Lost and Found

If you met me today, you'd never know I've struggled with a mental illness. You'd never imagine I'd felt so consumed by anxiety that I wanted my life to end. You'd never suspect because I finally got the help I needed.

I can trace the genesis of my struggle with depression to my teenage years after tragedy struck our family. On our way out of town, a drunk driver smashed into our station wagon head-on. My mother died instantly. My dad and brother suffered internal injuries, and the impact broke several vertebras and tore up my spleen. When relatives rolled me into Mom's funeral on a gurney, strapped in a body brace, I could feel myself shutting down, emotionally withdrawing from the world around me. I just wanted to be invisible.

After I was released from the hospital, I tried to pretend everything was okay. After all, I needed to be strong for my little brother and Dad. Many days, though, I desperately wanted to talk about my mother and how much I missed her. My friends, trying to fully enjoy their senior year of high school, soon grew tired of hearing about my grief. I quickly determined the only way to keep them happy was to not discuss my pain at all.

One step forward, two steps back

A year later, Dad dropped me off at college in a far away state. Eventually, I made new friends, but the depression still hung over me like a low-grade fever. Little arguments sent me into a deep funk for days.

As I watched all my roommates reveling in their newly found freedom, I wondered why my stomach was always tied up in knots and my muscles tense. Sure, I'd lost my mom but that had been over a year ago. Why did living still hurt so much?

Just have a more positive attitude, I told myself.

Instead, I began sleeping a lot and crying over nothing. Friends urged me to visit a counselor, who prescribed pills that only made things worse. Unsatisfied with the results, I finally just stopped taking them.

A second death

Just before my junior year in college, when my moods had become a little more stable, my stepmother called. Doctors had diagnosed Dad with terminal cancer. The next few months blurred together as his condition rapidly deteriorated. Within three months of the diagnosis, he was gone.

Having already paid for a semester abroad, I left for Italy just two weeks after the funeral. I thought the trip would soften the blow. Instead, the experience only helped me escape for three months. It didn't make anything easier.

After I settled back into a daily routine, I noticed a familiar pattern of pain. My college friends like my buddies in high school failed to understand my grief. They accused me of "wallowing in self-pity" and trying to get attention. I tried my regular "stuffing it down" act and pretending life was okay €¦ until I couldn't do it any longer.

On and off through my college years and the two years following graduation, I sought counseling. For 10 years the depression left me feeling alone and helpless, each time, dragging down my confidence and shattering hope for the future. Eventually, I found a counselor who helped me reach the point of believing I could handle the rigors of graduate school, which became a milestone for me. Acceptance to the program not only gave me self-assuredness but a fresh start.

I was certain I had beaten the grief and the depression for good this time.

I was wrong.

Extreme sorrow and loneliness resurfaced during my first year of graduate school; this time, its reoccurrence brought on a new emotion anger.

How many times do I have to go through this? I cried out, shaking my fist at God. This was the cruelest, most unfair torture in the world. I'd done all I could do to "learn my lesson" all those other times. But here it was again. I feared I would endure this depression for the rest of my life. Honestly, I wouldn't have cared if I had walked in front of a bus. Fortunately, I had the sense to walk into a doctor's office instead. He prescribed a drug called Paxil that set me on the road to recovery.

A New Beginning

All these years, the words "clinical depression" had never meant anything to me. Slowly, with the doctor's help, I began to understand. The tragedies, he said, threw off my serotonin levels in my brain, triggering chronic depression. He told me this natural chemical maintains a sense of normalcy and helps keep life's challenges in perspective. Even after a few weeks of taking the medication, I realized he was right. Every little problem didn't seem like a mountain to climb.

It has taken what seems like a lifetime to discover how to escape depression's shadow, but over the years, I've learned a few things. First, talking with a professional helped me face my fears instead of running from them. My counselor showed me how to grow as an individual and gave me the tools to improve my self-esteem. She helped me recognize depression's symptoms always feeling blue, crying spells, sleeping all the time, hopelessness and withdrawing from friends, families and daily activities so I could be on my guard in the future. She reminded me that asking for help was not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength. Finally, I learned I was not physically able to "pray my way out of," or just "get over it." Depression is a medical condition that needs treatment. Today, with a low daily dosage of an anti-depressant drug, life is in balance again. I know what it's like to genuinely laugh and smile and love life.

Background Information

Questions and Answers

Stories

If you've been through a experience related to this topic, we invite you to share your story with others.
Share Your Story

Other Things to Consider

Transitions: Changing Jobs, Moving

Relationships: Communication Gaps

Parenting Teens: Communication Problems