Welcome back to "The Red Diaries", if you're new, hello, I'm Leah and in this series, I walk you through my journey of when I had depression and how I coped with it. If you haven't read the previous chapters of this series, I strongly suggest that you go and read them. If you've been keeping tabs on "The Red Diaries" for a while then thank you very much, I appreciate your time and interest.
As days went by, I became worse; more irritated, and less tolerable and ya know how that goes. After some miserable time spent alone, afraid and angry, and after some things had been bashed and broken (including my heart here, quite literally). I was so unsure of my emotions that even therapy didn't seem to get to my head. I'm no expert in self-love, I've never been one or claimed to be one but after I hated myself for quite some time and that too passionately, I fell in love with myself. Stop laughing or making weird faces, it is P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E! I know I can't say that everything is going to be okay because if somebody said that to me when I felt like crap, I would've laughed myself silly at them and thought to myself: yeah, sure, what do you know? You must be crazy. And out loud, I'd just nod my head with disgust and contempt, so I feel ya, if you think that I'm crazy, I respect your opinion. It is okay to feel this way. I would like to tell you what I meant when I said that I did open up later and you'll know to whom in the coming chapters in one of the previous chapters. Sorpreso!! I finally broke down in front of Jackie Chan. No! not the actor, my beautiful teddy bear; I entered my room and I had a panic attack over something, I really can't remember over what right now, but I was standing in front of a window, trying to breathe when I grabbed Jackie and hugged him, very very tightly. I, for the first time, in ages felt like I wasn't alone and that I had somebody; somebody who wasn't giving me looks while I practically battling death (maybe I'm over-exaggerating but that is what it felt like). Don't pity me, boo. Just don't because I don't either. While I was shaking with fear and anxiety, I looked at Jackie and stared into his eyes, don't worry, I'm not crazy, least not entirely; as I was looking at Jack, I started laughing like crazy. I don't really know what happened to me or what prompted me to laugh but thank god for whatever it was because I felt better. Whenever, even now, if I have a panic attack, I just go and sit with my teddy bears 🧸 ( Jackie and a pink one called Pinky Chan). You might say that that is childish and not something you expect a 15-year-old to do but honestly, I could care less. I feel much safer battling "death" with them in the room, not being judgemental, and just being present. They don't talk to me but I can feel a huge difference between how I felt when I had a panic attack and I dealt with it alone.
Now, I think, it is time for me to tell you what other stuff I did to feel better whenever I felt angry, agitated, confused, afraid, alone, and all the emotions that were storming through my brain when I was continuously depressed for a long time. Here you go: I started to journal; nope, not the conventional kind of journalling, I'd just pick up the pen and ramble on; I'd keep going on and on about how helpless I felt and how mad I was at myself and how I couldn't feel comfortable under my own skin. Every time I wrote, I can't say that I felt better; however, I felt... lighter, I suppose. I felt a little less like the whole world had been crushed and I bore the weight of it on my shoulders. I think journalling a healthy outlet for all the toxic emotions that one might bear. Just write down your worries and let 'em wander. You don't have to write every day, just try and write whenever things get too hard. I hope that'll help. And again if you wanna talk to someone, please, direct message me on my Instagram account; it is a public one, and feel no shame. Here is the link to my account for inspirational quotes, some cartoons, and "The Red Diaries' Instagram highlights:https://www.instagram.com/22_leah_/. Another thing that I started was yoga and meditation. Don't think, here we go again and say," This is so generic". Even if it is generic, it worked wonders for me; at a time, when my emotions were a hot mess, meditating gave me a brief peaceful time but that was after I put my own twist on it. You need to customize things and adjust them to how you feel they work best for you. You could also talk to a non-living thing such as teddy bears or dolls or whatever you feel comfortable with. Take time to figure things out; make mistakes and then try and fix 'em. As long as you are alive and breathing you can make it happen. I believe in myself and I believe in you. The last thing I have for you today is that I started to talk to myself; that I think made most of the difference; I started to treat myself as if I were two people; one advising the other, holding her hand, helping her push through, crying and laughing with her. You might even say that this was the first step towards a beautiful relationship that I was going to develop with myself.
On that note, keep lovin'. Livin'. Repeatin'.
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