Lebo Mashile has shared some useful tips she used on battling mental illness as many youths around the world suffer from depression and exhaustion.
The poet and TV presenter used her Twitter and revealing her past struggles from depression and how she gets out from it.
“It looks like a dementor (Harry Potter) and I play a game with myself when I can feel myself getting dragged into the quicksand. I ask myself where my depression is & how big is it. It helps me gauge where I am.
“Sometimes my depression is outside sitting on the steps like a small child. Sometimes my depression is sitting at the dining room table watching me while I work. Sometimes my depression is in the audience at the gig. Sometimes my depression is a 7ft giant, wrapped all around me.”
She said it never really leaves her and she has learnt from an exercise online to talk to it.
“Something incredible happened. After I swore my depression, cried and expressed my frustration, the dark feelings gave way to the realisation that my depression emerged at a time when I did not have the tools to process trauma. Depression became the shield and the blanket for me.
“Depression became the force, the energy, that took all the blows that I could not take alone. It was there through every single trauma. It wrapped me up when I could not face the world. Even when I hated it, my depression took on the hardest parts of my life without question.”
She said in speaking to her depression she realised what it was protecting her from.
“Since then I have been practising listening to my depression. What is it telling me that I do not want to confront? What blows is it shielding for me? What darkness is it absorbing that I am not ready to deal with? I can use my depression to teach me how to confront my own issues,” she said, adding that in doing this exercise her episodes became shorter and she did not lose her sense of agency.
