All it took was one weekend.
My disorder was one that, before really understanding the severity of it, I had turned a cruel cold shoulder towards. I always told myself that depression was fixable by the individual, and that optimism was a choice as much as “depression” was. Today, I feel so much shame and humiliation to even admit to this. Sophomore year had hit so much harder than I had ever imagined that it would, and I began to spiral and dissolve into a woman that I never thought I would become. This is my story of the screaming fits, the sleepless nights and my light at the end of the tunnel – this is how I overcame depression and anxiety.
When I graduated high school, I was a full-blown optimist; it even said so on my Twitter bio. I was determined to find the good in every situation with a hearty understanding that everything happened for a reason. In my mind, I was always on the right path, I had always been set up for success and I was in control. I never thought that I would lose that feeling of control. I had more pain and pressure in my life during my Freshman year, just like any other young college woman moving away from home and having to fit in all over again. But it was Sophomore year when I had moved into an apartment, my boyfriend had finally moved to Fayetteville and I had chosen a pre-law career path that I had never been more confident about. What’s more, I was fresh off the Oasis of the Seas that had sailed across the Bahamas that summer. Cloud nine, right?
I remember that it started out as being the little things that would trigger “it”. I always called it just that – “it”. What else was I supposed to call it? Anxiety was never an option in my mind, I just didn’t have it. Despite that my mother had it, my grandmother…I didn’t. I was normal. So there was never a labeled term for every time I would never want to talk, never a label for not wanting to be touched, never a label for the confusion and random urges to just cry. I never had to have a reason, and when it happened, there was no stopping it. I chalked it up to a bad and consistent case of PMS and sought my bed.
I started doing this day after day. I stopped going to class. My grades started to slip. My professors became concerned.
One person who was not concerned was me. I was fine. Just lazy. I needed to go to bed earlier, eat healthier – I needed to go to class. It really became hard to get out of bed in the mornings and stay awake during the day. I just felt so tired all the time. I will never forget the afternoon that Hunter came to see me; for those of you who aren’t familiar with my boyfriend (and maybe I am a little bias), he treats me, in every little, single way, like a princess. To this day, I cannot remember what had triggered the dispute, but it had to be the worst argument we had ever faced in our two and a half years that we have been together.
I remember most vividly the shoving and slapping I dealt him, the way he wouldn’t leave no matter how much I begged for him to, all through blinding tears. I locked myself away in the bathroom – I literally felt trapped. I felt like I was suffocating. I was scared. Shaking and developing nervous ticks. The worst part of it all? I knew that Hunter hadn’t done anything wrong, and that made it all the worse. I felt so much shame, and all I wanted was to be alone. It took Hunter actually preparing to walk out the door for me to go after him. I cried in his arms, and I felt safe all over again.
That was never the end of it. Two weeks later was a pre-planned trip to Little Rock. In the weeks prior, I was eating to an outrageous extent. It made me feel good, and so did not doing anything. I was laying around and avoiding my friends and obligations as much as possible. It just made me so tired, and every time I stepped foot out of my apartment, it gave me a headache. I didn’t want to hang out or go anywhere, because what was I supposed to talk about? How weird I was? I did not want to explain where I had been or why. It wasn’t anyone’s business but my own. I never even told my own mother; in fact, I put on a smile for her more than anyone.
She was in Little Rock the night I couldn’t sleep in my own bed because of the thoughts. I started to wonder how it would be if I just wasn’t around. Even now, I don’t like to talk about it. Not only is it humiliating, but I can’t believe I had honestly started to think about the lives of others without me in it – forever. I dragged my blanket and a pillow into the room with the TV and laid for hours. Hunter called after work around 11, and I had been filling up on white bread – yes, literally, a Sunbeam loaf of white bread. The second I heard his voice, I lost it. I just started crying, and I couldn’t explain why. I felt crazy, and for a while, I truly thought I was crazy. I told Hunter about how I felt before I told my mom, who dismissed it, and told me that I was fine.
That was really hard to hear. Mother knows best, but I didn’t feel fine.
I didn’t want to feel like this anymore. I was tired of being tired, sick of the anxiety fits and never feeling quite right. I decided to do something about it, so I made a doctor’s appointment. I couldn’t even get out of bed to make the first appointment. I tried again.
I held nothing back – I told my new doctor about the eating, the crying, the fighting. His suggestion was medication. Right then. The relief I felt was beyond anything I had felt in a long time, and with the medical attention, the future looked brighter. Much brighter. The first couple of weeks went by so much more quickly than the others had. I started using my calendar again, and I actually stuck to my to-do list. Writing became more enjoyable, and for the first time, the fog in front of my face about law school finally cleared. I recently decided to persue writing and enjoy my work, letting the pieces fall where they may. My first month was the happiest I had ever been, and my perception had changed entirely.
Depression isn’t the bag-over-your-head and wear-all-black stereotype. Depression is real and can be entirely unnoticeable to the onlooker, and it affects more people than any of us may realize. I can’t imagine how I would have felt with everyone shaking their head and insisting that I was perfectly fine, and I am horrified to think about what might have become of me if I had believed them. I never wanted to tell anyone about how I had lost control of my emotions, how I just did not want to face people anymore. I never wanted to tell my family how their once-social-butterfly had become a reclusive monster; but I came to realize that, until it hits you, it’s nearly impossible to understand it. We can only hear the story of those who have survived their storm, and be there for those who feel that they are lost.
Talk to those who have symptoms of anxiety and depression, and encourage medical assistance. Hear their story and understand them, and give them that crying shoulder. You very well could save a life, a mother, a daughter, a friend, a sister, and a survivor.