I've had bouts of depression on and off, varying in severity, for as long as I can remember. Sometimes there was an external cause; usually, there wasn't.
In third grade, I wrote in my journal that I felt sad all the time, but I didn't understand why. I said I felt like I had a "hole in my heart" for no reason, because I had friends and family and a good life and felt like I should be happy. As a third grader I didn't know what depression was, but even as a child I experienced it.
In sixth grade, my parents found a page in my diary filled with negative self-talk where I talked about how ugly, strange, and worthless I was. Literally the ENTIRE page was filled. The beginning of sixth grade was the first time my depression got truly severe; I stopped having friends in real life, buried myself in online activities and interaction, and spent most of my time hating myself. When my parents found that diary page, they were obviously concerned; they had been concerned for a while. They told me that they missed the kid I used to be, who was happy and active and surrounded by friends; I was now the kid that sat inside alone all day and wrote about how much she hates herself. They told me I needed to go to therapy. At sixth grade, I knew what depression was, but there was still a HUGE stigma around mental illness and treatment. I thought going to therapy would make me a freak, and that my parents thought I was a freak because they suggested it. I was angry, embarrassed, and most of all, ashamed.
My junior year of high school was the first time that severe suicidal ideation crept in along with the depression that had followed me throughout my childhood and adolescence. It was the first time I started being unable to do anything but stare at my bedroom wall and cry. After school I would sit in my car, listen to music, and cry because I didn't feel like I could even motivate myself to walk inside the house, and I didn't want my parents to see me like that. I had no hope for the future, and was in so much pain that I wished I was dead. These feelings would become more acute and focused the next time I had a serious bout of depression.
There were lots of times, in high school and college, that I thought maybe I should get help. However, I was scared of medication; I was scared of the stigma; and I very much had a "pull myself up by the bootstraps" mentality--I believed it was my responsibility to get myself out, without help. I also worried a lot about burdening other people, and I didn't want to admit just how much I needed help, didn't want to worry people, didn't want to push my pain onto others. The fact that my depression had a largely seasonal component also meant that over the summer, I could kid myself into thinking I was better, that the depression might not come back this time, even though it always had.
My senior year of college was when the depression began severely affecting my life. This was when I was the sickest--and yes, it is an illness and I was sick--that I have ever been. The suicidal ideation was no longer the vague wish to die that it had been during my junior year of high school. I started thinking about how I would do it. I considered what I might want to say to people before I died. I drafted letters. The thought was constant in the back of my mind, never going away: "I want to die."
Besides the suicidal ideation, every aspect of my daily life was affected. With severe depression, sometimes maintaining your existence is the most you can manage, and the idea of washing a dish seems as impossible a task as climbing a mountain. This did not help my relationship with my three roommates. It also did not help that I was unable to regulate my emotions, and thus wavered between irritability and lashing out, crying about how much I hated myself, and being unable to move. I'm not proud of how I acted then, but I also know that Sick Me is not who I truly am. However, many of the people that were closest to me that year cannot separate Sick Me from Actual Me, and I lost many friends. This is one of the many unfortunate parts of an invisible illness, and something that still hurts me today.
I somehow managed to keep up with school work, but that was about all I could manage. I had the opportunity to direct a third show with the theater group I was involved in, but my mental illness made me unable to handle the responsibility, and even though I love directing and there were people depending on me, I ended up handing over my directing role to someone else. I was ashamed, and it hurt me to do it, but mental illness can take over one's life.
A truly low point was when I was sitting outside of a classroom, waiting for my next class to start, and I Googled "How to tell if you're having a mental breakdown." Instead of going to class, I got up, went home, and broke down in private. I even had to request shorter shifts at work because my mental health was deteriorating.
That same year, I lost my cousin to suicide. As previously mentioned, I had been struggling with suicidal thoughts, but when my cousin died I told myself I would stop. Knowing the grief that my family and I went through, and knowing that he would never be able to take that choice back, I told myself I wasn't going to let myself think that way anymore. But resolve cannot always overcome mental illness, and the suicidal ideations crept back up. My best friend lost his friend to suicide, and it seemed that suicide would now just become part of my life.
Of course, guilt accompanies all these results of depression; I blamed myself for my work struggles, failures, and crumbling relationships. This guilt led to regular self-harm as a way to give myself some release from the intense feelings of shame and self-hatred.
