Writer, Grace Hussey, opens up about her experience with seasonal depression.

Huddling under the covers with all the blinds shut on a Sunday might sound like a well-deserved lazy weekend, but for me it just felt like another undistinguishable day in a long line of them. I was hiding from something; except I wasn’t quite sure what it was that I was hiding from. I used to think my depression was entrenched in selfishness; surely it meant my brain was entirely focused on my own pain all the time. That was until I realised that the guilt that filled me up every day was guilt for everyone else. Maybe I wasn’t so selfish after all.

It was only last week that my mother phoned me from Edinburgh asking if I’d get the train in to help put up her Christmas tree. I quickly rattled off an excuse about having uni work to do, knowing I’ve been ignoring my deadlines, and ended the call at thirty seconds. “Maybe next weekend” I said, hearing the non-committal tone in my own voice. I immediately felt guilty, knowing I would never have the heart to tell her the truth: that I was too sad to even leave my bed, let alone get up, ready and onto public transport. I didn’t want to miss out on seeing my family, on making the most of the holidays with them, and I would much rather they believe I’m too busy, maybe even that I just don’t care, than for them to think I wasn’t coping.

So much of my time is spent worrying about not doing enough, or not doing it properly. I wonder if my cat gets enough sunlight, as I often forget to open the curtains until 5pm. I wonder if my grandparents are aging without me, if I’ll squander the degree that I love by missing my lectures. Throughout my life, love has often been in the form of absence - but this is something I never wanted for myself. We are taught that our twenties are the best part of our lives, so why am I spending mine like this?

I spent hours wondering what was wrong with me, why it felt like this huge chunk had fallen out of my chest when I hadn’t lost anything.

For me, depression has often felt like an all-encompassing grief, only I wasn’t grieving in the traditional sense. I spent hours wondering what was wrong with me, why it felt like this huge chunk had fallen out of my chest when I hadn’t lost anything. My family are close to me and all healthy, I’m in a loving relationship, I have friends that want to see me. What could I possibly be grieving? But maybe I was grieving who I thought I was supposed to be, grieving the fact that at only twenty years old I had spent the past few months holed up in a cold flat unable to leave. My brain had started to feel like a tiny padlock locked around my life, preventing me from doing and achieving all the things that I wanted to, and I couldn’t find the key. The grief that I sat with for months was grief for everything I had missed out on, from big things like birthdays to small things like seeing my friends smile.

After what felt like hundreds of pathetic messages apologising for never calling back, for never showing up, all I ever got back was support. My friends came to visit me in the tiny flat I couldn’t leave, sending me messages saying that they were proud, that I would be okay. I realised that the guilt I felt stemmed from a desire to still be loved, even in my worst states, and the people in my life have only shown my ability to be loved even in the darkest moments of my depression.

We are convinced through movies, through Instagram, Pinterest, everything we consume, that our twenties are meant to be sparkly and fun. Full of success and nights out to glittering bars; but the reality is far more mixed. We are even convinced of this by each other, as we hide our struggles from the rest of the world, as I did from my family. This is a reminder to be kind yourself, and proof that it’s possible, especially during the holiday season.

Published 5 December 2024