Depression, Panic Disorder, Anxiety, & Meds

(WARNING: Some written accounts may be triggering or may make readers uncomfortable, please read at your own discretion. Please also keep in mind that these are my accounts, MY TRUTH, I in no way claim this to be the experience of others or impose my beliefs or thoughts on those who disagree.)

Today’s topic is going to be a bit more serious than usual.

I feel its time I bring up a topic that is important to me and to many other people as well.

I was 13 years old when I had to stop myself from cutting for the first time. This was also the time I realized how much I wanted to fly.

I was always the kind of kid who wanted to have flying as a super power, but this was the first time I actually thought of making that dream come true.

Sure, I knew it was wrong, I was still more morally sound back then.

So why did I want to do something I knew was wrong?

I turned 14 and decided I’d be different. I started listening to different music, I started dressing differently, I still hung out with the same friends, but on the inside I was trying to convince myself that this new me was happy.

Yes, I know, it’s a cliché, struggling teen, trying to be happy. Who hasn’t heard this story before? But, its not just a story, its an actual reality as well. And I know, you’re probably thinking, why is this/your story so different? Give me a few more minutes of your time, and I just might start to make sense.

Then I turned 15, and I started to believe that my life was just a series of feelings I couldn’t make out, and thoughts I couldn’t understand. I thought if I kept up the façade of the good, hardworking, happy girl I had always been, I would come to understand this “phase” I thought I was going through.

At 16 I got my very first dose of the “I want to kill myself” bug. It literally came out of nowhere and hit me like a freight train. I wanted to believe again that it was all just a phase, and that THIS (whatever “this” was), was just me. This was just a part of the being I had become and there was no point trying to prove myself otherwise. I didn’t feel like there was much of anything I could do, because I then started to believe that this was normal.

This was when I started cutting myself almost every night, throwing up after every meal, barely eating anything, sleeping barely 5 hours a night, pulling my hair out, choking myself with belts, holding my breath underwater, scratching at my own skin, getting panic attacks, crying myself to sleep. This was when I was at my most low for the first time in my life. I had no idea what it was, I still believed that this was my life, this was who I was. This was my path, my “destiny” if you will.

I felt like I had lost all control, I felt like I was losing my mind, and literally in almost the whole sense of the word, I kind of did.

I lived the next 3 years of my college life in a haze, in the dream that I had created, more like the nightmare though.

In my 3rd year of college my depression came back with full force, I started feeling everything again, the “I want to kill myself” bug, the feelings of ants crawling under my skin, something in my chest which I would try my best to vomit out, even if I had eaten nothing that entire day, I would get 3–5 panic attacks in a week, seemingly triggered by nothing, I would hold my breath unconsciously, feeling this was my only way of gaining control in my life, I believed that everyone was talking behind my back every time I left a room, it made me want to pull my hair out again. It became so bad that by the end of the year our Department Chair; Mrs. M (I’ve referred to her before in a previous blog post) advised me to take a semester off, and that’s the reason for me still being in college, having not graduated with my batch mates.

It was only June last year that I was clinically diagnosed by a doctor that I do have Severe Depression.

Hearing these words didn’t hurt me as much as I thought it would. Instead they scared me.

All my life I had known something was different, or that something was wrong. I never put my finger down on depression because I had always assumed that everything I was feeling or going through was normal, that it was just me. And in some strange way, it really kind of was.

But I was scared because all my life I wanted to believe that I was perfect, like I told you before, being a perfectionist, that’s all I want in this life. How am I to be perfect with an illness?

Just recently my doctor tells me that my depression is biological, meaning there really is something wrong with the chemicals in my brain, aka I was just born this way (cue Lady Gaga!). Now I’m on two meds that are supposed to be helping with my panic disorder, anxiety disorder and my mood. Remembering to take them every night is such a pain in the neck, really.

Last semester all the Communication seniors had an individual project, where in we were supposed to create a whole marketing/advertising production for our chosen advocacy.

Of course my advocacy was about mental illness awareness and education.

Why you may ask? Why do I choose topics, or write blog posts talking so freely about something that should be so personal?

The truth is, this is how I become less afraid of it. If i just embrace it for what it is, an illness that around 350 million people in the world have, it doesn’t become so scary to me.

The more I talk about my meds and what I’m taking and why I’m taking them, I feel less like an alien and more like a person who’s just sick.

And that’s just it! I am sick, just like any person with diabetes, or heart problems, or whatever else. I take medicines just like any of those people do.

There’s always the misconception that if you have a mental illness you are automatically deemed as crazy. Just because a society doesn’t know how to comprehend or refuses to understand what something like depression really is then it is normal for them to label what the don’t understand incorrectly.

So why this post? Why this long post that might not be making sense anymore?

Well because its true. I’m a 20 year old female with recently clinically diagnosed Severe Depression, I have been living with it for 7–8 years, I have been on Escitalopram for my panic disorder and anxiety since June 2015, and am now currently on an adjunct med that is supposed to help with mood stabilization, I see my doctor once every month, I take my meds every night, I did an art show dedicated to depression, panic disorder, anxiety disorder and bi-polar disorder early this year, and despite all this I am still just a person.

Just a person trying to regain her bravery to face the world that often times seems cruel. Just a person trying to accept what life hands her gracefully and with a kinder heart.

I’m just a person wanting to make a difference at least in the slightest way possible. If anyone out there is reading this and has been affected by it positively, thank you for taking the time to read my truth. Thank you for allowing me into your heart for a few minutes of the day. Thank you for joining me in my momentary journey.

Again, I’m just a person, and I refuse to be scared. I refuse to lose courage again, and I refuse to have my life be consumed by something I often cannot control. But being this person, I want to start a movement of people who are no longer scared. Who are no longer afraid of the stigma our mental illness brings. Our mental illness is nothing compared to the real people underneath the skin of what mental illness has created.