So day 4 of #selfloveweek and the challenge is to show yourself which means dropping the mask showing something true. So today I am opening up with you all about the worst year of my life.
The reason I haven't shared this before, despite wanting to, is because of pure fear, fear of what people, in particular clients or bosses will think. I am a Graphic Designer and if I may say so I'm a good graphic designer, no that's not arrogance, I am aware of my age, acutely so, and of course I am by no means saying I know it all and don't need to learn and am the best ever, no, but I am good at my job. I have spent a bloody long time and a hell of a lot of effort and heartbreak to get to the point I am at now. I have some skill ok, Which is why it has hurt so very much that in the past when I have revealed that I have struggled with depression, my entire career seems to become void ... because how can you be a professional and suffer from a mental health issue right? 🙄
I knew I was becoming increasingly frazzled, and fragile, breaking down into tears for hours at a time almost every day at the worst point. We were going to Canada for a friends wedding we were both working two jobs to get there, and it was starting to take its toll. I had just left a job I dearly loved because I felt something was amiss and didn't see myself growing there anymore, I needed to get out and sew my design oats, and was quickly snapped up by something I thought would make my career. They promised full time and failed to deliver so I ended up also working in retail, not an issue, I've done it before, I'd do it again and they promised those extra days were just around the corner, what's the worst it could it do right?
Everyday became an all-consuming battle to get back home curl up into a ball, cry and sleep. I had no idea why I hated everything why I felt like I was failing, why I couldn't stop crying, why I was exhausted all the time and why I couldn't stop telling everyone I met. It was like word vomit I couldn't stop myself it was a desperate call for someone to respond with something that would help, that would fix this, whatever the fuck this was. I was sick of hearing it, I knew my friends were sick of hearing it, although they'd never say that, and my partner, yer, he was definitely sick of hearing it, sometimes he'd be so frustrated he'd shout 'I don't know what's wrong with you, what's wrong Steph?' I couldn't tell him I didn't know. And I get it I really don't blame him in the slightest, he was actually incredibly supportive through all of this that lasted months and months, but it's hard to have someone breaking down at you constantly day in day out when there is simply nothing wrong, or nothing you can do. And it's true there was 'nothing' wrong, that was the worst part, I was healthy, I had a decentish paying job certainly better than many people, I had a home, I had food, what the hell was my problem. To be honest I still just don't know, all I know is I was not ok.
One day I was asked if I was ok by my manager at the retail position, there was no one in the shop, but I didn't really want to get in to it because I was feeling particularly fragile that day, so I gave my, what had become standard response at that point 'no not really, but it's fine' to which she replied 'why?' I could feel the heat behind my eyes and the ball in my throat and I knew I was going to end up in tears. I told her it was just hard and she said what? I thought this job would be easy compared to your other one and I said, no I just mean life. It was then 20 mins of me fighting back tears and her telling me that, she just thought it was my age group, and I didn't own a house I was just renting so it was much easier for me, and many many other belittling things that now I just can't remember. All I really remember from that conversation is that it made me feel like my feelings weren't valid because there was nothing wrong with me. That job ended quickly.
We went to Canada it was wonderful, I felt something, kind of like me, a bit. We got home, it was November. I'd been opening up a lot to my colleagues about my general low mood and breakdowns because I couldn't stop talking about it. I went into a meeting at my 'dream job' supposedly to talk about the details of a project, and was fired. I was in shock I asked why, they said we don't feel like our style matches... I'd been working there for 6 months, they'd given me nothing but great feedback, everything they'd shown me for specific projects you can bet I had on my Pinterest all ready for that exact thing, plus as a designer that's kind of the point you tell me what you want I make it a reality... As my Hr manager drove me to the bus station (I couldn't afford to do my driving yet, not on three days a week after paying almost all our rent because my partner was on an apprenticeship wage,) I tried not to cry he kept saying I'm really sorry about this Steph, and I just kept saying I understand, it's ok.
It wasn't ok, they told me they didn't want to wait it would be to close Christmas... it was two weeks till Christmas we'd just used most of our savings on Canada and I had no idea where I would get a job or if we would even be able to pay rent. I felt completely betrayed. I sat the bus station in tears trying to phone my boyfriend, I send him a text simply reading 'I've been fired'. Thanks to the free sympathy lift to the bus station my 2-hour journey was now just 1 and a half. I got home I walked upstairs, He took one look at my face and said o my god are you ok. I burst into tears and told him what had just happened.
The next few months were the worst I've ever felt in my life. I gave myself one week to cry it out before I had to find a job or we had one months worth of rent left and that was that. Luckily I got two offers one for a local hotel doing hospitality, even though hospitality at Christmas is pure hell and I knew the way I was feeling it would only take dropping a spoon on the floor to send me into fall on spiral. Fortunately, I was offered another job designing emails, it was a little far away, but hey the money was good and it beat Christmas rushed off my feet.
The new job meant I was up at 4 am to walk 30 mins to the train station, to get a train, to get another train, to get another train. All in all my journey was 3 hours there, 3 hours back every day and taking a fair chunk out of my wages, it was fine it was temporary, they'd asked me to do the role permanently a couple of months before and I'd apologised saying I was fully booked. Now I was filling the seat until the new guy could finish up at his old place. I was finishing at 5 and getting home at 8.30, which at least meant by the time I got home I was too exhausted to think, but that didn't mean I didn't spend the whole of my journey there and back, staring into the darkness. I really was a shell of a person, and nothing like myself I was becoming really bitter, I saw old people and disabled people get on and off the trains, and I hated them, I hated them all, how could they be so happy with all they had going on, and yet my life had become a never-ending cycle of mindless empty unfeeling and incredible unending sadness.
It took 3 months but finally through the pure love of my work at my new job and the wonderful positivity of the people around me, despite my depressive conversation, I began to feel ok, more than ok, normalish even. And when I finished my temporary work with them I felt restored, I had faith in my own work and knowledge again and I decided to start my own agency. Thankfully a year and a half or so on I am fully me again and so incredibly grateful to my partner and temporary colleagues for encouraging me to start that business and for that wonderful job that gave me my confidence back. I am now able to stand here and say I have worked with some wonderfully supportive people, and that having a mental health issue does not make me less than, it does not make me less able to do the work and it does not make that work any less great. So I have decided to share this because I want other designers to own up to the mental stress I know a lot of us to feel and maybe that will help a few people who are dealing with those feelings now.
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