Whatever with Heather - Mindset, Parenting & Personal Growth

33. Why the Lowest is Sometimes Necessary [Life with Depression] - part 1

• Heather Evans • Season 1 • Episode 33

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In this episode, I share my journey with depression and anxiety and how my lowest brought me to where I am today. 

0:00
0:22 Introduction
1:17 The Lowest Low
1:58 Background
3:49 First Marriage
4:47 Single Mom Life
5:41 Current Marriage
6:24 Depression Full Force
7:07 "I just want to be happy."
7:37 Tipping Point
9:50 Couldn't Understand...
10:16 Turning Inward
10:38 Depression Staying
11:02 Search for Happiness
11:21 The 3 Options
12:42 Figuring it Out
13:26 Unknown Destination
13:41 Why is the Lowest Necessary?
14:26 Major Discomfort
15:13 Figuring it Out
15:43 To Heal
15:58 Water and Air
16:29 Undercurrent
17:59 Final Thoughts

Join me as I share this journey, and hopefully give to those who might see reflections of their own journey in mine.

Speaker 1:

Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode. First, I just want to say thank you for tuning in and for being here. Today's topic is one that I'm excited to talk about and it's also really vulnerable to talk about, but I know it's a conversation that needs to be had and one that I am ready to have and ready to share in order to perhaps help you find support, find hope and also maybe feel less alone in whatever journey you're going through. I've titled this and kind of started this with the thought of why the lowest is sometimes necessary, and a subtitle for this would be how my lowest depression made me figure it out. This will be a two-part episode the first part this week and then next part next week or, if you're listening to this, in the future, you'll be able to listen to these back to back. This first part will give you some background, background and my history with depression, as well as sharing why, when looking back, why the lowest was necessary for me, why the lowest is the thing that propelled me to a different place. When we are going through a really low time in our life, especially with feeling depressed, there's a lot of like why, me's and a lot of how can I get out of this? I just want to be happy. There's a lot of that surrounding that and there's nothing wrong with that. And when I was in my lowest it was really hard for me to grasp why I was there and how to get out of it. And looking back I see clearly that the lowest low I was ever in was exactly what I needed to actually make sense, figure things out and move myself forward in a productive and meaningful trajectory. So first let's talk about my background with depression.

Speaker 1:

I had struggled with depression and anxiety for years. I think most people feel depressed and feel anxious at different times and then, of course, there's the whole spectrum of feeling depressed and feeling anxious. In my high school years I had a lot more like anxiety and stress. That also went into my college years and looking back, I actually feel like a lot of that was rooted in depression, hopelessness and, just like this, trying to claw above dealing with life. In high school I had a few different panic attacks where I just wanted out of my own skin. It was just hard to be in my body. And then in college I got stomach pains that were so bad that it sent me to the ER and they gave me morphine and that was the only thing that helped. And we did a lot of different tests and all they could come up with was that this was stress and at the same time I was dealing with really crippling eating disorders, that every day I woke up was me having to face the world of having to eat food, and that kind of went hand in hand with depression. So I'm feeling stressed about college and all these changes, feeling kind of anxious there, and then I'm depressed because every day is a struggle because I hate my body so much. I'm depressed because every day is a struggle because I hate my body so much. I'm trying to limit foods and I'm stuck in this. Anxiety and depression toss up. And then I have good days as well, and so it's just this like melding of all the things anxiety through high school, which I think a lot of was depression that manifested as being anxious, and then anxiety and depression slurry throughout college.

Speaker 1:

And then I get into my first marriage at the age of 20. And this marriage is heavy and hard and it was in this marriage where I realized that if I wanted any joy in my life I would have to create that. And in this marriage I did everything I could to survive and enjoy my life. I would have to create that and in this marriage I did everything I could to survive and enjoy my life. I would have anxiety here and there and I had a few panic attacks and I would feel depressed and like hopeless and trapped here and there and these would come and go and they were kind of this undercurrent. But I also couldn't fully experience them because I'm a mom in a marriage where I need to survive. So in order to survive, I couldn't feel anxiety and depression fully, but they were there as this undercurrent. I didn't have time or space for them to be so present, because when you're in survival mode you have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Speaker 1:

Now, fast forward. I get divorced, I'm the mom of a toddler and a newborn and at this point in my life I'm kind of in what I like to call rockstar mode, where I am just trying to handle it all, do it all, be present, be a good mom, go on dates and meet people. I'm handling life the best I can. Obviously it's stressful to be a single mom of two. Obviously it's stressful to not know what comes next. That's all stressful, and so that's where I find myself just trying to plow ahead in rockstar mode.

