Blurt Foundation: Stamping Out The Stigma, One Word At A Time

I walked like a ghost, completely disguised even to those apparently close to me. Two feelings were constant and interchanging; numbness and pain.

Nothing seemed to break through.

Not the love of my family, laughter with friends or the beauty of the world.

In hindsight, it’s like I wandered through the last year of my life as a shadow of myself and never fully experienced anything. I was wrapped in depressions’ clutches with no room for anything else.

Recovery requires a safety net of support and an inner strength to fight when it feels like not only is there nothing to fight for but that you are almost certain to fail. What helped me find that strength, what motivated me and inspired me to decide to live and not let the depression win, when I couldn’t even fathom living another hour at times, I’ll never know.

Often people after recovering from depression say ‘I don’t know what I would have done without…’.

For some they’d end that sentence with a friends name or family member. For those who do, I admire the people who managed to help them through their depression, especially if they had never experienced the illness themselves. That level of empathy is inspiring. Loved ones can’t fight the depression on sufferers’ behalf though, and it takes a more inspiring level of determination to try to loosen the grips of the illness when it’s directly grasping you.

Others would end the sentence with therapies or medication. Once again though, it takes a great deal of courage to admit to having depression openly enough to get access to this kind of help. And a great deal of patience and faith to believe that it will have an effect long term.

I’d finish the sentence with Blurt, because without Blurt’s help, I’d never have had faith which I gained from the inspiring stories of those suffering, or support from the mentor scheme or courage to keep going which I gained from knowing there were others that believed I could get better. This is not to detract from the help that others gave me, but I feel Blurt was the only integral part of my recovery.

‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts’

Blurt helped teach me the true meaning of this quote; even when you have recovered, you have to keep fighting, even when you have a setback the battle isn’t over, but the courage to keep going no matter what is the most important thing.