My Story
It’s mental health awareness month. My mental health is something that looking back on my life is something I have always struggled with it my whole life, I was just not aware of depression being a illness. My official diagnose is borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, Generalized anxiety disorder, I’m suicidal and I also have been a cutter. Then dealing with losing my mom when I was just five days away from turning 17 and then losing my Dad at 19 has played apart in my depression too. But even before losing my parents I was depressed, it has been a struggle everyday for me, I have been dealing with thoughts of wanting to killing myself and sometimes thinking I was never good enough, that I was just a waste of life and it went on for what seems like forever. It seems I have always been thinking how my life is horrible and thinking I wish I could die.
I feel that my feelings started to get more intense when I was in high school. I would always look at other people at school and think how can they be so happy, and why do I feel so sad all the time. But I was afraid to tell anyone how I was feeling because I did not want people to think I was weird or crazy. So sometimes I would cover up how I was really feeling by trying to be one else, I would say things that were not true to make people think I was normal, because in my head I thought I was a freak, and because I was so depressed and I didn’t want anyone to know that I was thinking about killing myself everyday or how at night I would cry myself to sleep because I was so depressed and scared to tell anyone. Like most teenagers I just wanted to fit in and I thought if anyone really knew how I felt I would be ostracized. So all the feelings I had, I kept to myself and I would make up stories to tell other people because sometimes I had wished that maybe if I say something enough times even if it was not true, it would come true and my depression and my suicidal thoughts would go away. In high school I also began cutting. It was a way for me to control how I was feel, when I felt everything else was out of control. Even though I knew it was wrong, it was a release. But today I can say I happily don’t cut anymore.
I did make up stories and my hope was that just maybe if I said it enough maybe it would come true, I wanted more then anything to know what it felt like to be happy like everyone else. Wanting to know what it was like to not think about killing myself all the time. Making up the stories did make me feel better, sometimes because it would be a break from feeling like I wish I could die, I could control the story and it made me feel in control, where I felt everything else in my life was out of control, it wad a break from my negative thoughts. I would make up a story so others thought they knew me, so they would know me as a person who was happy, not the person I really was. I sometimes knew that there was something was wrong with me but did not know how tell anyone and I kept my feelings to myself, everyone else seemed so happy so I thought that is how I should be too, only later in my life did I learn that acting like someone I was not, would not make me feel better, although I wish it had. All I ever wanted was to be happy.
So fast forward to my early twenties I was working full time at a childcare center, but still feeling depressed, I was trying some medication to try and see if it help. I also was trying to see different therapists, but it was hard going to appointments because I was working a full time job and I don’t drive. I continued to work but it was a daily struggle still dealing with my depression. My negative thoughts were so intense, I was not sleeping, I would be completely exhausted but still not able to get any sleep.
Then in October of 2006, I quit my job that I had be working for 6 years on a whim. I had given up. I was thinking, I cannot live my life anymore, I was done, something needed to happen or I was going to kill myself. I needed a way out. I went to the doctor and told her how horrible I was feeling and she immediately told me I needed to go to the hospital for help. I went to the hospital and was admitted to the psychiatric part of the hospital, I was scared and did not know what was really going on because I was feeling so bad, and I felt like I was drowning, I had completely lost it. But when I was in the hospital for the first time for my depression, I was afraid to tell anyone why I was really there for, so I made up that I had some contagious disease because I was to embarrass to tell anyone why I was really in the hospital.
It has taken doctors a long time to try and find the right medications that would work for me. Some of the medications I have tried never worked and some would work a little, but with any medications it can take a real long time to feel the full affect. One of the meds I was on helped, but it had me gain so much weight. I hated that medicine, but it was helping me sleep and helped me to not feel so depressed. So since 2006 I have tried and tried what feels like every medication there is and some worked a little and some did not work at all.
Something that I was also scared to tell people was back when I was in the hospital for my depression the first time in 2006, I was there for 10 weeks and the one and only thing that made me feel better was ECT therapy, also known as shock therapy. I would go to what the hospital called the ECT suite, then the doctors and nurses would hook up me to a lot of different wires, give me an IV and put me to sleep. Then my doctors would shock my brain and give my body a seizure, it was completely controlled and I felt nothing, then about a few minute later I would wake up and feel like nothing had happen. The first time I was given ECT, I was given 12 treatments. It was scary for me the first few times and I cried every time they would start the IV, but in time the ECT treatments worked! Having felt depressed for most of my life, and trying all different types of medicine over many years, the thing that worked the most was Electroconvulsive therapy.
Since 2006 I have not worked and I get social security disability for my depression. I have been in and out of the hospital a lot, but every time I know that is where I needed to be. It may seem bad, but I am a regular at the hospital, all the doctors and nurses know me. When I need help, I know I can always go to the hospital to get that help. The staff there has some of the nicest people I have ever met. The staff is so dedicated to help each and every patient. I still have my depression, I still think about suicide, and those thoughts are always there everyday, the difference is now they are just thoughts, but I don’t have a plan.
I see a therapist twice every week, she is also my mental health case manager, and she has helped me a lot. She been there to listen and has not given up on me, and I know she cares, and I see my psychiatrist every month I take many different kinds of medication for my depression and to help me sleep and I am still in the hospital a few times a year. But this pass 9 months I have not been in the hospital once, I think I have my therapist/case manager to thank for that.
My depression is hard to deal with and I wish I knew back when I was younger that there was help out there and I did not have to feel so alone. I hate when I have go to the hospital and even thought I hate being there, it does help. When I am given ECT treatments it’s still scary, but for me ECT is what works for me. It can be scary for me when my depression is so bad that I don’t trust myself, but I also don’t want my depression to be something that I am embarrassed to say that I struggle with. I don’t know what the future holds for me or what my life is going to be like in six months, but I hope one day anyone who has depression can get the help they need, and that no one should feel embarrassed by it and that all people and myself can always get the help we need.
