on the outside i masked everything, i was in a profession i loved and worked hard to travel and study, yet on the inside i was falling to pieces and fast. The main issue was the paranoia and how i was so concerned about what people thought of me and whether they liked me or not. I just wanted to feel accepted. 
What i must also say is that there was as added ingredient into this which was my passion for wildlife. You may think that having a passion and doing what you love should help, but not when all you look at are the negatives and with the planet there are alot of negatives right now and because i care so so much about wildlife it dragged me down even more with feelings of helplessness and sorrow.

I say this was my unknown battle as i just did not realise i was not supposed to be feeling like this, i just thought it was my fault and everyone was perfect apart from me. The hardest part has been to stop, look at myself and realise that yes i am not happy i need to seek help, even now after 7 sessions of therapy i am only just accepting this. It really has been hard to say that i suffer from depression, but it really is nothing to be ashamed of.
I am pretty sure it has been this tough to admit i am not happy is because as a society we still do not consider mental health issues as important and are simply portrayed as a temporary state. Believe me, they are an illness and stay with you until you deal with them like any other health concern.

I will end this post by saying there is light at the end of the tunnel for me and there always is for anyone who is going through the same thing. I have accepted my issues and with professional help i have to come understand how my problems have formed and how to deal with them. In the past i have been terribly naive with the connection between how i think and how i feel and now that i know more i feel like i am finally after all of these years coming to a point where i am happy. Even just writing this post has made me realise how bad i have felt in the past and how strong i have truel been not to have given up and to keep going. At times i have felt like giving up...

With the hectic, stressful lives that we all live in our modern society it is no surprise that more and more people are suffering from anxiety and depression no matter their profession or background and if you are one of these people then please, please, please remember that you are not strange or different, that you are not and never will be alone and that these problems can be overcome by seeking help. Seeking help is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength. Only with true inner strength can you confront your problems.

Until next time...