Thoughts on Depression
Here's some thoughts on my depression that I wrote this morning. They're kind of random and mish mash, but I don't think that there is a coherent way to tell this story.
Thoughts on Depression
When I was a junior in High School, I learned that I had depression in January or February. I was in denial at first-I can’t have depression. That’s not me. For so long I had been in denial about the fact that something was actually wrong that it was easy for me to continue to deny it. It was easy to ignore the symptoms (constant fatigue, feeling abandoned at school) and pretend that nothing was wrong.
Momma knew that something was wrong though, and she told me that she advised that I try the medication that my Nurse Practitioner had suggested, go to a therapist, and see if that helped. But she told me that it was MY CHOICE. What I did with my health, my body, was my choice. For some reason, that freedom to not be forced into treatment made me free to choose it. I would have continued to protest if I had felt forced to do it, but the fact that I could choose to not pursue treatment gave me the space and presence of mind to choose it.
When I actually allowed myself to look back on the past year and my depression had been building, I was able to see how unhappy I was. During marching band was when the symptoms really started showing. I felt ill a lot, but there was nothing physically wrong with me, so I determined that there was nothing wrong. All those days when I didn’t have any desire to get up and move around, when I felt like getting up and going about my day-to band, to school-would be the most painful and difficult thing that I had ever done I couldn’t feel any physical malady, so there was no reason for me not to go, even when it was so hard, so painful, to do it. I had no reason to be unhappy, therefore I wasn't. But having someone tell me that something was wrong-that it wasn’t normal to be this unhappy, it freed me. It let me know that there was something wrong, that those feelings I’d been fighting for so long needed to be addressed, not dismissed.
It’s unfortunate that I was dating someone during the time that I had depression. I say that it’s unfortunate, because it was a fake relationship. In retrospect I think we were dating out of misplaced guilt instead of facing the fact that there was simply nothing there. The poor kid had no frame of reference to deal with someone with mental issues, and I was too mentally unstable to be able to handle the breakup, which needed to happen, but it happened at exactly the wrong time. Well, I say it happened at the wrong time, but in looking back when I have more perspective, maybe it happened at just the right time. The breakup was the final straw on the proverbial camel’s back. It was the thing that sent everything crashing down around me. For months I had been fighting feelings that nobody at school cared about me. Nobody noticed that I was miserable, nobody cared. There were days when I just wanted somebody to ask me if I was OK, ask if something was wrong so that I could say “Yeah, I’m just having a bad day. Thanks for asking.” Someone to justify my pain. Someone to notice. The fact that Kley never noticed, never talked to me, was agony. But I was holding onto the fact that he liked me, that even though he never talked to me anymore (even though we were dating and had every class together) that I meant something to him. I was too blind to see what was right in front of me. To see the signs that said, quite clearly, he’s just not that into you. I needed him to breakup with me, to cut off all hope that anyone cared. It was the last thing that said “you don’t matter to people.” It wasn’t the fact that I was without him (I’d never had him in the first place), it was what the breakup said to me, that I mattered to no one.
I should say now that there were two people-Courtney and Becca-who were there for me at school, that when I had explained what had happened supported me. That meant the world to me, but I was mentally unstable. The fact that those two girls were there for me disappeared in my feelings of being completely alone.
When I was in the midst of my depression, I had this mental picture to describe how I felt. One of my favorite digital artists, Enayla, has a painting called “the Great Mishap” that is a half finished painting of a ship that she accidentally flattened the layers to and resized and then saved it that way so that she could no longer finish. The fact that the painting is unfinished says something to me that I can’t quite put my finger on, but let me explain why the ship means so much to me. The ship is unstable in a dangerous and stormy sea, heading into oblivion while the waters around it foam and slap against rocks and the ship. This is where my mental picture departs from Enayla’s, because to me the sky is black as night though it is the middle of the day, the waters a deep cavernous blackness where the only thing one who finds themselves trapped in it’s unyielding grip is death. And just beyond the edge of the picture, in my head, was I, trying desperately to stay afloat in this raging storm where the world was dark as an abyss. Sometimes the water would cover my head and my hand would reach up for the surface, but be unable to break until…
Until God took my hand. God saved me from my depression, helped me find my path to recovery. To say anything else would be a lie, but the experiences are so personal to me that I would rather leave it at that.
