‘All my life I felt like I didn’t belong’

All my life, ever since I remember I had these feeling inside of me that I didn’t belong and that I didn’t fit in with what was around me. I spent my childhood and teenage years feeling lonely. These feelings worsened when my dad died. He had been trying to get me to come out of myself before he passed, and to show me how to become a man.

Once he was gone I was lost, with no one to guide me or to say “Hey everything will be alright, and you’ll be alright”. I felt as if I was in a pit that I would never escape from, yet somehow I thought that this was all normal. I believed that the way I felt as a kid was how everyone felt, but that people around me where able to deal with it but I wasn’t. It would take until I was 20 for me to reach my breaking point and for me to ask for help. It was then I finally found out what was wrong with me all my life, I had depression and anxiety.

I made the decision to finally seek out a doctor as it had come to the stage where I wasn’t sleeping at all. I would be awake each night with cold sweat pouring over me, worrying about the smallest of things and questioning my very reason to be alive. I told my mother and sister that I couldn’t take it anymore so I went to my local doctor. I was extremely nervous and anxious to see them and to talk about myself as I thought I was the only one in the world who was this way and that they would consider me a freak and try and lock me up. However the feeling of comfort and understanding I got when I told my doctor how I felt and when she replied “Don’t worry you’re not alone. We can get you help, this is far more common than you know”. In that moment I knew I had a chance of beating this, that I wasn’t the only person in the world this way, that I finally had hope.

I was referred to Mallow Primary Healthcare Centre where I was asked about what was wrong. After a meeting I was told I would be put on medication and that I would be given counselling sessions to discuss my problems and to get to the root of them.

The first day I went for a therapy session I kept myself closed off. Over a few more sessions I began to let my guard down and began to discuss things that I had kept bottled up within myself for so long. There was no judging or ridiculing me, it was simple a place of help and understanding of what was going on within me. After a year of therapy I made the decision that I felt comfortable enough to leave and face the world alone, which proved to be a mistake.

Towards the second half of 2014 I began to feel myself slipping again, that something wasn’t quite right with me. Then on the 10th of December I completely shut down and wanted to end my life. I immediately contacted all my doctors and said I felt horrible and the response was quick and literally lifesaving. I was seen the next day by my local doctor and was taken back onto my therapy sessions the following week, I struggled to get through Christmas. I began to take things a day at a time and found myself feeling better than ever. The support around me lifted me up and I found the strength within myself to say I’m happy. It was then I decided to make the video below to help others because as hard as it is to get through depression, it is possible and I hope somehow this will help anyone on their journey.

Check out Timothy's short film on his depression below