Speaker 1:

I don't remember feeling much depression or anxiety in this time. I do remember feeling like, stressed about, like maybe, what my life would look like Would I get remarried, would I not? I didn't know, but in that time, like full on survival, it's me taking care of two people and we've got to just go. We've got to do the thing right. We've got to live life Now, fast forward. From beyond that, I get married, we move into a house. I'm married to a really stable, kind, patient person. I am now in a home that is stable. Our finances are pretty stable, I have another kiddo and now I am a mom of three kids and everything is just stable. Everything feels good.

Speaker 1:

And it was at this point in my life where everything was just and great. We owned our own business, things were going well Forward, progress was being made. Yes, there was a lot on my plate, but no more than before in any other point in my life, and I had a teammate that was helpful and amazing and patient and kind. And it was at this point in my life where depression came in full force. It sat with me and it was constant. It was so heavy and so horrible that I felt badly that my children and my husband had to deal with me and how I was. I was short-tempered, I was unmotivated, I was unhappy, and if I couldn't be happy when my life was great, then I must have something majorly wrong with me.

Speaker 1:

I had survived anxiety and depression as a teen, in my college years, with eating disorders and even in an abusive marriage and as a single mom. Yet here I am in this beautiful, amazing life, and suddenly my depression is so heavy. I thought I just want to be happy and it shouldn't be so hard. Happiness shouldn't feel so far away when everything around you is going well. I felt broken and unfixable. What could even be fixed when everything was going so well, when everything was so good, like obviously there were no more problems with anything outside myself? And so it must be me, I must need fixed. I must be me, I must need fixed, I must be broken.

Speaker 1:

This became so heavy where the point came where no longer existing seemed like a good option. Now I wasn't hopeless about this and I wasn't agonizing over this. It felt very rational that the way to end my suffering, and therefore the suffering of those I love most, would be to end my existence. I didn't feel anxious or stressed about this. I just felt calm about it all. It felt rational that my family would be better off in the long run without me, without carrying the dead weight of me and my hard and heavy emotions. I knew they would be better off in the long run without me, without carrying the dead weight of me and my hard and heavy emotions. I knew they would be sad initially, but I also knew that in time they would heal. And truth was, I didn't know if I would heal continuing the way I was going on. I didn't know if I would ever feel happiness or joy, if I would feel anything other than hopelessness and hopelessness and nothingness. I did not want to live a life feeling like that and I did not want my family to have to carry the weight of me feeling like that.

Speaker 1:

After feeling like this for a while, I decided to tell my husband what I was going through and where my head was at. It was at a point where I was scared, how calm and rational this felt, that I was so low that this seemed like a viable solution. I told him that I thought I might need to go on medication, but, as a side note, I had gone on medication in my college years and it left me worse than before, and so even just saying that out loud didn't feel like a good option, but it felt like it might be the only option. I didn't tell him this to like, get him to pity me or anything. I told him this because I was scared of how deeply I felt about this ending of it all being a viable option. He didn't freak out, he didn't lose his mind, he didn't tell me I was wrong. He just listened and still loved me. And I still struggled.

Speaker 1:

At least this time it was open and in the air. I had said words that were scary to say and the world didn't end, but I still struggled. I still wrestled, trying to understand why I was at my lowest when my life was at its highest. So I couldn't look outside myself to try to understand my depression. It wasn't the abuse of ex-husband. It wasn't the stress of college. It wasn't the stress of being a teenager. It wasn't body image issues. There was nothing outside of me that needed fixed. My life was beautiful. It was in my darkest that I was forced to turn inward and look at myself, truly look inward and face myself.

Speaker 1:

In the past, my depression would come and go. It would sit for a while, but I was always able to claw my way to happiness or at least pretend I was happy. But not this time. It was different. My depression came in to sit with me and stay. It was there to force me to notice it and deal with it, or it would take me out completely. It made me feel it fully. This was no longer depression as the undertone to happiness or a happy face. Depression was it. But I still couldn't understand why I couldn't just be happy. I just wanted to be happy, and the frustration that I wasn't made me sink even lower. My striving for happiness and this desire to be happy made me even more depressed because I couldn't seem to reach it.

