One of the hardest things about my depression was that I didn’t know what was going on for years. Its not hared to be clueless about depression because, if you go the slow road, it doesn’t feel like anything is wrong. This is what I did.
I will warn you that this is a rather long post. Depression is a difficult subject and I didn’t want to just toss off ideas and not include the thoughts and feelings that surrounded them.
The first several things I can look back into my high school career and recognize now, although I didn’t realize what was going on then.
1. Self Esteem
One of the first things that went by the wayside when my depression was developing was my sense of self confidence and self esteem. I had always been quiet and somewhat unpopular, but it high school it became more apparent. I simply chalked it up to being a teenager. I was always tense and somewhat unhappy. I did not feel like I deserved friends. I did not feel like I deserved anything. No, my grades did not fall and I did not act out terrifically, but I knew something had changed.
2. Bad Reactions
Another reason I trace my depression back to my high school days is that I had a bad and unusual reaction to something that went on in my life. I had a small car accident far from home. I was in tears, but as I was far from home and with people that I didn’t know very well it wasn’t all that unusual. What was unusual is that about a week later in the middle of rehearsal I was lying on the stage shaking and crying due to the incident. I had never done that before. It wasn’t easy to stop and it wasn’t easy to hide. Another indication I wasn’t handling it that well? When I wrote a paper on the incident a year later I had to write it in third person. I was only able to think about it rationally as long as I treated it as if it had happened to someone else. By the way, my English teacher wasn’t impressed.
3. My (half-hearted) suicide attempt.
An incident that occurred at home that I didn’t tell anyone about was my first attempted suicide. It wasn’t all that impressive. I tied the arms of a sweatshirt around my neck and pulled. As it didn’t really do anything I quickly gave up on it. I can still remember the which sweatshirt I used. Why didn’t I know right then that something major was going on? In the world 13 or 14 years ago depression was not talked about, especially with high school students. There was no internet and any information that I could have found out was hidden in the library. Since I didn’t know that such a thing as major clinical depression existed, I didn’t know that I was developing it. Luckily, these days the information is more readily available and frowned upon a lot less.
College was a lot more difficult. At first it really didn’t seem like anything was wrong. I was living at home, having a blast in my classes and, even more than I was in high school, super involved in activities. Especially my sophomore year. Once I went away for school – something I did when I was a junior – things changed.
4. Alienation
As my usual when I got to State College I began looking for groups to be a part of. It was more intimidating – there were a lot more people and a lot more groups. I joined a church and that became my main activity set. I didn’t make friends easily and I was going away from the friends I brought with me from the Beaver Campus. I did less with them and I talked to them less. I didn’t want people to see that I was getting unhappier and unhappier and of all people, my friends from back home would have seen it best.
5. Physical Sickness
My grandfather became terminally ill while I was away at college my junior. I didn’t handle it well. I was having sharp and severe stomach pains. My neck and shoulders were often tense and along with my jaw were often painful. I had problems with diarrhea to the point that I was spending hours in the bathroom. When he died I went home and while in Massachusetts for the funeral I was vomiting and having diarrhea at the same time. At the time we decided that I had developed lactose intolerance I began avoiding dairy foods. It helped somewhat, but I was still in a lot of pain.
6. Constant Unhappiness
This is where I first had an inkling of what was going on, though I did not yet realize just how serious it was. I moved into a single room my senior year and was calling my mother on a regular basis (remember this was in the days of long distance, so it wasn’t all the time) and crying to her with complaints about my life. My grades were starting to slip and though I had been elected treasurer of my church, I was feeling more and more cut off and isolated. More about that in a minute. Mom was the first one to suggest that I had depression and sent me to the school doctors who gave me Paxil. Unfortunately, it didn’t help much at all.
7. Loss of Interest
I rather quickly lost interest in everything. And I mean everything. I stopped leaving my room except for meals. I stopped cleaning my room and only did laundry because it was right outside my door. I stopped taking care of myself – no teeth brushing or face washing. I stayed in bed all day and watched tv. I easily skipped class when I thought I could get away from it (One professor said she taught from the book and all you had to do was read it, the lecture notes online, and show up for the quizzes and tests. It was easy to justifiy skipping just about every class for that one. Unfortunately, I was losing interest in my school work and didn’t make it to class when I should have). I cried a lot. I was eating maybe one or two meals a day on a good day.
8. The Night I Felt Like Suicide
Finally we come to the night when I finally realized that I had a huge problem. I had been taking my pills regularly and talking to a Christian counselor, but after im conversations with a couple of people I seriously considered taking the almost full bottle of Paxil. I truly scared myself. It was less than a week after Spring Break. Did I attempt suicide? No. By then I knew enough to know it was serious and called a not so good friend and talked to him for most of the night. He was nice enough to come down and sit with me. The next day I had a meeting with my counselor and we decided I needed to go into the hospital. That was when I was diagnosed with major clinical depression and anxiety. I was given more medications and eventually dropped out of college.
That’s it. The eight major indicators of depression in my life. Some of them are described in such articles as the symptoms depression articles at WebMd and the National Institute of Mental Health and others I’ve come up with on my own. For a more clinical description of symptoms, please see those sites.
