Depression

I've always been afraid to go to sleep. I always have had this feeling that if I close my eyes, I will inevitably die in my sleep and never wake up. I used to lie in bed at night, wondering what it would be like to not to exist. I used to try my best to imagine not existing and feeling nothing. As soon as I could feel myself disappearing, I suddenly became conscious of some part of me. As I could feel my mind emptying of my body, I would suddenly get an itch on my arm, drawing my attention back to my body. I would start again, this time picturing complete blackness and then emptying my mind of my body. Just as I thought I could feel nothing, my big toe would twitch. I was trying to forget myself and that I existed. I was seven years old. There was something appealing about not existing. If I was dead, I would not exist. If I didn't exist, I wouldn't have to go to school. I was terrified of school my entire life. My mom used to call it my "school stomach," where every first day of school I would be so anxious that I would make myself sick and I would cry all the way to school. I don't think that as a kid I ever did not have a sore stomach - just like not knowing how to disappear - I didn't know how not to have a sore stomach. It was just always this dull aching that felt like a ball in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't that it was the academics of the school, but more that I went to five different elementary schools and I never fit in at a single one. You think I would have figured it out after the second and third try, but there I always was - the butt of the joke. The subject of the torture. So, I used to lie in bed, wishing I did not exist. Wishing that I could disappear into the night air.

So, I guess it's not too far fetched to imagine that a child who used to wish for death, but simultaneously be scared of it, would later attempt suicide. Not only think about death, but desire it beyond anything else. Thoughts of death would consume me completely. How would I do it? Who would care? Could I do it without anybody knowing? Would they really be sad? If I took a whole bottle of tylenol could I keep it down long enough to die. I would surely pass out before the pain of the overdose took place. If I just drove fast enough and crashed into the median and flew over the bridge - I would have to get knocked out and I could drown without even knowing it. If I drank a whole bottle of vodka, that would kill me right? If I jumped off this bridge - the fall would kill me right? If I just cut the vein in the perfect spot - this would be done. These are the thoughts that used to and still do race through my head. On one of those "bad days," where shit just doesn't seem to be going my way and it suddenly seems like I can't do anything right, death becomes the easiest thing to solve the problems. This isn't normal, I am aware. Most people can make a mistake or have a bad day, but their thoughts don't jump to - how could I best commit suicide at this very moment? A bad grade doesn't send a normal person reeling to thinking that they are the dumbest person in the world and that life will stop, because I got a B. Not only would life stop - but MY life SHOULD stop! I deserve to die and nobody will miss me when I am.

It was high school that made me realize how unbalanced I was. I regularly got bouts of severe, crippling depression. I would show up to school with my physical body, but mentally I would be gone. I would go an entire day without talking to anyone, except to myself in my head, wishing for death or at least for the day to be over so I could crawl into bed and wish to die. I would hide in the bathroom in between classes and just sob. One particularly bad episode, I burst into tears in the middle of class and ran out of the room. At sixteen years old, this is slightly embarrassing, but I couldn't control it. I guess my teacher was slightly shocked by my emotional out burst, my french teacher sent out my girl friend after me. I was slumped on the bathroom floor just sobbing. My breathing was heavy and my chest was racked with sobs. I thought my chest was going to explode. I wished my heart would just stop. Could I give myself a heart attack? I could feel my heart beating out of my chest, I was dizzy, I couldn't catch my breath. The room was spinning. I was coherent enough to see my girlfriend come into the bathroom and I heard her ask, "What's wrong?" It was a very good question. What was wrong? Why was I crying? Was it chemistry? The math test? The boyfriend? No, it was none of these things. I was just crying, because I hated myself. I was mad at myself and my heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. Here I was, immobilized by sobs and hating myself - just like that day in kindergarten. But, because normal people don't just cry for the sake of crying, she was expecting an answer, expecting something like "My parents grounded me," or "I failed my math test." Or maybe something more tragic, "Someone died." But, none of this happened. I never did anything bad, and I have never been grounded in my life. I wasn't the best math student, but I never failed. My boyfriend was great and was the nicest person in the world. Nobody died, I didn't go to my first funeral until I was twenty. There was no reason for this craziness. There was no reason for this debilitating sadness. This heaviness that held me down. I felt like I was floating in water and my body was moving against my will. But, I couldn't tell her that I didn't know why I was crying. Normal people don't burst into tears in the middle of French class. Normal people at least wait until they are alone to cry like this. She was going to think I was crazy. And, not the good kind of crazy, where you make people laugh. That type of needing physical restraints and padded wall crazy. So, I used my story making skills and lied. I lied to make me seem normal. "My parents are fighting." This wasn't completely untrue and I don't know why I said it. It just seemed like the best thing at the time. The words came out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying: "I think they're getting a divorce." My parents used to fight a lot - so the first part wasn't completely untrue - but they weren't divorcing. Not even close. But, the lie seemed like the best answer. That's all it took. A small stretch of the truth and somebody understood this outburst.

I have done this my entire life. Making up these stories to justify the way I felt. I have broken up with numerous boyfriends, caused fights, and told lies - because it didn't make sense the way I felt. My parents, although often fighting, were together. I was doing okay in school. I had a boyfriend. I had a part-time job. Although I wasn't popular, I had a friends. But, I would continually find myself crippled with these depressive episodes. They sometimes lasted a day, sometimes a week, and sometimes a month. But, to justify these episodes - I would lie just so someone could pretend to understand why I was like this. Now I know that these were depressive episodes - but when no one has mentioned depression to you before - you just feel like an emotional freak. Yeah, most teenagers are emotionally led by their hormones, contentious, irritable, and plain old difficult. This was different. I knew it was different. But, I couldn't tell anyone that I was immobilized by sadness and I had no reason to be. Instead, I would make up these stories. Even as a child, I remember crying in my bed. I was about nine years old. My mom would come in and ask me why I was crying and again - the best answer I could give - "I am mad at myself." I could never escape the self-hatred. It always seemed like the best answer and the most truthful.