It was the cold bitter month of February 2013 when all I felt was the agony of my father’s absence and the piercing sound of my mother’s sobs down the hallway. Trying to blame these thoughts of self-hatred on my parents became impossible when I realized I was able to trace my sadness all the way back to 2011.
Freshman year of high school is already filled with anxieties that creep up every second of the day, but my anxieties were endless. My fretfulness was something of a comfort. I would think about the seconds ahead and I could hardly breathe. I hated school. Not in a sense of hating class or getting up early, I just hated the idea of being seen. The walls at school would laugh, taunting me and reassuring me of my inferior nature. The authority knew something was wrong, but never had the courage to ask. My depression came not as a slap to the face, but as a hand to hold. A certain comfort of having something consistently stay with me. My depression was cloaked in secrets and in my inability to ignore my pride and seek help. It would come in shaking palms and cold sweats; in bad grades and angry outbursts. My family could feel it: walking on eggshells around me, afraid of how I would react to the simplest of situations. I felt like a ghost in my own household, like a monster: not to be trusted and surely not to be tested. I felt a huge weight of wretchedness follow me around throughout everything I did. I felt this black shadow cast itself above me when I attempted to rearrange the chemicals in my brain to a desperate positive thought. I was floating around feeling lifeless and numb, feeling as if I were in a constant state of sleep, as if I knew happiness was something impossible for me to obtain.
It wasn’t until seven sleeping pills to the stomach and a dazed awakening in a hospital bed that I was forced to admit to myself that I needed help. It wasn’t until I admitted that I needed help that I realized the overpowering support of the community behind me. I remember the impact I felt when classmates genuinely asked my mother if I was alright. Teachers cried to me with regret in their voice, as if they knew they should have said something sooner. There was an endless amount of junior high girls who would come to me with similar problems, seeking advice and comfort. It was bitter-sweet knowing I could take all my struggles and use them to help someone avoid the path that I went down. I felt relief knowing that my small community was not blaming me for my depression; but they were truly understanding. The community of Fleming didn’t look at me as if I was alien; instead, they took me and showed me that mental illnesses are not something for which to be punished. My community went through my struggle with me and coaxed me with positive affirmations, keeping up on me, and making sure I was taking my medicines and eating food. This community, a little home of mine, sat with me in the office for hours through shaken short breaths and anxiety attacks that made my vision blur and my mind go blank with terror. My peers wrapped me in hugs, humor, and stories of similar tribulations.
I used to believe that depression was my greatest ally, until I grasped that my true allies were my community. My comfort was not my sadness, it was my peers. My solace was not in my tears, it was in the endless amount of support from the public. Depression is not an easy battle, but it becomes easier when you have an army behind you.
No comments:
Post a Comment