Rain

I live in a country where it’s cold 8 months out of 12, without even exaggerating. It’s rains often also.

I left Haiti when I was 12, and I’ve lived in Canada for 10 years now. My mom decided to move here because she wanted me to have a better chance at life since Haiti doesn’t offer the same advantages as more developed countries.

Education, Career, Healthwise (and so much more) Canada was a very smart choice for us.

However, moving here didn’t make me happy. I won’t speak for my mom but, Canada has never made me happy.

Yes, I’ve always been healthy and I wasn’t particularly sad, I just was not happy ... I was normal.

When I got old enough to travel on my own, every time I had the chance to leave, I’d either go to the States or Haiti and every time it was time to go back home I would cry like someone was dying.

Me. I was dying.

The reason being that I do not like Canada, it makes me feel horrible and guilty because I feel so ungrateful towards my mom and I’ve made wonderful friends here but I can’t help the fact that I hate the place and I especially hate the weather.

Plus the rain, I think there's something in the rain there because I’ve seen rain in other cities, and it has never affected my mood like rain in Canada does.

Some people love rain and although this is not me judging them, my only question is how? How can something so pale, sad, gloomy make you feel comfortable on the inside?

It’s truly beyond me how some people will see rain and be like “Oh this weather makes me feel like I should be curled up in bed with a book” - Really?

I don’t think there’s a specific weather that makes me want to read but, it’s definitely not rainy weather.

It has been raining for the past two weeks where I live and this rain has brought my depression to it’s highest level.

Yes, Depression.

I know such an ugly word right?

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Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home.

Source: psychiatry.org

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I know many throw that word loosely, everytime something inconvenient happens in their lives that makes them feel sad for a while, they say things like: “I was sooo depressed last week, my car broke down and I had to take the bus for two days”.

I am the last person here that will disregard people’s feelings or tell them how they should or should not feel.

However, if we’re being honest, that example was clearly not depression, the person was just annoyed and maybe sad.

Hey, I have bad days like every single human being on this planet and it’s not the reason I get to label it “depression”. People use that word for many small situations that it actually takes out the value on the actual meaning of being depressed.

On the American Psychiatric Association website was listed the numerous symptoms one can feel if they are dealing with depression.

I decided to do a personal test and see how many symptoms I’ve noticed in my behaviour for the past 2 weeks.

Depression symptoms can vary from mild to severe and can include:

• Feeling sad or having a depressed mood

Yes.

• Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed

My main interest is writing and I’ve been fighting the urge to stop because I know it’s not that I’m uninterested, it’s just my mood lately.

• Changes in appetite — weight loss or gain unrelated to dieting

I have not lost weight yet but, yes I’ve noticed that I only care for 1 meal per day.

• Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much

Is it possible to experience both?

• Loss of energy or increased fatigue

Yes.

• Increase in purposeless physical activity (e.g., hand-wringing or pacing) or slowed movements and speech (actions observable by others)

No.

• Feeling worthless or guilty

No or maybe a little bit of guilt from time to time.

• Difficulty thinking, concentrating or making decisions

No.

• Thoughts of death or suicide

No.

Okay, we have 6 “yeses” and 3 “noes”,

is it enough to diagnose depression?

Some of you may say yes, others may say no. I personally can say yes, not because I want to be diagnosed as such but because this is not my first time experiencing this, and this time I’ve caught it early so I can make the efforts to not get caught up in the “depression whole”.

The reason I’ve been feeling this way recently is that I tried to move to another city and things didn’t go as I hoped so I had to go back to Canada, a place that makes me unhappy. Several things happened this year but, I think what also affected me were the people that kept asking why I wanted to move so bad and dismissed my answer when I told them after 10 years I couldn't stand where I lived.

Making me feel like a spoiled brat that was just throwing a fit because she couldn't get what she wanted. I know I mostly mentioned the weather but, truly there are so many other reasons that make me feel the way I do and I don’t think I owe anyone any explanation.

I’ve experienced so many losses this year ...

No one died expect for maybe me?

I think I died a little bit inside several times because this year, I lost myself, one of my best friends and I hate talking about it because I don’t like people thinking I’m “weak” or “too sensitive”.

I don’SEt know exactly when my depression started, I want to say maybe between 15-16 years old maybe?

I was always tired and not in the mood to do anything, I made it through Highschool but I dropped out several times after that, I was either uninterested at some point or other things just made me not want to continue what I was learning. My mom would say that I’m just lazy and she kept saying I was wasting my life, basically everything that a clueless parent could say and I don’t blame her it’s not like she knew.

I’ve been doing a great job at keeping up a front, not letting it get to me but lately, I’ve just been feeling exhausted.

Two weeks ago, I had to confront this person that apparently was gossiping about me while they had never even met me.

They said a lot of useless shit but really the thing that marked me was when they said something like:

“I don’t like dealing with sensitive people like you.” - implying that they don’t want to be responsible or have anything to do with the possibility that something bad may happen.

I don’t know if I’m expressing myself correctly, I truly wish y’all could understand the insensitivity that came with those words.

Anyway, I know how I’ve been feeling lately is not my normal self and I’m happy that I know myself enough now to notice the difference and do something about it fast.

Here are a few tips I’ve been trying for the last couple days and I can honestly say that I’ve seen an amelioration. It’s not a tremendous one but, it’s something.

The first step is to Get Help.

Whether it’s a professional consultation or just talking to someone you trust, get the help you need.

However, if it’s something you’ve experienced before or if it’s the early stages like me, here’s what I can advise you to do.

-Don’t panic. As soon as you realize what’s going on, don’t scare yourself to the point of overthinking and trying super hard to get out of it. There are steps, if you force it you might think you’re okay but truly you’re just lying to yourself and digging into the depression whole even deeper.

-Set an alarm. I’ve been sleeping around 6 AM for a while now and I still set an alarm for 10:30. Do not let yourself fall into the F’ed up sleep schedule. Otherwise, it’ll be super hard to get out of.

-Affirmations. Affirmations are a list of positive things about yourself. There are lists on Pinterest, videos on Youtube and so on. I personally selected a few that I consider really do describe me and wrote them on a piece of paper. I take 5mins after I’ve fully woken up and read them to myself before my brain absorbs any useless information from social media and so on.

-Occupy yourself. Now that I am back home my days consists of basically nothing. In order to feel productive, I’ve been gathering as much information as possible on a project I’m working on, teaching myself on the subject. I recently started making videos again for the blog so, editing really occupies me for several hours. I’ve also been working on new ideas for my blogs. I also watch a lot of movies, one thing I’m not going to do is pretend that I stay productive all day, no. However, I make sure a good amount of my days is dedicated to my writing and future work/projects.

-Eat. I’m still struggling with that one, I have no advice. Just try or get you a friend to remind you to eat. I have a friend that did this for me during this summer and it’s not that her telling me to eat made any difference in my appetite, it’s just felt so nice because someone cared and I felt like doing the effort for her so, I’d get toasts or cereals. Nothing major.

-Be grateful. Remind yourself of everything good going on with your life and be thankful because it could be way worst. Trust me.

-Set goals.

To each their own, you can add more steps, so far this is what I’ve noticed works for me and I think the main rule should be to always stay consistent. The fact that you’re doing activities and being productive sends a message to your brain like “Hey, we have a purpose” so, it let’s very little space to think about the negative and everything you want that is not happening for you at the moment.

This last step is really for me and maybe you can get a lesson out of it too ...

It’s not the end of the world Tiffany, it’s just rain!

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https://myhmyv.podbean.com/mf/play/uy4r43/20181107-115853.m4a