I've been jobless for a while now, no thanks to me and Mr. Fiance having to share one vehicle for more than half a year. His place in the military takes precedent over me getting out of the house, so, of course, I gained weight and got depressed. What else did I expect from myself? I'm not the type to make the most out of situations unless I have inspiration to. But I was in a new town in a small apartment, alone, with my friends and family four hours away, and I get destructive when I'm alone.
I tried to convince friends to visit, but they had their own lives to live back in Austin; they had jobs and bills to pay, and neither left them with many open weekends to spend at the beach. I was too embarrassed to open up about how I was feeling, because I was the one- while we were growing up- that "had everything" and had no right to complain.
My first run in with depression was when I was a freshman in high school. Sadness washed over me, and to be honest, it was startling. I was usually happy- emotional, yes- but happy. I made good grades. I was involved in school. I was getting noticed by the boys after constant harassment about my weight in junior high. I had every reason in the world to be happy, but I couldn't be. The day could offer me joy after joy and I would deny them. I don't know why.
The sadness became permanent when my ex-boyfriend died in a horrendous car crash just miles from my house. I'd never known mourning before. I'd never mourned anyone before.
Well, my friends used my constant sadness as a way to separate themselves from me, saying that I was a "downer". That's when the depression set in.
I can't quite describe what school was like for me that year. I usually spent my mornings with my friends in the front of the school, laughing and watching the carpool lane fill up with familiar faces being dropped off, people that I could greet for the day if we didn't have classes together. At first I walked the same way, but the glares and silence I received from the usual bunch made me consider a new route to class. So I went to the library. If they migrated to the library, I would hide between the shelves like a masochist and listen to every sour word they directed at me, and I cried.
Shortly after, my parents started fighting a lot. Shortly after that, I received a long email from an old interest that was dedicated to the effort of getting me to kill myself.
I couldn't talk to my parents about wanting to give up. I couldn't talk to them about the cutting. They would just send me to a shrink. So I reached out to those friends in an effort to make them realize that I wasn't just being a downer, I needed help.
"You're stupid. If you kill yourself, don't expect us at your funeral," they said.
I'm still not sure how I overcame that.
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I was optimistic at first, when Michael started using my Jeep to get from place to place. I spent most of my time reading and browsing the internet; I invested a lot of my time into my other blog. The redundancies got to be overwhelming though, and with trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, feeling guilty for every purchase Mike made on my behalf, losing my sense of independence, and dealing with the stress of his family being more than vocal with their opinions of me, I went a little crazy.
I woke up late in the afternoons and stared off into space until Mike got home. Sometimes I'd cry myself into a short-lived coma on the couch. I started avoiding mirrors so I wouldn't have to see the hopelessness in my face and the dark circles under my eyes. I insulted myself in casual conversation. Any trace of love I had for myself had depleted to almost nothing, just enough to keep me from hurting myself in ways I could only day dream about when left to my own devices.
When I grew bored of self loathing, my mind wandered to more destructive things. I fell victim to the feeling of betrayal when Michael was working late.
"Why would he want to date me? Why would he want to come home to this mess? Of course he would find love somewhere else, because I'm not worthy of him. I'm nothing. I wouldn't blame him for cheating. I'm disgusting."
I couldn't even bring myself to have sex anymore. Too much energy involved- energy I didn't have.
(And I knew it had nothing to do with Mike. He was helpless through all of this and I can't imagine what it must have been like for him working full time at the clinic and coming home to another patient. He is the one person that makes me insanely happy and that's one reason why I'm marrying him this October, but depression made me feel like I didn't deserve to be happy. I'm just sad that I've missed out on and wasted months of that happiness.)
To make matters worse, I had lady part issues. I went to visit the gynecologist, who told me that I might have a disease where blood gets trapped in my pelvis during menstruation which could have been severe pains, and she put me on birth control. I didn't make the connection at first that maybe the birth control was messing with me, but my depression worsened. I didn't get out of bed at all. I stopped doing my chores and only left the bedroom to lay on the couch. I didn't want to leave the house. I grew angry and hostile everytime I thought about my friends and family, dwelling on moments in the past when they'd hurt me.
I fantasized about dying like it was a game.
"What'll it be today? A noose? An overdose?"
Yeah, it was fucked up.
One day though, I actually willed myself off of the couch and got online to check up on life outside of the bubble of hate I had created, and found an article that changed my life.
"If you follow me on twitter you already know that I’ve been battling off one of the most severe bouts of depression I’ve ever had. Yesterday it started to pass, and for the first time in weeks I cried with relief instead of with hopelessness. Depression can be crippling, and deadly. I’m lucky that it’s a rare thing for me, and that I have a support system to lean on. I’m lucky that I’ve learned that depression lies to you, and that you should never listen to it, in spite of how persuasive it is at the time.
When cancer sufferers fight, recover, and go into remission we laud their bravery. We call them survivors. Because they are.
When depression sufferers fight, recover and go into remission we seldom even know, simply because so many suffer in the dark…ashamed to admit something they see as a personal weakness…afraid that people will worry, and more afraid that they won’t. We find ourselves unable to do anything but cling to the couch and force ourselves to breathe.
When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker…but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand.
Regardless, today I feel proud. I survived. And I celebrate every one of you reading this. I celebrate the fact that you’ve fought your battle and continue to win. I celebrate the fact that you may not understand the battle, but you pick up the baton dropped by someone you love until they can carry it again. I celebrate the fact that each time we go through this, we get a little stronger. We learn new tricks on the battlefield. We learn them in terrible ways, but we use them. We don’t struggle in vain.
We win.
We are alive."
I highly encourage you to read the rest of her story, whether or not you are or once were a victim. We're not alone. We have each other. We have the strength that depression told us we didn't have anymore. I know I found it, after months of searching. It was just a mouse click away.
And now I'm happy again. I'm getting married, I'm planning the wedding of my dreams, I'm losing the weight, and can hold onto my optimism for more than just a fleeting moment. I see sunshine now.
Thank you Jen. Thank you, thank you,
thank you...
