I couldn’t believe my life had come to this, sitting in a mall alone drinking hot coffee just to be around people, just to feel human, experience a little of their normality snippets of conversations, watching people shop, the simple look on people’s faces it seemed ridiculous but knowing just that little amount of company would get me through another night.
I was new to the city I knew no one. I was a newly graduated nurse fresh from a relationship break up, struggling to cope. And I wasn’t. I was depressed, alone and I couldn’t understand why I felt this way. I had always been popular, I made friends easily people respected me but that was gone now I had lost myself, my sense of who I was, my confidence and self-esteem. I kept telling myself my work meant something but at the time it scared me I was working nights in the Intensive care unit, I had never really seen death before but there it was very raw, very painful, and very tragic. I went to work in the dark and came home in the dark the winter rain often waking me from my daytime sleep where the bleakness of my situation again hit me. My only way to ease the pain, a drive to the mall to simply be around others.

Looking back it seemed ridiculous but it helped I guess it was my mind telling me I needed something just company, maybe some time away from my thoughts maybe it was the endless cups of coffee who knows but it helped so I did it. I remember very clearly driving back to my bedsit one morning after a particularly challenging duty knowing that I couldn’t go on like this I knew I wasn’t well but something in me didn’t want the bleakness to win I sat at home and planned the first day of my new life. A change in job and a gym membership were my first steps and the beginning of my journey of self-discovery.

I look back now with pride I still struggle at times but I know we all do. We all have our ups and downs. I learnt from my depression and embraced all that it both took from me but also all that it gave me I became a better nurse it allowed me an insight and empathy that I didn’t have before. It allowed me the opportunity to realise the things that are important to me and the things that are not. It gave me courage but most of all it helped me find myself.

My life has been fantastic I have travelled, worked hard and made a real difference in people’s lives I met and married the most amazing lady and I cherish every day with her. I often sit looking out on the animals we have grazing in our paddocks and smile contently just such a contrast from all those years ago sitting alone in a mall. I’m not so sure I would be sitting here now so contently if I hadn’t gone through such a bleak time. While depression is an overwhelming and painful experience. There is a way through. Start with small steps and eventually the big ones come. You never know what’s around the corner.