Mental Health Mondays #13 : Question Box Two

So my question box is back and I'm still very excited that people have actually asked me things so I'm just going to jump straight in to answering another three of your questions:

I have lost all enjoyment in my passions. How do I stay motivated whilst stuck in my depression?

I struggle with this a lot myself and often it is something that you may have to, unfortunately, just ride out, at least to a certain extent. The only thing I can really suggest is that you possibly try doing whatever your 'passion' is for a short amount of time? Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't but you may find that if you kind of force yourself to do it even for as little as 15 minutes then after that time you'll feel more motivated? You may also find that it just makes you feel absolutely exhausted and you have to be prepared that it could go either way but at least you have managed to achieve something even if it's small, right?! That's what I always try to do anyway 😊

When did you first realise that you had a mental health condition?

I think it was a gradual process of realisation so I'm not entirely sure, but I do remember the first time I told a close friend that I thought I needed some help and that was around February of 2015. At that point I was definitely engaging in a lot of negative behaviours and had been for at least 6 months, so to be honest, looking back I don't see how I didn't realise sooner. After realising that perhaps a lot of my experiences were, shall we say, Not Good, it then gradually occurred to me that there had been factors which were quite possibly mental health related dating back to when I was as young as 12/13 so yeah, it took me a long time to figure out what was going on...

Do you think it's a good idea to tell people you work with if you're taking antidepressants?

I can't give a definitive answer to this because a) I'm not on antidepressants nor am I currently employed b) it would depend greatly on your workplace etc. but I'll give you my general thoughts on this. I think if you work somewhere that it is required for you to disclose any medications you're taking (I'm not entirely sure how often this happens) then you shouldn't lie about it I suppose. But I also believe that you have a right to not disclose such personal information about yourself unless you believe that it will be helpful to you.
Personally I would think that if you're taking them, they're working for you, and both the ADs and your general MH are not having a negative effect on your ability to work then you are certainly 'allowed' not to tell people. However, if you'd feel better for being honest then I guess you can tell people? It depends really on who you are and whether you feel honesty is better or whether you fear people may treat you differently if they know you take antidepressants (which shouldn't be the case but may well be because people are annoying). So basically, do what feels best for you! Taking ADs is nothing to be ashamed of, it's doing what feels the most sensible for your situation that is important.

That's it for this month's question box feature check out last months here and if you have any questions that you'd like me to answer in the next month's post then please follow this link so you can leave your questions (I need more if I'm going to write another post so please ask anything you'd like!). Thanks so much for reading!