November 9th, the day my life fell apart. Wait a minute, no, scratch that, the day my life changed forever.
On November 9th of this year, so just a little over a month ago, I decided to take an enormous step and probably the hardest one, and I went to talk to my school's counseling center because I needed to talk to someone. For a while, probably at least a couple of months, I had just been feeling off, and by off I mean not myself. I've never really been an outgoing or super positive or social person, that just wasn't who I was. I was more of an introvert, I didn't really ever talk to people unless they spoke to me first, but I was happy. I found happiness in the little things like sunsets and funny dog videos on facebook. I hung out with my friends, I went out aimlessly driving around with my little sister riding shotgun just so we could blast Taylor Swift way louder than we should be. I would make the dumbest and cheesiest jokes and laugh at them knowing very well that they weren't even funny. I would spend time with my family, we would all watch movies together or we would just all sit around not really doing anything other than enjoying one another's company.
On November 9th, I was diagnosed with depression, and anxiety. When the school psychologist spoke these words, I sat there replaying them in my mind over and over like this cannot be real. I didn't want it to be true, and for the next week, I refused to accept it. I kept thinking to myself, no, maybe I am just stressed and that's why I isolate myself and why I have been so upset, and why I get irritated at the littlest things. Here we are, over a month later, I still don't know that I have fully accepted it.
Less than a week later, I knew I had to tell someone, and I ended up telling my mom. Thankfully, she was so supportive and she helped me to decide that I was gonna do something about this and that I was not gonna let this be an end for me, that I was gonna be okay again. I know deep down that one day that will be true, that I will be okay again, even though it seems impossible to even dream of right now.
I never payed a lot of attention to mental health or really cared that much about it. I never took care of my mental health but this diagnosis has taught me how important it really is. A lot of people don't talk about it, at least not nearly enough as they should, mostly because its not easy to talk about it and deciding to ask for help is not an easy decision to make. But making that decision changed my life and even if I have only started on this road to recovery, I know that I'll come out of this stronger than I was before.
It's okay to not be okay, but it is not okay to suffer in silence, it's really unbelievable how many people actually care about you even when they don't show it all the time. Asking for help and taking that first step is terrifying, but it makes a world of difference, I promise.
