I vividly remember growing up and watching the news at night with my mom when ads for medical products would come on between segments. One commercial I specifically remember seeing was this (at the time) new medication for depression. When I first watched the commercial, I was about 10 years old and had no clue what depression was. I sat there confused watching the lady in the commercial clinging to her bed, struggling to open her blinds, and refusing to go out with friends. By the end of the commercial, I had gathered that the lady was going through depression, and that’s what it looks like to be depressed.
Fast forward 7 years, when I was in my senior year of high school. I was a 90+ average student, part of many sports teams, a competitive dancer, on student council, the school photographer, you name it, I did it (and I did it well). All that did a complete 180 in October of that year. Suddenly, everything felt harder to do. Life felt meaningless, and I struggled to get out of bed…just like the lady from the commercial. For the longest time I blamed myself for being lazy, unproductive, and a procrastinator (for reference, I won the award for biggest procrastinator in high school). Sure, I had moments where I wondered if it was more than just being tired and sad, but I always ended up gaslighting myself into believing I was looking for an excuse.
Around this time, breaking the stigma around mental health was a growing movement, so it’s not that I was unaware of what depression was, it’s just that what was advertised wasn’t what I was experiencing. In all the social media posts about depression, the signs to look out for always included something similar to the following: isolating oneself, cutting off communication with friends, and spending time alone. Those elements have something in common: they all apply to introverts. As an extrovert, I had a completely different experience with depression.
Even to this day in my second year of university, I still get random depressive episodes. During these “episodes”, no one knows how I’m really doing because I handle it differently from what the media trains us to look for. Even this past summer I was going through an “episode”, and it resulted in me having to drop out of my summer courses because I had nothing left to give. However, many of my friends still love to poke fun at me for “failing out of summer courses”. Of course it hurts, but it’s manageable, and in their defense, they still don’t know the whole story. I was constantly going out with friends, going to parties, going out for food, and essentially doing whatever I could to never be at home. Little did they know that I did this because the second I’m alone the dark thoughts fill my head.
It was especially hard whenever people would come up to me asking if *(insert depressed introverted friend’s name here)* was ok. Of course I’d answer that they’re not doing too well but that they’re managing, but on the inside I was screaming for help, wanting them to ask me how I was. All of this is to say that mental health isn’t linear, nor does it fit a clear and distinct definition. It can come in various forms, and everyone handles it differently, so you can never genuinely know what’s going on in someone’s life behind closed doors. Always remember to check in on your friends, even your extroverts.
Sincerely,
A Forgotten Extrovert