I spent many months treading water in a dangerous and horrible sea.
Momma was always there for me. She was one of two people who ever asked me if I was OK (the other being Devin, a clarinetist from Marching Band that I’m fairly sure could ask the world of me and I would try to get it for him as payment-though I never expressed to him how much he did for me, I seem to be bad at expressing some things from this time in my life) and doggedly kept at me to help me feel better. There are two potent memories to me relating to my mother. Have you ever been held, rocked like a baby, by someone that you know, you KNOW, loves you, and would give anything to make you feel better, and because of this you want so desperately to feel better, to feel happy, but the blackness is too overwhelming? The pain too much. Happiness too far away. Momma held me like that on a couple of occasions. Though I was racked with pain (to borrow Alma’s words), her love was there, it was unyielding, and though it didn’t make me feel better, the fact that it was THERE meant something to me. The other memory is the day she dragged me out of my depressed stupor to go to Kohl’s, to try and shake me out of my hurt. She wanted to help me so much, and she thought that maybe doing something normal would help. The shopping trip didn’t help, but the fact that Momma would do anything, even go shopping with a zombie on the verge of tears to try and help her, again, meant something deep and profound to me.
Wesley never said much about the experience (he never does), but he never had to. He didn’t give me crap about my depression, he let me be, he listened to me describe what was wrong, and he made jokes about giving me serotonin shots to make me feel better. He was a calming presence in the storm.
Becca helped me, too, by making jokes and checking to see if I had scars on my arm. Even though I never cut myself, it made me feel better that somebody could joke and make light of my depression-that it was ok that I was mentally unsound. That my life could go on and I would be ok. That it was something sufficiently heavy and not heavy at the same time that we could joke about it.
Courtney helped me, too. She listened. And that’s all I wanted.
Having depression changed the way I view suicide. Maybe this sounds morbid, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. I never considered killing myself, I was too grounded in the gospel, but I can see how people who have a harder time than I do, whose moments of absolute agony are many and close between would want to do it. If your whole life is like that, it’s not much of a life. And you’re so messed up that no decision you make is rational or solid. It just hurts so bad, I can see why people want to end it.
Onto happier things though. When I got on my Prozac, I did feel better, gradually, but I did. It was incredible, I’d been so unhappy for so long that I didn’t know what to do, being happy. I looked around at the people around me, and I thought “You people are this happy all the time?! How did I miss this!” I’ve been so happy since I started taking medication. And every now and then, I look at myself, being happy, and it just makes me feel that much better that I am happy.
I learned some interesting things from my depression: compassion and forgiveness. Feeling and being so utterly alone (in the sense that though people were there for me, they couldn’t truly understand the terrible misery that I was in), it made me realize how painful it is. I learned how hard breakups are (even when it’s the right thing to do!), and I just generally learned that when people are unhappy, it doesn’t matter why, they need someone. Sometimes they need someone to listen, sometimes they just need someone to notice. But I hate seeing people sad, because when I was sad it was so hard, so it taught me to empathize with unhappy people. I love them, and I want to share compassion and love with them so that they can be happy.
My depression taught me forgiveness because I was so angry at Kley for handling the situation so wrongly. I knew that I had to forgive him. The poor guy’d had no experience with relationships or depression, and though he handled it in the worst possible way, I knew I had to forgive him. My anger only hurt myself. I was in so much pain, and it only hurt myself more. It took a long time, but I forgave him. And it freed me. All the things that freed me seem so strange, but I’m glad they came when they did.
Being out here in Utah, I met one of Amy’s roommates, Michelle, who has also dealt with mental illness, and it’s so therapeutic to talk to her, to talk to someone who KNOWS how hard it is, who knows that it’s ok to be mentally unsound. I love her and I’m so grateful that I came out to Utah when I did so that I could meet her and talk to her. She’s part of the reason I’ve written this-she’s helped me realize that I’m OK with the fact that I have depression. It’s an integral part of me that has changed the way I view the world. It made me love people more, care for the pains and hurts of the world. It’s something that I have to deal with. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced, but the things I learned in the end made it so worth it. I hope to never experience it to that degree again, but I will take life as it comes at me.
I’m in a healthier place now.
Amy: (to Michelle and me) It’s so nice to come home to sane people who understand me.