It's hard to describe day-to-day life with depression, especially when in remission and no longer feeling it. Here's a blog post I wrote when I was in the thick of things that captures it pretty well:
"Depression is waking up every day not knowing what your day is going to be like. Will I be strong today, or will my depression be strong today?
Depression is not wanting to wake up at all.
Depression is constantly feeling like your heart is being crushed and wishing you knew why.
Depression is focusing on the negatives--in yourself, in your life, in the people around you.
Depression is blaming yourself for everything negative but not giving yourself credit for anything good.
Depression is your self-image being based on how much better off everyone would be if you didn't exist.
Depression is constantly battling the impulse to make not existing a reality.
Depression is why get excited about anything when everything is pointless?
Depression is life in grayscale.
Depression is "am I emoting today or does everyone think I seem like a b*tch because I can't make myself feel the things I should?"
Depression is thinking "When was the last time I was happy?" and not being able to remember.
Depression is wondering why.
Why is this happening?
Why am I like this?
Why do I feel this way?
Why do I keep surviving?
Why am I crying?
Why can't I cry?
Why can't I make it stop?"
Also, I created a blackout poem describing it, from the book Fight Club: "Wake up, and then you die. You had this new cancer, years and years. Maybe the point is not to forget the rest of yourself. For ten minutes, spread out and swim."
Looking back on those from a place of remission is strange, knowing how real and raw those feelings were at the time. And now is where I get to the remission part!
In the spring of that terrible senior year, I decided I needed to get help. Too many facets of my life were being affected for me to keep ignoring the problem. I went to the MSU Counseling Center, but was unlucky to be paired with a counselor who generally just made me feel worse. She told me the feelings of sadness would always be there and that I just had to learn to accept them and deal with them. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Depression CAN get better.
The well-meaning but ineffective counseling put me off getting help for awhile. However, when I had a bout of suicidal ideation so severe that I genuinely considered checking myself into the hospital, I decided to get serious about it again. I met with a psychiatrist this time, a real doctor who was able to write prescriptions and look at mental illness from a medical perspective. He diagnosed me with clinical depression (idr if it was classified as "moderate" or "severe") and wrote me a prescription for an SSRI, Wellbutrin.
The Wellbutrin mostly served to amplify my anxiety times a hundred. Cue emotional outbursts and mental breakdowns! The journey to finding the right medication is SO fun and easy (note sarcasm).
So, obviously the Wellbutrin didn't work. Every person reacts to every medication in different ways, and that can make mental illnesses difficult to treat. I was one of the lucky ones--my next medication was a winner! My doctor switched me to Zoloft. For the first week or so, the Zoloft just made me really, really nauseous all the time. I had been warned that this might happen, but the side effect was usually temporary. This proved the case for me; after a couple of weeks, the nausea was gone, and I began really taking to the medication. On the right medication, I was able to become my True Self, who I hadn't been in a long time.
There are some people who are against medication, and that depression can be cured with a nature walk and some green veggies. While both of those things are great, mental illness is a disease caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. My brain does not produce enough serotonin on its own, and it never has. The SSRIs help my brain to produce the serotonin I need to function as a normal human being.
And some people are afraid medication will change them. I know that I, personally, was afraid of how medication might change me and my personality. But here's the thing--it didn't change who I was. Instead, it allows me to be who I truly am. Off medication, I am unable to regulate my emotions and suffer constant suicidal ideation. On medication, I like being alive, I'm content, and I have a lot more self-control. I have not suffered suicidal thoughts since I got on medication, and I cannot express what a relief it is to go from wanting to die every waking moment to actually being able to enjoy and appreciate life. I had not been happy for a very long time, and now I can be.
So, the biggest things I want people to take away from my story are that seeking help is okay, and that just because one intervention doesn't work, doesn't mean none of them will. You might meet with a therapist who you really just don't click with, and need to find a new one. You might try a medication that just ramps up your symptoms, and need to try a new one. As I said, I was lucky that my second one was a success. Some people have to go through many before they find the one that works for them. And maybe you're a person who will gain much more benefit from therapy than medication; everyone's mental illness needs a different approach. Just, don't give up, keep fighting, and know that it CAN get better. I suffered with clinical depression on and off for the majority of my life, and I never thought I would be fully free from it. However, I have overcome it, and you can, too. And yes, I will field any questions about medication, depression, or anything else you might want to know or need help with.
