Video Transcription

Rania’s story – accessing help

I was just really outgoing, really friendly, always busy. I would talk to anyone. I never really worried about anything much, other than… Are my friends gonna think my shoes are cool or things like that? The way I thought about everything began to change. The things that I worried about were day-to-day things like homework or problems with my friends or fights with my sister or my parents anymore. I’d think about how lonely I was. It was definitely affecting the way that I was living.

Like, I wouldn’t do assignments. I’d go through different phases of either hating being around people or hating being by myself, not wanting to be alone with my thoughts. I just went between feeling almost physically in pain to feeling just numb, like almost nothing, and I don’t know which one of those two things was worse. I didn’t know I was depressed at first. I didn’t know that that’s what was happening to me. I thought that what I had in my head was actually a clear view of life. With my friends, I would really put in an effort to keep the happy face on.

I think that there would only have been three or four people that I was at high school with that would have known that I was depressed. I started fighting with my friends ’cause they were telling me, “You’re not okay. You need to go and get some help. You need to go and talk to someone.” I didn’t want to because I didn’t think that anyone could help. I didn’t think that I deserved help and I just didn’t see a way out of it. I felt so bad about myself, but I cared about my friends and I cared about my family, so for the sake of those people, I guess that was the first thing that motivated me to want things to change.

The process of going to a doctor and going to speak to someone who I never met before about what was going on was really, really scary. To me, these professionals were just terrifying and anonymous and I just didn’t understand what they could possibly do for me. I think it was my school counsellor recommended that I go to headspace, and my first appointment with headspace was with a youth worker, not a psychologist, and they were young and they just chatted to me and I felt listened to and, to me, that really helped.

It’s actually a really comfortable place. They don’t write off your problems as just teenage angst or moodiness. You just get the impression that nothing is too big or too small. It’s just a much less intimidating environment than I’d imagined. I think the most valuable thing that I got from going to headspace was learning strategies and learning techniques to be able to help myself. To recognise when I wasn’t coping and how to deal with that.

Even if the depression comes back, I know that I can get through it because I’ve already done it before. I know that there’s people who can help me. I know that I can help myself. I have that strength. Everyone’s unhappy sometimes. That’s not unhealthy. What is unhealthy is when you can’t admit to being unhappy and when you can’t turn to someone.

Headspace helped me learn how to turn to someone. Learning how to talk about what I was going through just changed everything for the better in terms of my relationships with my family and my friends. Talk to someone. Go to headspace. Go to eHeadspace and chat to someone online or on the phone. Go to your mum and tell her that you’re feeling bad. Go to your teacher, if you have a teacher that you like. Go to anyone and talk to someone. Keep on trying because there is someone who can help you.

Video by headspace