Michelle: You do realize that you’re saying this to two people who have mental disorders, right?
Thoughts on Depression
When I was a junior in High School, I learned that I had depression in January or February. I was in denial at first-I can’t have depression. That’s not me. For so long I had been in denial about the fact that something was actually wrong that it was easy for me to continue to deny it. It was easy to ignore the symptoms (constant fatigue, feeling abandoned at school) and pretend that nothing was wrong.
Momma knew that something was wrong though, and she told me that she advised that I try the medication that my Nurse Practitioner had suggested, go to a therapist, and see if that helped. But she told me that it was MY CHOICE. What I did with my health, my body, was my choice. For some reason, that freedom to not be forced into treatment made me free to choose it. I would have continued to protest if I had felt forced to do it, but the fact that I could choose to not pursue treatment gave me the space and presence of mind to choose it.
When I actually allowed myself to look back on the past year and my depression had been building, I was able to see how unhappy I was. During marching band was when the symptoms really started showing. I felt ill a lot, but there was nothing physically wrong with me, so I determined that there was nothing wrong. All those days when I didn’t have any desire to get up and move around, when I felt like getting up and going about my day-to band, to school-would be the most painful and difficult thing that I had ever done I couldn’t feel any physical malady, so there was no reason for me not to go, even when it was so hard, so painful, to do it. I had no reason to be unhappy, therefore I wasn't. But having someone tell me that something was wrong-that it wasn’t normal to be this unhappy, it freed me. It let me know that there was something wrong, that those feelings I’d been fighting for so long needed to be addressed, not dismissed.
It’s unfortunate that I was dating someone during the time that I had depression. I say that it’s unfortunate, because it was a fake relationship. In retrospect I think we were dating out of misplaced guilt instead of facing the fact that there was simply nothing there. The poor kid had no frame of reference to deal with someone with mental issues, and I was too mentally unstable to be able to handle the breakup, which needed to happen, but it happened at exactly the wrong time. Well, I say it happened at the wrong time, but in looking back when I have more perspective, maybe it happened at just the right time. The breakup was the final straw on the proverbial camel’s back. It was the thing that sent everything crashing down around me. For months I had been fighting feelings that nobody at school cared about me. Nobody noticed that I was miserable, nobody cared. There were days when I just wanted somebody to ask me if I was OK, ask if something was wrong so that I could say “Yeah, I’m just having a bad day. Thanks for asking.” Someone to justify my pain. Someone to notice. The fact that Kley never noticed, never talked to me, was agony. But I was holding onto the fact that he liked me, that even though he never talked to me anymore (even though we were dating and had every class together) that I meant something to him. I was too blind to see what was right in front of me. To see the signs that said, quite clearly, he’s just not that into you. I needed him to breakup with me, to cut off all hope that anyone cared. It was the last thing that said “you don’t matter to people.” It wasn’t the fact that I was without him (I’d never had him in the first place), it was what the breakup said to me, that I mattered to no one.
I should say now that there were two people-Courtney and Becca-who were there for me at school, that when I had explained what had happened supported me. That meant the world to me, but I was mentally unstable. The fact that those two girls were there for me disappeared in my feelings of being completely alone.
When I was in the midst of my depression, I had this mental picture to describe how I felt. One of my favorite digital artists, Enayla, has a painting called “the Great Mishap” that is a half finished painting of a ship that she accidentally flattened the layers to and resized and then saved it that way so that she could no longer finish. The fact that the painting is unfinished says something to me that I can’t quite put my finger on, but let me explain why the ship means so much to me. The ship is unstable in a dangerous and stormy sea, heading into oblivion while the waters around it foam and slap against rocks and the ship. This is where my mental picture departs from Enayla’s, because to me the sky is black as night though it is the middle of the day, the waters a deep cavernous blackness where the only thing one who finds themselves trapped in it’s unyielding grip is death. And just beyond the edge of the picture, in my head, was I, trying desperately to stay afloat in this raging storm where the world was dark as an abyss. Sometimes the water would cover my head and my hand would reach up for the surface, but be unable to break until…
Until God took my hand. God saved me from my depression, helped me find my path to recovery. To say anything else would be a lie, but the experiences are so personal to me that I would rather leave it at that.
I spent many months treading water in a dangerous and horrible sea.
