Irina Godovikova
March 12, 2013
Essay #1, Draft #1
Depression
Could you ever
imaging that a mental illness can find a physical reflection?
In my essay, I
would like to share an experience that I got from my life. I believe that I’m
not the only person who could have this kind of trouble. My purpose is to focus
more people’s attention on this issue and try to show easier ways to recover
from it.
Eight years ago
I was almost at the death’s door. The reason was the result of an unlucky love
story, which started incredibly beautiful - with hope on new life and
refreshment, and finished with the disappointments and the deep depression for
me.
After I broke up
with my boyfriend I continued thinking about this sick relationship over and
over again. It was like a merry go around. I couldn’t take my mind off this
subject. It was like a delusion. Every day I awoke with a morning headache and
in a spoiled mood. Later, the headache became stronger and my mood became more gloomy.
With time, the pain increased more. Sometime, I felt that my head was going to blow
up. I started to have insomnia – I couldn’t sleep and went around my home like
zombie. The only thing that I could do very well was crying, crying very much
and without an obvious reason. My face was swollen and red with a big white
spots. I looked really disgusting. At the same time I become very sensitive to everything.
Exactly at this
moment, how I understood later, I started to have stomach problems. I lost
appetite and felt nauseous most of the time. I started to suffer from abdominal
pain. During this period of time I was really scared; scared, because I couldn’t
control my body anymore.
Luckily, I had a
good friend around me during this time. She took me to a psychologist for a
consultation. This doctor gave me some antidepressant drugs and some hope. Hope,
that together we can survive and I will get back to my happy life again. I
became a permanent visitor of a group psychology activity, which I found very
helpful. Also he recommended to do some relaxation and breathing excesses. I
joined a yoga class later.
It took me a
long time to fully recover even though I started feeling better. Now I try to
be around positive people and children. I’m so glad that I can control my
emotions now and don’t have any physical pain. I’m a happy person again. I got
my healthy life back!
Hi Irina,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing this painful story with all of us -- it is so inspiring! I have felt sad and depressed before, but I never knew that a strong depression could have such severe physical symptoms. You did a great job of describing them.
Two quick grammar points: In this sentence, "and finished with the disappointments and the deep depression for me" you don't need "the" both times because these are both new topics. Instead, you could just say "disappointment" (usually uncountable) and "a deep depression."
Also, I was a little confused by this line in the 4th paragraph: "how I understood later." Can you clarify what you mean there?
Nice work!