I’ve been feeling a bit fragile so I decided to wear the cat dress as it would make me smile, but after matching it with bright tights, boots and my Elektra shawl over my shoulders I couldn’t help feeling a bit as though I’d decided to dress as Deanna Troi for the day.
Shawl – Elektra
Shawl pin – Nova Steel
Cardigan – clothes swap
Dress – White Stuff
Tights – M&S
Boots – Gabor
Of course, maybe I subconsciously chose to dress as Troi because I’ve been wondering about being more open about depression here. I don’t quite know yet how that’s going to work out; I don’t claim to be any kind of expert on depression, or really know anything about it except how it affects me, and I’m not terribly practiced about talking about that in general terms rather than moaning about how miserable I feel. Despite this, I’m increasingly feeling that I want to stand up and talk about my experiences as someone who suffers from depression in public. There’s a lot of stigma attached to depression, and mental health issues generally. People are scared to come out and say they have depression because they’re worried about the reaction they’ll get; I know that there are so many times when I could have mentioned it and didn’t, because I was scared that the person I was talking to would think I was flakey, or weak, or unable to be trusted with responsibility, or just pathetic. And that’s not going to go away if people keep being scared to admit to having depression. We need to talk about it, to share our stories and support each other and tell ourselves and the rest of the world that this is normal, and common, and it’s not a character flaw, it’s just an illness, and it doesn’t really make any difference that it affects your brain and not your stomach or your joints or whatever. And reading Ann’s wonderful, courageous post the other day made me realise that I want to stand up and be counted too, and I want to talk at more length than Twitter lets me, and I want it to be public but still within the context of the rest of my life, so it has to be here, really.
I don’t know how it’ll work out. There will still be outfit posts, and crafting posts, and I don’t know if there will be depression posts or if I’ll just start saying more about how I’m feeling in the general posts (I suspect it will be a bit of both).
So, yeah. This is me. I knit, and I’m trying to learn dressmaking, and I like bright colours and pretty clothes, and I have depression and have been depressed on and off for probably almost 30 years now. And it’s about time I stopped hiding that. Hello, everyone!
Hello!
*waves*
I’m looking forward to reading.
Thanks, Franca!
Colours affect our moods, so get those bright colours out and give that depression a shake in it’s boots. It’s been a rough winter, I think because we had such a dull summer, no change to recharge the sunny batteries. I first encountered depression when I had my first son nearly 30 years ago. I had no idea what was wrong with me and cried with relief when some one told me I had depression, I thought I was going mad.
Yes, I think everyone is feeling exhausted and desperately longing for a bit of spring weather now!
This is your creative space to explore whatever it is you need to get out there – be it knitting or clothes or simply the you-ness of you. I do think that writing about depression helps get a person through it feeling at least a little less alone. The alone-ness is the worst bit I reckon.
Your turquoise scarf and cats are making me smile today – thank you!
Thanks, Roo! And yes, the alone-ness is very difficult; I don’t have a lot of local friends, and am wary about talking much about how I feel at work for obvious reasons.