A Depressing Topic, A Depressing Post, A Depressing Condition

Early in the year 2008, I was diagnosed (by both my mother and doctor) with depression. They never outright said Major Depressive Disorder (the technical term for it), but that's what I had. When I was first diagnosed, I immediately denied it. And I continued to deny it for a very long time.

It's funny, really. Around the time that I had depression, I was an attention hog. I would see people whose lives were going horribly and I secretly wished that someone would give me the attention they were getting. Of course, no one really wants anything bad to happen to them, but I sort of did, just for the attention. I even thought that depression would be a good "Big Bad" to have because it's not really that bad and I would get lots of attention from everyone.

Well, I got depression and I didn't want it. The thought of having depression excited me, but I think that's what ultimately repulsed me. How could anyone want depression? How could anyone have depression just for the attention? So I denied it, to myself and to my mom. The doctor gave me pills to take, but I didn't want them. I didn't need them. Pills were for people with problems. I didn't have problems.

I eventually came to my senses and actually requested to see a therapist myself. By then I was still denying my depression to myself, but not to those around me. It wasn't like I was going around saying that I was depressed, in fact I kept it a secret. I just would admit to Mom that she was right and take my pills and act like I was getting better. But I wasn't. Of course, I didn't know this because I didn't believe I was sick in the first place.

The reason I requested to see a therapist was because I needed someone to talk to. There was really no one there that I could just confide in. I needed someone to spill my guts out to. I needed someone to sob to. I needed someone to listen to me and to understand me.

Ultimately, all therapy did was make me lie even more. In the sessions I pretended that I knew I had depression and that I was taking my pills because I knew they were working for me, but deep down I kept telling myself that they were wrong, that I was ok. I stopped seeing my therapist at the end of my Junior year, telling her that I was happy. Because I believed I was and I wanted her to believe it, too. And she did, of course.

It wasn't until recently that I realized that I really, honestly had been depressed. All those people were right and I was wrong. I had weaned myself off my medication too soon. I had stopped therapy too soon. I was depressed, but I was just too good at lying to myself and soon learned how to fake being happy.

This story has a happy ending, don't worry. I am no longer depressed and I know this with all my heart. But for you to understand how I know this, I need you to know what depression feels like. You might not understand completely, but I'm hoping that maybe you'll be able to feel a little bit of what I did. It would help if you could think of the most depressing time in your life and compare it to what I'm going to say.

First of all, depression is more complicated than being sad. Depression is your own personal torture, a Hell that you've created yourself and told yourself that you belong there. Depression is anguish, hopelessness, anger, fear, extreme fatigue.

One of the biggest things I remember about my depression is that I was just so tired. I was tired physically and mentally. It showed in my movements, my actions, and my grades. I went from a straight A student, to a barely passing student. In fact, I failed a couple of classes, something I would have been appalled at before. Something I'm appalled at now. But I didn't care that I was failing. I was too tired to care. I was too tired to learn. I was too tired to do my homework. I was just too tired.

I also had lots of problems sleeping. I was tired, but it was like I was too tired to even fall asleep. I would be awake for hours and toss and turn and when I was finally able to fall asleep, I would wake up every hour. It was near impossible for me to get out of bed in the morning and on the weekends I would sleep in until noon or even late afternoon.

And I never felt like doing anything. I didn't feel like getting up from the couch to get a drink of water. I didn't feel like reading books. I didn't feel like going hiking. I didn't feel like going camping. I didn't even feel like talking, and if you know me, you know that's one thing I can't stop doing sometimes. The only thing that I felt like doing was writing. In fact, for some reason I had the urge to write every day. It was very frustrating because I didn't have anything to write about.

Not wanting to do anything made me very irritated. I felt lazy and useless. And when someone would ask me if I wanted to hang out with them or play a game with them and I didn't feel like it and I told them no, I would feel stupid and worthless and I figured they wouldn't ask me ever again. So I got very mean and grumpy. I would yell at people for no reason. I bit their heads off for something so simple as touching me. And I often felt like hurting someone.

