In high-school, managing my depression was easy, most of my family supported me and no one else knew I had it; not even my boyfriends. If I was getting an attack I could miss school and be fine, my parents would help me as much as they could and my boyfriend just thought I was sick. But I quickly learned in college it was completely different.
My first year in college I struggled more than I hoped with managing my depression on my own. When you’re over an hour away from home and don’t have a car, you don’t have that crutch that you were use to. I would go home every weekend to see my current boyfriend, but that only helped a little to get through the week.
I would call my mom bawling, not knowing what to do or how to bring myself out of an attack. There were multiple times that my parents had to come and get me because it would be so bad. The trend continued into my second year of college, and I had the worst attack ever. I missed over a week of school, I couldn’t get out of bed, I wouldn’t eat, I would be crying one minute then flipping out the next. This showed in my grades and it really was a wakeup call for me, it helped me realize what triggered my episodes but I still wasn’t fully in control. It took me seeing my grades to finally get myself to go to the doctors and get my new diagnoses. I had Bipolar Depression. In all my attacks, I would have the mania that would go with it then I would have the so called “calm down”.
I thought “I can control everything now with the help of my medication, support of my family and boyfriend, and doing what helped me”. But that wasn’t the case. When I told my parents I had Bipolar Depression, they all said I needed a second opinion and there was no way. They said I can’t have it and if I did I had to hide it because it would ruin my hopes of becoming a Pediatrician. I was devastated and angry beyond belief. What happened to my supportive family?!
After I started feeling the best I had in YEARS I basically got the mentality to say “screw you” to everyone who wouldn’t accept that this is what I have. That’s when I finally learned how to cope.
I proudly tell people that I have Bipolar Depression, which was the best thing I could’ve ever done. By doing that I found other people who also have the same illness and they were just as shocked as I was that we had the same thing; neither of us would act or look like the “typical” person that society would show that was diagnosed with it. My best friend also realized that she has depression and wasn’t scared to say something because she saw that I went through the exact same thing. I wish people knew that your mental illness doesn’t define you, no matter what people say. You can do anything, no matter the circumstance. Going through all of the hardships of my illness, it made me realize I want to work with kids that have different illnesses, where society puts them down and creates a stereotype that their illness defines who they are. I want to be able to show kids that no matter what mental illness you have, you can still follow your dreams and succeed. You can give society, and anyone who doubts you, the middle finger as you rise to the top.