Breaking down

I was 21 when I had a nervous breakdown. It had been building for a while; my emotion balloon had been filling with black air. A pack of wolves were stalking me in the shadows of that air and I could feel (but in no way understand) a creeping meaningless to everything within me and in my life; the threads of my life were coming apart. I felt and fell into a profound sadness that obliterated all other emotions. I was displaced from the paths other people walked on; I was becoming a refugee in my own skin. Eventually I began to feel nothing. I couldn't sleep and I was constantly on the verge of tears. I would feel nothing at all then I would feel everything all at one. What the hell was happening to me?

Then it happened, my crash day. The emotion balloon had reached its limit and finally popped. The wolves were close now and at last I heard them approaching but by then it was too late. Despair clung to my life and screamed in my ears. The wolves crashed into me and began to tear me apart. My emotions spilled out of their containers and burst in mid air. Everything became incredibly confusing and meaning dropped away. My life was being shook like a rag doll; everything seemed fractured and out of place. I stood naked in the biggest storm I've ever experienced. I was lost...

Luckily I held out my hand and my family grabbed it. I saw a psychiatrist and was put on anti-depressants. For months after the world was drained of colour but the earthquake gradually stopped and I regained my stability. A daily routine was built around me and I even tried yoga for the first time. It took nearly two years for me to recover.

Going through my breakdown taught me a huge amount about myself: my resilience, my fighting spirit, my innate love of life and willingness to learn. You have to go through depression to understand how to live alongside it; I never allow the emotion balloon to inflate that much again…