The thing that frustrated me the most was the fact that I couldn't make sense of anything. My mind was a jumbled mess. I couldn't think right, I couldn't speak right, and I just couldn't do anything right. Things wouldn't make sense to me and I would get frustrated and quit. I would get into arguments and confuse myself. I would try to explain something, but lose track of what I was saying. And then I would cry and cry because I was just so frustrated. My brain wasn't working right and I hated it. And then it was like it shut down altogether. I would just sit around, staring into space, not really thinking about anything but thinking about everything. Those were the calmest periods of my depression, but they were never my best.

I never really thought about suicide. I thought about not existing, of just not being anything. I thought about what it would be like if I never had to feel again. I thought about a grey void, where nobody really existed and I wanted to be there. But I never thought about taking my life. I never thought about jumping off a building or shooting myself.

I did think about cutting myself. I wanted to see if it would make me feel better like everyone said. But I never did it because I figured everyone would think I was looking for attention. And I was scared someone would find out.

Looking back now, I realize that I was so deep in depression I was convinced it was normal. Even after a few months of being out of my depression I didn't notice that's what it was. I just figured I was figuring out who I was and was being a teenager. But I had been a teenager for three years, and those years were nothing like the two and a half of depression.

I can compare my life now to my life before the depression and it's very similar. I compare my life now to the life I had in high school and I realize that I am so much happier. I have so much more energy, more willingness to be and do. I'm happy. And I can honestly say that now.

The reason I wrote this post was because I needed to share my good news. My good news being that I've finally realized that I was depressed, accepted it and know that it's over. And I wanted to write down what I felt so that I can never forget. That way, I will know if it ever comes back and get the help I know I will need. And hopefully you are more informed and can either help yourself or your loved ones. Because depression is a serious thing, but it's so easy to hide. And unfortunately people die because of it.

Hero

-noun;
1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal.

Justin Furstenfeld, lead singer in the band Blue October, is my hero.

He is my hero because he is overcoming his Bipolar Disorder.

He is my hero because it's obvious he adores his daughter, Blue.

He is my hero because even though he made bad choices earlier in his life, he is trying hard to correct them.

He is my hero because when life seemed meaningless to him, he kept going.

He is my hero because he is obviously human but he doesn't let that stop him.

Archery is the Bomb

This is what it does to me:





But no matter, I still love it.

Too bad I can only practice when I'm at my dad's. It'd definitely be a great catharsis for me. It feels great to pull back the string and let it loose and hearing a thunk as it hits the target. It's like I'm releasing my anger with the arrow.

Shut up. I don't see you being awesome at archery.

Of course, I'm not that awesome either. I just barely started yesterday, in fact. Right now I'm just trying to get my form down and trying not to kill all the nerves in my arm from getting hit so many times.

But even with all the pain, I absolutely love doing it. I get hurt, but I just pick the bow back up, grit my teeth through the blisters on my fingers and let it fly. And it's so worth it.

The Toenails

I keep my toenails polished for because I'm my dad's daughter. Here's how it works: Both my big toes are sensitive to getting ingrown. That is a hereditary gene that my dad so lovingly gave to me. So, because my big toes are prone to getting ingrown and infected, I try to wear sandals if I need to wear anything at all. (If you look closely you can see my flip flop line.)

For a while, I didn't know that to solve my ingrown toenail problem all I needed to do was wear sandals, and so for about three years, I'd had an ingrown and mostly infected right big toe. That was one reason I always wore closed toed shoes: so no one could see the disgusting puss and blood that oozed out of my purple, swollen toe. As you can see, both my toes are perfectly fine now because I found out that when I wore my flip flops, my ever painful toe didn't hurt anymore. It took a week of not wearing shoes or socks (and of keeping up with my daily cleaning) for the infection to finally go away and my toe to be at the point that I could touch it without crying out in pain.

But, even now with my toe looking perfectly normal (although I think some of the nerves are a bit damaged), it still looks ugly. I think that's a side effect of having an infected toe for so long. So to solve the problem of having ugly toenails and only wearing sandals to prevent them from getting any uglier, I've taken to painting them. I repaint them every two weeks or so, depending on how long it takes for the polish to start looking ridiculous.

And that's the story of why I polish my toenails.