Momma was always there for me. She was one of two people who ever asked me if I was OK (the other being Devin, a clarinetist from Marching Band that I’m fairly sure could ask the world of me and I would try to get it for him as payment-though I never expressed to him how much he did for me, I seem to be bad at expressing some things from this time in my life) and doggedly kept at me to help me feel better. There are two potent memories to me relating to my mother. Have you ever been held, rocked like a baby, by someone that you know, you KNOW, loves you, and would give anything to make you feel better, and because of this you want so desperately to feel better, to feel happy, but the blackness is too overwhelming? The pain too much. Happiness too far away. Momma held me like that on a couple of occasions. Though I was racked with pain (to borrow Alma’s words), her love was there, it was unyielding, and though it didn’t make me feel better, the fact that it was THERE meant something to me. The other memory is the day she dragged me out of my depressed stupor to go to Kohl’s, to try and shake me out of my hurt. She wanted to help me so much, and she thought that maybe doing something normal would help. The shopping trip didn’t help, but the fact that Momma would do anything, even go shopping with a zombie on the verge of tears to try and help her, again, meant something deep and profound to me.
Wesley never said much about the experience (he never does), but he never had to. He didn’t give me crap about my depression, he let me be, he listened to me describe what was wrong, and he made jokes about giving me serotonin shots to make me feel better. He was a calming presence in the storm.
Becca helped me, too, by making jokes and checking to see if I had scars on my arm. Even though I never cut myself, it made me feel better that somebody could joke and make light of my depression-that it was ok that I was mentally unsound. That my life could go on and I would be ok. That it was something sufficiently heavy and not heavy at the same time that we could joke about it.
Courtney helped me, too. She listened. And that’s all I wanted.
Having depression changed the way I view suicide. Maybe this sounds morbid, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. I never considered killing myself, I was too grounded in the gospel, but I can see how people who have a harder time than I do, whose moments of absolute agony are many and close between would want to do it. If your whole life is like that, it’s not much of a life. And you’re so messed up that no decision you make is rational or solid. It just hurts so bad, I can see why people want to end it.
Onto happier things though. When I got on my Prozac, I did feel better, gradually, but I did. It was incredible, I’d been so unhappy for so long that I didn’t know what to do, being happy. I looked around at the people around me, and I thought “You people are this happy all the time?! How did I miss this!” I’ve been so happy since I started taking medication. And every now and then, I look at myself, being happy, and it just makes me feel that much better that I am happy.
I learned some interesting things from my depression: compassion and forgiveness. Feeling and being so utterly alone (in the sense that though people were there for me, they couldn’t truly understand the terrible misery that I was in), it made me realize how painful it is. I learned how hard breakups are (even when it’s the right thing to do!), and I just generally learned that when people are unhappy, it doesn’t matter why, they need someone. Sometimes they need someone to listen, sometimes they just need someone to notice. But I hate seeing people sad, because when I was sad it was so hard, so it taught me to empathize with unhappy people. I love them, and I want to share compassion and love with them so that they can be happy.
My depression taught me forgiveness because I was so angry at Kley for handling the situation so wrongly. I knew that I had to forgive him. The poor guy’d had no experience with relationships or depression, and though he handled it in the worst possible way, I knew I had to forgive him. My anger only hurt myself. I was in so much pain, and it only hurt myself more. It took a long time, but I forgave him. And it freed me. All the things that freed me seem so strange, but I’m glad they came when they did.
Being out here in Utah, I met one of Amy’s roommates, Michelle, who has also dealt with mental illness, and it’s so therapeutic to talk to her, to talk to someone who KNOWS how hard it is, who knows that it’s ok to be mentally unsound. I love her and I’m so grateful that I came out to Utah when I did so that I could meet her and talk to her. She’s part of the reason I’ve written this-she’s helped me realize that I’m OK with the fact that I have depression. It’s an integral part of me that has changed the way I view the world. It made me love people more, care for the pains and hurts of the world. It’s something that I have to deal with. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced, but the things I learned in the end made it so worth it. I hope to never experience it to that degree again, but I will take life as it comes at me.
I’m in a healthier place now.
Amy: (to Michelle and me) It’s so nice to come home to sane people who understand me.
Michelle: You do realize that you’re saying this to two people who have mental disorders, right?