Hopelessly Seeking Happiness

*My Mental Health Issues: Authors Note: Chapter 6 Delay*

Hey guys Phoenix Maars here, I just want to address the delay of Chapter 6,

I was diagnosed with depression and an anxiety disorder on July of 2014. Now please understand there is a big difference with being depressed and actually having depression. See when you are depressed its normal everyone feels sad sometimes and eventually you get over it. But when you have depression that means the chemicals in your brain are not functioning correctly, so your sadness never goes away. It's just there 24/7 and you cannot do anything to control it, eventually you stop feeling happiness completely and all you feel is sorrow and pain. Sometimes you feel nothing at all, you feel like your soul is this dark empty abyss, you try to function but forget how, you just seem to be there, you feel useless, and your body becomes machine like, running on auto- pilot. Then there are days where you feel like a walking corpse, dead inside. You look in the mirror and you don't recognize what stares back at you. You feel like you lost yourself, you don't know who you are anymore, what you want to become. With the emotional pain comes physical pain, your body aches, your joints throb, you feel like you just wrestled a bear, you get stomach problems, and sometimes ulcers. You become so angry at the world and you push everyone away, but at the same time you feel so so so alone and isolated. What used to bring a smile to your face no longer does. It starts to feel like you are trapped in this dark room with no doors or windows. People don't understand, they tell you to try to get over it, but whats the use in trying, either way I cannot control the chemicals in my brain! You want people to stop taking you for granted, so you test them, to see how much they truly care for you, and they fail horridly. Sometimes when you need people the most they let you down, it feels like getting stabbed after being beaten and shot multiple times. You start contemplating the "S" word, you just want peace and you only feel peace when you're sleeping, so you want to sleep forever. It's not like anyone will miss you when you're dead, I mean where were they when you really needed them? On top of all this you suffer from ANXIETY now this asshole is a whole new world of terrible. With anxiety come panic attacks (I'm not even going into that), you cannot go out in public without feeling like everyone is watching you and judging you. You have a hard time falling and staying asleep. You get nightmares so vivid they feel real. You get paranoid. You get tremors, I get them mostly on my hands and legs. Sometimes you feel like you have an elephant sitting on your chest. You suddenly become scared of everything. You start questioning your existence, which then leads to a existential crisis. You lose faith in God (if you had one to begin with), you lose faith in society, you lose faith in your loved ones, and lastly you lose faith in yourself.

So long story short after i was diagnosed I was in denial, and I kept telling everyone it wasn't a mental illness that it was my thyroid. My doctor ordered for some test done and when i got my results back I got the rug swept from under me. Turns out the only thing wrong with me was a Vitamin D deficiency, No thyroid problem what so ever, it was concluded that it was in fact DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY. Great. See i didn't want to have this illness, I didn't want people to say I was crazy. People just don't understand mental illness. I have to take pills to regulate the chemicals in my brain. The pills have taken a huge toll on me, the side effects are freaking brutal. Hopefully I get better enough to continue with Chapter 6, I am nowhere finished writing Jazel's story.

Much love, Phoenix.

PS: If you know of anyone who is dealing with depression please be a support for them! And please stop glorifying mental disorders in your stories, its not fun having one!