Speaker 1:

At this point, I had in my brain three options get medicated again, end it all or figure it out. Going on how I was feeling was not an option. So just staying the same for me was not a life I was willing to live. Therefore, I needed to be medicated, end it or figure it out. But all these options seemed so difficult why? Well, because meds in the past hadn't solved anything for me. In fact, they made things worse, and ending it all, I knew, would end my suffering.

Speaker 1:

But I also knew in my soul, my deep inner knowing that that was not a solution, that I wanted, that me myself, my truest self, did not want that, and figuring it out seemed idealistic and not real. The idea of figuring out life with depression wasn't even an example I had to look to. It didn't exist. You couldn't look on social media and see people figuring out depression. There were no examples of people healing or recovering from depression, just examples of those suffering, those pretending it wasn't there and those that were medicated. And I knew I could no longer suffer and I knew medication was not a good option for me. And so I was left with this idealistic path of figuring it out, which, once again, didn't even seem real. That doesn't even exist. Yet that was the option I was left with. I decided the worst that could happen from me trying to quote unquote figure it out was going back to the other two options, which, if I don't try to figure it out, then I'm still left with the other two options, but if I do try to figure it out. Maybe it works or maybe it doesn't, and then I'm still left with the other two options. So figuring it out was the path I decided to walk. So I decided to step on the path of figuring out how to navigate depression and build a life that was one I could live. Now, I didn't know what this would look like, and it was the only option that had an unknown destination for me. The other two options were pretty clear destinations, and this option had an unknown destination, and that was better than the other two.

Speaker 1:

Now, looking back, how is the lowest sometimes necessary? Well, this round of depression was the worst it had ever been for me, and it made me deal with it. This time. Depression did not allow me to fake happiness and push depression down. It was almost as if my soul did not want depression to continue to be an undercurrent of my life and have me living half of a life. Had I not experienced this lowest of lows, I would not be where I am today. My life would not look the way it looks today. The lowest was necessary to cause me to change. So why is the lowest sometimes necessary to cause us to change?

Speaker 1:

It comes down to the difference between when something is slightly uncomfortable or irritating versus when something is unbearably uncomfortable or unbearably irritating. You can put up with slight discomfort for a long, long time. You can probably even ignore it and just deal with it for years. But major discomfort, major suffering, begs you to deal with it. You have no choice but to figure it out or suffer or give up. Giving up for me meant either literally giving up my life or allowing depression to continue to run the show and therefore my life. Figuring it out for me meant figuring out my life and owning the road ahead.

Speaker 1:

When you have your lowest moments, mentally or even physically, it's your soul's way of begging you to deal with it. In your greatest discomfort and pain you are forced to look around you and look inside you and heal or figure it out, or surrender and suffer. To heal or figure it out doesn't mean you won't have flare-ups right Of whatever is bothering you or whatever you're dealing with. But to heal means you know you are capable of not being in a constant state of suffering. It's the difference between going underwater and never being able to come up for air and drowning constantly. Being in a constant state of drowning and healing is that learning to come up for air and then becoming better and better at staying where there is air. But for a while, and maybe even forever, waves will come in. You'll be underwater, but healing is the knowing that you can come up for air. Be underwater, but healing is the knowing that you can come up for air and knowing how to do that.

Speaker 1:

For me in the past, before this really heavy episode of depression, depression was just an undercurrent. It was sometimes stronger and sometimes it subsided, and so I didn't really need to deal with it because air was there. Sometimes I was underwater and sometimes I'd breathe and it would just happen. It came and went and I could also cover it up with a smile. But when it came and stayed and weighed me down, it forced me to adjust, change, shift, figure it out. When something comes to you and is uncomfortable, unbearably uncomfortable, we adjust, we shift, we move to navigate it, to figure it out. You are forced to do it. In that moment I needed the heaviness to force me to look at how I was feeling and how I was living. It was majorly uncomfortable and caused major suffering. Uncomfortable and caused major suffering. Therefore, I could no longer ignore it. I had to face it head on, figuring out life with depression.