Personal Stories

The Road Rolls On

I was first diagnosed with depression at age thirteen, but the fact is that my symptoms started long before then. By the time I was thirteen, in fact, I was so bad I had no memory of ever having been happy. I was sure that something was wrong that could never be fixed, I was just born without the capacity for happiness.

At lunch I ate alone, figuring that because I was seated first due to bringing my lunch then the others would sit with me if I was worthy. They didn’t sit with me, so clearly I was unworthy. I was mocked by classmates who laughed at the way I read all the time, or the fact that I didn’t like the same shows as them. The fact that my parents wouldn’t let me watch PG13 movies until age twelve didn’t help, either. By age thirteen I started introducing myself to new classmates by say: “Hi, I’m Anna. You probably don’t want to talk to me though, I’m not very popular.”

I wasn’t very talented either. I wasn’t athletic. My intelligence was limited to very specific areas like biology and mythology, and certainly didn’t extend to important areas like math or impressive areas like art. My brother was a great musician and athlete, and rather popular in his class two years ahead. My sister four years younger was more popular with the boys in my class than I was! And she was good at music and art and was smart to boot! I felt like a bunch of leftovers that were thrown away between two great children.

I felt unwanted, unloved and unimportant. There wasn’t a reason to exist. The boy I’d liked for four years hated me, everyone hated me and I would never be anything special. I was fat, unskilled, ugly and pointless. So, I made my first attempt to end it. At all of thirteen years old.

I won’t get into the details of how I tried. What matters more is the aftermath. I told someone in my class what had happened, the person was known to be a gossip, I should have known better. But it was a heat of the moment thing. I was angry, frustrated and yelled that I should have gone ahead and killed myself. I think I really just wanted her to tell everyone. I think I was desperate for someone to help. And by the end of the day, everyone knew.

The reactions were varied. The worst of them didn’t understand or take it seriously. They mocked me for a week or so, asking every day if I had tried to kill myself again. The majority, if I remember, said nothing. The boy I was crushing on actually approached me directly and asked why. In the moment, that hurt a lot. I wanted to scream at him for being so stupid, for not understanding he was part of the reason. Instead I told him that I knew what effect the suicide of someone you loved had. A cousin had killed himself years earlier and I’d watched my mother suffer then. But no one world care about me. Now would they?

In hindsight, his actions were the kindest directed directly toward me, I think. He showed concern, caring, and as I sit typing this, I really wish I could go back and thank him. Maybe I will. He’s my friend on Facebook.

The best response, however, was from my best friend at the time. To this day, I say she saved my life. She went home and explained to her mother what was happening. Her mother then called mine. I remember clearly, probably the clearest memory I have, the moment when my mother called for me from the kitchen.

I had been playing downstairs and the kitchen was just at the top of the stairs. So when I reached the top I could see her, leaning against the counter for support as she struggled against the tears. She told me she had just been called by my friend’s mother, asked if what she’d been told was true, if I had really tried to kill myself. I told her yes. She began to sob, and I sobbed right back, and we held each other, and I knew she cared.

After that I got the help I needed, counseling and medications for the next year. I knew at last what happiness was. In eighth grade I had a wonderful time, finding a new crush who seemed to like me or at least interacted with me. I had a ball with the class play, won an award at the Eighth grade graduation.

Then the next year I was off the meds. I went to high school and found that the adjustment was difficult. My best friend went to a different school, as did my eighth grade crush. Once again I felt out of place. But now I had had a glimpse of happiness. I knew there was hope. Now I would beg to see a doctor about medication.

My brother had some problems in high school as well and his were more serious I suppose. That’s where my parent’s focus ended up. I don’t blame them, but it made those four years very hard. Despite doing things I had found I loved, I was unhappy a lot of the time. I felt like the “spare” friend in my groups. I was teased by the people in my class for the way I spoke and for my interests.

I know now it was meant as friendly teasing, but the thing about depression is that it warps the world around you. It’s like viewing things through one of those toys that breaks the world into a bunch of smaller worlds. I fail at describing it, I know. But everything is distorted and out of shape and proportion and there are so many ways of reading the world so incorrectly. And you just can’t see the truth in front of you. And that’s when you feel there’s no other way out. 

My first year of college I had to threaten my mother with putting myself in the hospital to get her to take me seriously. I don’t drive, and needed my father to transport me. Plus, I tend to rely on my parents’ approval far more than I should, an issue I’m still working on.

It’s not that my parents didn’t care. They just didn’t want to face the truth and they worried it made them a failure. They aren’t.

I am now thirty years old. I have recently had a relapse and my first hospitalization. It came after four years of very good stability. I broke what I feel is the number one rule of recovery, and the thing that I had always prided myself on being able to remember. I overlooked my symptoms, ignored my triggers and signs that I was getting worse.

That’s the one thing I would tell anyone suffering from any mental health condition to remember. Know your illness. And not just the textbook symptoms and definitions. Be aware of how it manifests in you.

I somehow went without seeing that I was isolating, despite my closest friends telling me they saw it happening. I ignored the increasing panic episodes, telling myself I had them under control and that I was managing the stress even though my normal coping mechanisms were functioning less efficiently. I brushed off the frequency with which I lost my temper, not a normal thing when I’m stable. The increasing irritation went overlooked because I was going to be fine; I just had to manage my stress that had been building for a year.

Which brings me to the second thing to remember. Be honest with your doctors and therapist, as with yourself. If you don’t tell them what’s really going on, how can they help you? It can be hard to do, but trust them, and tell them the truth about what you think and feel. I didn’t do that  and it led me further into a world of trouble.

But the ultimate thing to remember is this: The word recovery is a tricky concept in mental health. It makes it sound like getting over the stomach flu. In honesty, I think it’s more like getting over cancer. For some, they can treat it and it doesn’t come back. For others, you live in remission awhile, and it might show up and you have to fight it again, then you go back into remission. I’m the second kind of person, I believe. I’ve lived with it for fourteen years and at least four of them were spent in steady remission. I’m working to get back to a state of remission now, because I don’t want to give up the fight. I won’t let the illness win.

So just remember these three things:

1) Know your illness and how it affects you personally.

2) Be completely honest about your thoughts and feelings with your treatment team and yourself.

3) You’re allowed to have backslides. Just keep traveling down the rolling road. There’s always smooth stretches in there.

Let others know that there is hope and understanding about mental health. Together, we can become stigma free. Take the pledge.