For about four years, I lived my life in a numb state. I was severely depressed, but I didn't acknowledge it. I didn't do anything about it.
At the end of 7th grade, I was diagnosed with depression. I was suicidal. I self-harmed. I had so many emotions that I didn't know how to handle, nor did I know why I felt like literal shit 24/7. My mom saw it as an act of seeking attention. I would get punished if she saw cuts on my arms. This just pushed me to start cutting my leg, where I now look and see the scars of my past left everyday...
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I started getting excited about leaving home a few months before I had to leave for college; I was excited that I wouldn't have to live with my mom anymore. All I knew at that point in my life was that we never got along. If she was irritable, I was irritable. My irritable mood swings, however, were acknowledged as the "typical teenager act". I believed that for awhile, but always wondered why I couldn't be "good". As I started to see the bigger picture and learned I'm an empath, I blamed my mood swings on my mom.
When the date of me leaving got closer, I got more excited. I was finally going to be able to be happy. I wouldn't always be irritable like my mom. I wouldn't have mood swings. But once I got to college, I saw only a little change. I had been wrong. My mom wasn't the cause of my mood swings and irritability. She was just a contributing factor - a correlation.
Yes, I did pick up her moods and I was typically irritable when she was. But living in that environment masked the truth. My depression, anxiety, and my consuming, negative thoughts aren't just caused by my environment, but also caused from a chemical imbalance. My environment just made bottling up emotions a habit to mask my depression.
Back in December, I got assaulted. I told an RA because I had no one else to talk to. I didn't want to report it, but I didn't know my RA was a mandated reporter. Long story short, that situation pushed me to start counseling. I had been wanting to start counseling for years.
Counseling has been really helpful. I didn't like my first counselor at my college. I switched and my second counselor really pushed me. He was the first person to peel back my past and explain to me why I feel certain ways. Even though sometimes I feel irrational, my feelings have never been irrational.
What is my depression like?
My whole life has been an unpredictable cycle. I compare my life to a roller coaster. The ups are when I'm pulling out of my depression. The high points are my "high" - when I actually feel emotions and I'm happy. The drop is when I come falling or crashing down. My low is when I'm depressed and feel numb. My ups, high points, drops, and low points can last long or short period of time and can come up/down really fast or slow. Like I said, it's unpredictable.
I can tell when I'm falling into my depression, physically and mentally. My appetite decreases. I sleep more. I'm constantly tired. I don't feel much emotion. When I hit rock bottom, I stay in rock bottom for days, weeks, or even months. Even if I want to pull out, sometimes I can't. I can't make myself have emotions. I just don't feel anything. I don't eat. I sleep a lot. I can't focus on my studies. I want to do nothing, even if I want to do something. It's really hard to explain, but those who suffer from depression usually know what I'm talking about.
I can tell when I'm pulling out. This process is usually within a day and my highs (before my medicine) lasted, maybe, two days max. Something will trigger me, or even nothing at all, and I will fall back into my depression.
When I actually started working on myself...
Over Thanksgiving break of last year, I painted with my aunt. I lost myself in my emotions and out came colors of what I was feeling. It soothed me. I wanted to continue and I wanted to find more things I enjoyed. I had been on autopilot for years (working or doing school work), so I had never found anything I enjoyed.
I found walking, positive quotes, and writing helpful as I tried to find new ways to better myself during December. But that wasn't enough, I couldn't ever seem to pull myself fully out of my depression... It was more of a coping method; my counselor in college calls them band-aids. They cover the wound for awhile, but if you never take it off, it won't heal.
I got assaulted in December, which pushed me to start counseling, and I met my first counselor. Immediately I knew she wasn't the one, but I gave her a few more shots. I finally decided to switch my counselor and it was the best decision I had made in a long time. He began to pull back layers and layers of pain, but I still didn't fully feel better.
I knew I had a chemical imbalance (depression and anxiety runs in my family), but I wanted to try self-therapy and counseling first. A month or so into counseling, I decided to see a psychiatrist and I began taking my current medication. It took a few dosage changes to find the right one, but I feel more stable. I have a better grip on my emotions.
No, my medication hasn't fully "healed" my depression. I still hit lows, but they're not as bad. It hasn't healed my generalized or social anxiety. It sure as hell hasn't healed my PTSD.
I'm still working on coping with my emotions with the counselor I am seeing in Jersey. Even though I just started seeing him, he has given me a more in-depth perception of why I am who I am today. He peeled back a layer of my past that I had never really thought had affected who I am today, but it has.
I have been diagnosed with severe depression, social and generalized anxiety, PTSD, and a possible personality disorder. It took me a long time to acknowledge I had these mental illnesses. I have begun to accept my mental illnesses. I won't let my mental illnesses define me. I will learn to cope with them. I will train myself to break free from the negative thoughts I was conditioned to have. I will get better, but I still have to finish overcoming the cycle.
