Monday, January 31, 2011

Hope (Part 2)

Hey Guys,

So this is the next part of my road to recovery, it was a long road and one that I wish I did not have to travel but I did. Actually I am really glad that I travelled down it because it is slowly allowing me to grow and realize the important things in life which are to me friends, family and not letting things get you down (and God of course). But those are the biggest things in my life right now understanding the importance of family, friends and not letting things get me down. That is not what this post is about however it is more about what life was like in early November basically each one of these weeks is going to be a part of this Hope series and around December is going to transition into the road to recovery. So let me get started, November was a month were I started to regain a large amount of my confidence and hope which was nice. I started seeing a councillor and started to open up. Now I know this sounds shocking opening up to a councillor but realistically it takes a lot of time even someone who you are going to see for help to open up.

Opening up to Kathy was an interesting step (Kathy Morton is the person I see) and I would encourage anyone who is reading this if you are facing a problem see and councillor. I use to have this weird idea that it was wrong to get help but in actuality it is an amazing thing. The hope I gained in these weeks was that I was 'normal' through counselling I learned that a matter of fact depression is a normal thing. When depression sets on one of the first things you face is this idea that you are not normal. That you are the only person to face this issue as I have mentioned before but once I started talking to a councillor about it I she started to show me that it is normal. Especially in guys and girls my age now where expectations are at an all time high we push ourselves into depression. She explained to me that we set such high goals for ourselves that are actually unreachable or are so long term we do not see the means to getting there. Like take example of me these were my goals for 2010 and look at the difference in goals: 

I wanted to be CF, I wanted to have GPA of 3.6 cumulative, I wanted to have a business that would make 160K and profit 45K. These sounds similar until you break them down... 

I wanted to be CF not run or try but be and if I did not get that it would be a failure. Shocking part here I ended up not getting it and I was mad, upset and frustrated this entire time. Why because I wanted this and I thought it was something I deserved.

Right now my GPA is not great but to get my cumulative GPA to 3.6 means I needed a 4.0 each semester while taking 18 semester credits. On top of that being and RA then on TWUSA and titans soccer and this and that... you get the point?

And the business well I set these unreal expectations and every time I did not meat them I felt like a failure unto myself, to my boss and to my parents. I felt I let myself down because I did not accomplish the goal even though I was trying hard, I felt I let my boss down because he was investing time into me and I felt I let my parents down because they always support me. That was difficult.

Maybe it was a perfect storm in a way that cause my depression maybe in fact my depression was not just caused by a few simple factors but rather and continual thing. Could it be that my depression was started long before August but I never knew it? For as long as I could remember I have always push myself to be better, not just then the average person but everyone. I would push myself in school, push myself in sports and push myself in life. Something that contributed was that I started to lie about what I was able to do in order to make myself look better in the eyes of the people around me. Sad and pitiful I know but it was true I would lie about who I was so that I would look better. But that is another day.

This post is focused around what I was starting to tackle in counselling so I will get back to that. It was an new experience to start to open up about problems I have never talked about. I have this amazing character trait which is when things go down hill you stop talking and work through it. Well that only works for a little bit before things start to go in a downward spiral. I started to face these unbelievably deep issues in my own personal life. Like these and ask these question to yourself too:

1) Why do I feel I need to prove myself to everyone??
2) Who am I proving myself too?
3) Why do I believe I am not good enough in certain aspects?
4) Why do I think I am letting people down?

These next questions are the ones I had to face about depression they are a little bit different but kind of similar:

1) Why do I feel I am not good enough at all?
2) Who do I think I need to be?
3) Why do I consider myself a failure?

The questions are similar but those last three really hit to the key points of my depression which was interesting and I will answer them sometimes this week a little bit more about them. These post will be a little bit more what was my depression in the deepest aspect rather then just what happened. So to summarize what I have been talking about this whole time and to try and bring my thoughts to a conclusion this week in November I was starting to understand that I am normal and start to understand why I thought these thoughts. What was the cause behind them? My hope that I gained this week was really understanding that I am getting help that there is an answer to these unbelievably hard questions that I was facing. I challenge anyone who is reading this that if you are going through some tough times ask yourself a few of these question, ask yourself and talk about the answer do not just dwell on them. Furthermore if there is something your dealing with that you cannot warp your head around it ask for help from a councillor they love to listen, heck its what they want to do (by the way for TWU students 25$). That is all for now.

Goodbye for now,
Christian Sawka

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