Crashing and Burning is an analogy often used in reference to a plane crash. The analogy goes like this when a plane is going down there is that falling and nothing that you can do, the plane crashes and when you think that is the lowest point then the burning begins. I have heard this analogy many times but never experienced the truest extent until August through October. I would say there were five phases of my depression if we are sticking to the plane analogy there was phase 1 the falling which was in August, phase 2 is the crash which was in late August/September, Phase 3 which was the burning which was September/October, Phase 4 which was the Late-October when the flames had there last burst and then the destruction parted.
Phase 1 The Fall
Over the summer I was running a franchise through College Pro Painters and I have a horrible time with competition and something they have is a list of all the top people. For a long time I was near the top for rookies and even top salesmen overall but somewhere along the way I got a little confident and started posting sales that I had not fully completed/sold. Sure enough with every lie or deception the truth will eventually come out and it sure did. This was when the starting of the fall began and escalated. In the beginning I was confident I could still turn it around, fix my wrongs and make things right not only in my business but in my life, my values and morals. This was the beginning of my depression and this is where the 'plane' (my life) started taking a nose dive. The feelings that went through my head was this sense of being defeated, feeling like I could not do anything right, and that ultimately I would never been good enough. I tried everyday to be motivated to get stuff done but I started to lose focus and the point of waking up and getting out of bed. This also happens to be the time my insomnia started but you can read more about that in my previous posts. Before I go on and continue with what went on with me think for a second and make yourself a promise that if you start feeling like you have been defeated tell your closest friend, family and find a way to get support.
As strong as I pretend to be all the time we all need positive reinforcement sometimes to get back on track with our life. This phase I was going through was difficult, however that was the last thing I would tell people I did the exact opposite of what your suppose to do. I stopped talking, I shut people out and I told everyone that everything in my life was 100% great all the time. Unfortunately I was continually lying to people over and over telling them things were great it was a little mistake. All around me I felt that this world was crumbling everything I based my character on I did not stand for, and everything I worked for was no longer there. It is a hard place to be at I am a business major myself and we always here stories about peoples lives collapsing as their business collapses well it is true. The biggest difficulty that was this fall was I was shutting everyone out. You need to understand that at this time I had a pretty amazing girlfriend, a solid family that supported me and a handful of solid friends. After this I shut them all out one by one and it sucks to remember and know the pain I caused them. I shut my girlfriend out who cared about me for some crazy reason, I shut my parents out who would love me regardless and I do not think I had seen my friends since May. It retrospect it is easy to look back and say AH HA! I had people even though I did not see it at that time, at that time I was alone. During August though I would see there and feel absolutely alone that there was no one therefore me anytime.
This is where my depression went from I would say mild to the starting of above average. I no longer would wake up with motivation I would wake up and feel like life had no purpose but I will talk about that more in Phase 4. I am a pretty independent guy and honestly believed that I needed ABSOLUTELY no one at all to help me I got myself into this mess I could get myself out. Never tell yourself that lie, we are meant to have friends and have families to help us through or else this might happen. As we came to about mid-August I was trying to fix the problems I had created but unfortunately every one problem I "fixed" two more would appear in its place. This is where ill stop the story because it leads into Phase 2 where it took a whole different level of problems and this is where the 'crash' happens.
I will leave you with this first I hope no one reading this every actually has to go through problems like this themselves but if you are follow these steps, tell your family they will always be there for you, tell your closest friend who will be there in thick and thing and get people to help you through. These are good plans not only for when your starting to enter into depression but always when your heading through difficult times or even just a tough day keeping things inside and to yourself is always the worst option. Ill leave you with a quote the greatest person in my life told me...
"Learn from my mistakes because you will not live long enough to make them all yourself" I will add on one thing you do not want to make all my mistakes or all your friends so learn, grow and be a support.
Goodbye for now,
Christian Sawka
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