My Depression Journey

Mirembe Mary

Apr 15, 2021
7 MIN

29th August 2020 marked my first year off anti depressants,the year which would determine how my brain would handle withdrawls and the things which sparked my depression; loss, grief and rejection. How did I get there, allow me to draw back to 2017 so here goes.

MY MOTHER

19th January 2017 will be a day and year I will never forget. At exactly 4.30 am, a nurse came looking for an attendant for a patient, my mother in the ICU at nsambya hospital. I was used to the routine calls at awkward hours by now so I dressed up, put my warming cap on and headed to the ICU. As I was half way there, I paused and the need to suddenly say a prayer came upon me. “Dear God please give me the strength to handle whatever new information I am about to receive” you see, I was getting hang of the having a patient in the ICU life. My mother the previous day had been put on a ventilator to help her breathe because she had acquired terrible pneumonia. Never in my entire life did I think that I would lose my mother in a period of just one week. As I entered the ICU, the first person I set my eyes on was my mother, pheeeew she is still alive I thought. She lay there eyes shut and I figured she was taking a peaceful nap. I asked for the doctor who had requested for me, sat down to have a chat with him and law and behold in his hands was a sheet of paper with a bold dark heading reading Death certificate. “I am sorry but your mother has passed away, we did all we could” Tears started rolling uncontrollably down my eyes, I requested to go see her, stood next to her and she looked peaceful. My mind was so excited to still see her on her bed when I walked into the ICU that I dint notice she had been taken off the ventilator and other machines she had been attached to previously. Since I was the only one who had spent the night that day as a caretaker, I had to be the bearer of bad news to my family. After saying my goodbyes to her, the nurse handed me a red plastic bag with her belongings and bed sheets which contained her blood. I cried the whole way back to my bed where I had spent the night , the loud sobbing noises woke my neighbor up who too had a patient, the only remaining one in the ICU and she gave me a much needed shoulder to cry on.

My life never remained the same after my mother’s death. I stayed briefly with my grandmother (my mum’s side) as I prepared for a new life on my own. The person I was financially, psychologically and emotionally attached to was no more. I cried at least once everyday for the first months of 2017, I was an emotional mess, financially struggled to keep afloat too. This was all new to me, RESPONSIBILITIES. My grand mother who I was closer to than my mother filled the emotional gap that my mother left passed away shortly after in 2018 on June 5th. That is a story I am not ready to talk about. I was an emotional mess, I cried more, and I felt lost, had so many un answered questions for God. I reached a point where I contemplated committing suicide twice, I dint see any reason for living anymore because the two most important people in my life were no more. The two people I badly wanted to see happy , my motivation for working hard to achieve that were no more so what was my point of my existence?

JOHN

His name was John (not real name). I fell in love with him in 2013, they say opposites attract and yet our magnets pulled us closer and stronger. You see, John was supposed to be the ‘IT’ person, the final boyfriend, the baby daddy, the one I would spend the rest of my life with. We were never perfect, we argued, disagreed, I cried, we laughed, he was selfish but I still loved him with all his and our flaws. Change happened fast for us, after close to a year of loving, being loved and making future plans, an opportunity for work came up for him abroad and he took it up with enthusiasm. Uganda wasn’t working out just fine for him and seeing him frustrated broke my spirit. I prepared myself mentally for life without him, the ray of hope seemed questionable. He suggested to leave me pregnant but I wasn’t ready, my soul couldn’t handle the thought of being a first time parent away from him, still staying at my mothers house, un married and no stable career to support my self. I wasn’t ready to see the disappointment on my mothers face for nine months so I said NO. As the long-distance gods predicted, the relationship suffered from the frustrating lack of communication, misunderstandings and soon it ended. The pain of loosing someone you were emotionally dependant on is indescribable. A few years later apart, we reconnected and tried to revive our love twice but still failed to come to an understanding. In 2017 when my mother was admitted at Nsambya hospital, I needed to talk to someone who understood me emotionally; I was crumbling and loosing myself at the sight of my mothers fading life. I reached out to John and he played the emotional shoulder to lean on perfectly, his empathy was exceptional, just what I needed. A week later when my mother passed away, he was back on holiday in Uganda but didn’t make it to the burial. He was dating someone new so I painfully understood his priorities.

2018 is a year that I hope to delete from my memory with time because the scars it left are not something I wish to be carrying around with me, reminding me of how I almost gave up on life. I was so depressed but didn’t even know that I was, I just felt sick but couldn’t put a finger on the type sickness. In June of 2018, I lost my grandmother (a story I still don’t feel comfortable talking about). Just when I was still adjusting to life without a mother, the other identical pillar broke away from my life. I reached out to John again and this is an email he couldn’t ignore, he knew how close I was to her, he had met her personally before leaving the country to go work, surely he could understand my desperate intentions of reaching out to him again during my time of emotional need, the same emotional dependency that would cost me in the future. I knew the chance of getting attached to him were high but still took my chances, I NEEDED SOMEONE IN MY LIFE. He availed his new number; I reached out immediately and slowly by slowly the gap of emptiness started to get filled. The feelings that never went away that I felt for him resurfaced again and soon we were back on the road to revival. He was still hesitant however but I was just happy to have him back in my life. This should surely be it, I thought. Communication was still the death of us however, his passion for fitness had blossomed (I was proud of him for pursuing it) but the same passion blinded him of a desperate for emotional attention girlfriend (ME). I expressed my concerns about his worsening communication skills, this wasn’t a new person I was dealing with, I had been through this before with him but why was he doing it again? He ghosted me from that day that I expressed my concerns, dint reply my emails, texts, calls NOTHING and just like that he was out of my life again. You see, this was supposed to be IT, the finale, and the mega reunion. We had plans, he was coming back in January 2019 and our spending the rest of our lives plans together were back on, and Samantha was the name of our first baby that we had settled on.

November 2018 was the last time I ever heard from John. The emotionally dependant extra pillar that I had left was also gone. I cried for days, my heart ached, my chest hurt, I spent days in the house motionless, spiritless, went days without showering (I dint care anymore), I was LOST. Questions started to fill my mind:

Why me?

What did I do to deserve this pain?

What is the point of life when the people you loved most are no more?

I secluded myself from friends and family, tried to burry my sorrows in alcohol briefly but that just wasn’t me. I was sick and didn’t know my mind was failing me. I always wondered what led people to end their lives and there I was thinking about ending mine too because life didn’t make sense to me anymore. I finally deleted my social media accounts, something which drew the attention of my aunty and she soon reached out with a statement I will never forget: “Are you ok”? she asked and I said no with the heaviest heart, I needed help DESPERATELY. My aunty quickly reached out to a therapist that she knew; made an appointment and a few days later on a fateful Wednesday I met Dr Raymond.

Dr Raymond: “Yes young lady how may I help you?”

Me: Fighting tears, I am a very sad person. I need help.

The journey to my recovery begun.