There are days where I wake up and feel like I’m drowning on the inside, yet no one even notices. I’m drowning from all the negativity in my life, from the negativity I put on myself, and the negativity that surrounds me. Why am I not prettier? Why am I not smarter? Why can’t I make friends and just be happy? I was diagnosed with depression when I was 15 and had the hardest time accepting it. There were days when people would come up to me and tell me I looked sad and would ask me what’s wrong, but all I could say was everything’s fine. I didn’t know how to say that I’m just sad and I don’t know why. The strange thing is that, when I tell people I have depression, their first reaction is “How? You seem so happy all the time!” Sometimes, yes, I do have those good days, but then there are the days where I feel like I have to put on this mask to hide my inner feelings away, and those are my most exhausting days.
It was tough. I tried going on a lot of different kinds of anti-depressants and going to therapy, but sometimes I just tried to avoid it all and just kept telling myself to feel happier and this wouldn’t happen. But it wasn’t that easy. For the past year and a half, I have been on an anti-depressant that works most of the time, and now I’m starting to take lower dosages and I’m easing myself off them, which is something I thought would never happen.
There were days where I wouldn’t want to get out of bed, I didn’t want to do the things I love, days where I just didn’t want to see anyone because I was constantly tired and not wanting to leave the four walls I called my room. It’s tough with depression because you don’t want to let anyone know that you’re broken and damaged. You think the simplest thing of life is to be happy, and yet I couldn’t even get that right. I felt that if I could just hide away, I could just ignore the fact that on the inside I was alone and hurting. I would go out to events where I’m surrounded by hundreds of people, but yet I felt so alone. I felt like even if I screamed, no one would know. There were even days where I cried myself to sleep because the pain that I was going through hurt so much. My darkest days were the days when I felt like if I was dead, no one would know or care, and having those suicidal thoughts made me feel like if I just died now my pain and misery would just all end, and I wouldn’t have to deal with this mess of a life. When I look back on those days I get mad at myself, mad that I let myself hurt so much to the point where I was willing to end my own life and willing to quit and let depression win the battle. What people don’t realize is mental illness is a tough thing for someone to go through because, unlike getting a physical injury which is easy to see and tell someone is hurting, mental illness is hidden. There are no signs saying you have depression.
I grew up with a screwed up childhood, and all I could think about was when I would go off to university things would get better, which wasn’t the case. I moved to a new city and school where I knew no one and started struggling with school. I hit that dark place again in my life. It wasn’t until joining some clubs that I started feeling things would get better. I think one of the best things that has helped me a lot was going to therapy, because it was nice to know someone was in my corner and actually cared and wanted to know what was going on in my little head. It wasn’t until about a month ago I went to a session and I was talking about all the stuff going on in my life, and I didn’t even realize that when I was talking to my therapist I had a grin on my face and she smiled and said to me, “Wow it seems like things are looking up for you, you seem genuinely happy. I don’t know what to say to you”. Then it hit me. I finally hit a spot in my life where I was happy with the way I was and with the way my life was going. I was happy that I planned out goals, happy to be around friends, happy to be around my family even though before you would have had to pay me to be in a room with them.
I think the main point behind my story and the road back to my happiness is, that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. That no matter what is going on in life, either with school, friends, family, work, or relationships, it’s okay to talk. Some of the best ways to distract yourself from hitting that dark place is learning a new hobby, join a club, trying something new, hitting the gym, and focusing on you. Sometimes the best thing you can do when you’re in a dark place is get up and go for a walk concentrate on what you see, what you feel and hear. When you concentrate on something else it helps you to forget about the pain you were feeling.
If you are going through a battle and struggling, just remember there is so much beauty in life, and that, even though it doesn’t feel like it, life will get better. Here at Laurier, there is the elephant walk held for mental illness in the fall hosted by the mental health education group, and there is health services and counselling. If ever you feel like you don’t want to talk to a therapist, please see your doctor and let them know how you’re feeling, or talk to a friend. I don’t know how to stress how important it is to talk to a friend; it’s always better to get things off your chest, and you never know, you may feel better having a friend there who cares about you. There is also peer help line, where you can just call and talk to someone, anonymously if you prefer.
If you notice someone who is losing interest in activities they used to like, notice they are a lot sadder then they normally are, or if there are any red flags popping up, please talk to them. Sometimes having someone else notice that something is bothering you helps make that person feel that people actually care. So Golden Hawks, it does get better; it may be slowly but hang in there, and stay golden.