I'm sure many of you (the few who are reading) don't know me personally and for the few that do, I am sorry. I struggle with Severe Depression and Anxiety. This thing has haunted me since I was about 9 and it will never go away. Sure it can get smaller, but it will always be there haunting me from the corner of any room. I've battled depression on a daily basis, from trying not to cry in public to battling self-harm and suicidal urges behind closed doors. And this is how it began.
When I was 9, my parents finally hit a breaking point. It was time for a divorce. A 7 year case that I wish I could forget sometimes. All the fighting was unbearable. I was so afraid and so scared that I didn't know what to do. As a 9 year-old, I was forced into the position of adult leader because my parents were so busy fighting. When it initially happened, my mom left and took her with us and I didn't see my dad for about 2 weeks. When she finally let us see him, I didn't really see my mom again until I was almost 14. Sure we had visitation and all of that but only on weekends and Mondays. My dad had successfully painted my mom as an unstable and unfit mother to the courts. Before my dad met my step-mom in 2007, I endured emotional and verbal abuse, occasionally physical, yet the physical part never became a real issue until I got a bit older.
Once my Heather, my step-mom, came around things lightened up a bit for about a year or so. My dad laid off the name calling and I thought it was over. Soon he wasn't around much anymore, always at work or on a fire call. It was almost the same when he married my mom, but eventually he mysteriously quit working in the fire department. Said he didn't like it. And just like that he was home again. Soon the name calling picked up again.
During this time I slipped slowly. It started with me losing friends at school because my parents were just "too much" for them and their family. I quit doing things I loved. I stopped playing sports outside of school, I quit band, my grades even dropped from straight A's to solid B's. My dad wasn't happy, but I was struggling and I didn't trust him or my mom. I was dying slowly and I thought all the name calling and juggling parents was normal for a kid my age. The closest I had to "normal" was my grandmother and even she was a bit loopy (I still love her, yes). It was mostly anxiety that plagued me as a child but the depression was still there, just lurking in darkness.
In high school it only got worse. Most days I felt so worthless that I wouldn't even participate in most things. It seemed reinforced to by the teachers and my twisted mind. I played softball and soccer and I felt like shit because I was always benched which led me to thinking I was a shitty player. I also had a shitty choice in friends too. The only reason I stayed with them so long is because I hadn't had friends in so long, and it was nice for a change. They put me down, calling me stupid, fat, and even useless. Sometimes they called me a bitch and it hurt. They told me that no one cared about my problems and what happened in my family life didn't matter. Whenever I had a bad day and went to them for help they'd tell me to suck it up and stop being a baby. So I did. It wasn't until about mid-way Junior year that I finally looked at her one day and said "Fuck you. You've been nothing but a bitch." I picked up my lunch from the table and started sitting on my own at lunch. I was the weirdo with a book who listened to music and ate my food. That was until I found my theater family. Truthfully the only thing that kept me from taking my life in high school was God and my theater family. Only two people knew the full extend of my troubles.
Now I'm in college and I've only completed a year. I am a sophomore at Concordia University majoring in Graphic Arts.
Halfway through my freshman year, My step-mom, Heather, was hit and killed by an intoxicated driver at approximately 10pm on October 25, 2014. It hit me hard. Because of the divorce between my parents, her and I used to butt heads a lot all throughout my high school years. Once I graduated, we really started to connect. I was crushed by the news and that night is forever seared into my brain. I was on campus and a couple friends and I were having a Studio Ghibli film night for one of their classes. Dad calls at about 1:45am in the morning during one of the movies and gives me the news. I told one person and we ended the night immediately and went back to our dorms. I had two full panic attacks in one night. The campus pastor and student life director met me in the commons of my dorms and we just sat there for two hours as they tried to comfort me. I missed a week of school and it might as well have been two, because after I came back from the funeral I did nothing but sleep.
On March 31, 2015, I had a childhood friend commit suicide on her campus back home in Texas. No one even bothered to tell me until April 25th. My dad didn't even care, and my mom was afraid I'd follow suite. I cried for a week straight and still do to this day. Her parents won't tell me how it happened and even though I want to know, I respect that and haven't pried them since I asked. I stayed with a friend for three nights in a row because my own depressive urges were so strong. I'm so lucky to have such good friends.
This past summer has been hell. My depression spiralled out of my control. I lost control of my of my will to live and my self-harm took over. I was convinced it was the only thing keeping me alive. Most days I felt absolutely nothing and I would wake up in the morning and start crying. I was lost. I stopped taking my medication which only made it worse. It made feel empty. I was tired of relying on something to help me get through the day. All I heard was that I shouldn't be taking medication. I shouldn't rely on a pill to make me feel better. I had to do it on my own. Not that I though I was weak, I just felt like a disappointment to my family and the one person who really supported me was dead. I felt like a waste of space and that I was just as useless as I was as a kid.
On July 6-8, I contemplated and almost took my own life. I had everything planned. I recently donated a bunch of things I didn't need, I sold items I didn't want, I even started to plan who would get what. I had a note and everything. I have a regular therapist and she noticed my self-harm had increased in the past few visit and that I looked much more tired than usual. I'm pretty open with her and she decided that I needed intensive treatment after I told her what had happened. So July 10th I went in for an evaluation at a local out-patient facility. I was devastated. My worst fear had come true and I thought I was going to be hospitalised. After my evaluation I was told I was in an intensive out-patient from 8am-3pm, Monday-Friday and that I was on a close watch. One cause for concern and they would move me in-patient. I hated it so much. I felt crazy and unstable, but so was everyone else there. It's funny because the longer I was there, the more I realised is that we were all just people trying the best we can, getting help in the only way possible for our cases. So far I've been in the program for 3 weeks total and am still. In fact I go tomorrow. Since the start of the program, I have been self-harm free for 19 days which is a new record compared to what it was for a while. Not that it's been easy in anyway. I've been adjusting to new medications and going through intense emotionally therapy which requires a lot of talking. It is all group based with 4 groups a day and individual therapies before and after the day is over. It's been hell and even though I feel like I've made no progress, things have changed. I may not see it all the time, but it's almost like I'm being saved slowly. It's such a strange feeling going from dying, to trying to live.
"There's always a lighthouse" - Bio Shock Infinite
A quote I've come to rely on the past three weeks, and honestly theres more truth in this quote from a video game than I've even heard in my life.