One creative’s wonky story of pursuing her passions while battling mental illness.
My depression began creeping into my life shortly after I got an IUD shoved through my cervix at 25 years old. It was around that same time I began collapsing into crying fits that lasted hours on end. I didn’t even know people could cry for three hours straight. And yes, I have experienced death and grief in my life that brought on heavy crying fits, but nothing as painful or numbing as a depressive episode. For me, such episodes trump grief in terms of debilitation.
Mental illness has a strong place in my family lineage, much of it undiagnosed. I grew up in an anxious household with a powerful body image obsession that deeply affected me. I’ve struggled with disordered eating since as early as fourth grade and anxiety from an even earlier age.
My anxiety got me into therapy at age fourteen. I held an irrational fear of going to bed each night because I’d convinced myself that one of my dad’s coworkers was going to break into my home and rape and murder me. But after six months of CBT my fears were crushed and I no longer needed a therapist.
However, when I went off to college in New York City, where I work post-graduation, the east coast pressure didn’t do much for my mentally ill prone self. I saw a therapist after I had a bed bug infestation, took laxatives and restricted my food intake, and eventually got on Lexipro at age 23 after having a panic attack because of some dirty dishes my roommate had left in the sink of my apartment.
I remember about six weeks into to taking Lexipro I was walking to brunch in Brooklyn during a torrential rain storm. My shoes were soaked, my wet jeans sticking to my thighs and I thought to myself “It’s okay that we will all die. It’s beautiful.”
It was one of the only times in my life I felt okay about death.
I then moved to Colorado and things shifted.
The slower pace of living settled me. The sun soothed me. I tapered off of Lexipro. I went a year without a therapist. And I dove deep into the health and wellness world. I swapped my east coast coffee and cigarette diet for a gluten and dairy free lifestyle filled with sweet potatoes and avocados. I gained some weight because I wasn’t walking everywhere and was recovering from my disordered past. I fell in love. Everything looked great from the outside.
But I started seeing a therapist again at age 25 because in Colorado I’d worked on a master’s degree that I felt disconnected from. I didn’t know who I was. I felt so lost, and scrolling through Instagram, admiring the lives of artists with hundreds of thousands of followers reinforced my anxiety around feeling lost and like I’d wasted time in a master’s program. Like I’d wasted time in college. Like I’d wasted my twenties.
On Instagram I saw 21 year olds showing their art in galleries, modeling for Vogue, publishing books, and I had a Master’s degree but had figured out I wanted to be a writer, and was now 26 without a twitter or a stint on any school newspaper or an internship from when I’d lived in NYC. I felt light years behind. So behind that catching up didn’t seem worth it. Seemed way too overwhelming.
I slowly opened up to my therapist about my dreams of becoming an artist. A creative. It was scary to admit I felt out of place in the roles I’d taken as an education major, a teacher, and a social work student. And she’d been a therapist with a PhD for thirty some years. She’d known what she wanted. Opening up about my passions and dreams that felt completely out of reach seemed insanely silly and stupid.
But she encouraged me. As did my partner and my friends. I got an internship at a city magazine in Denver. I began taking writing classes online and around Denver. I began painting and reading poetry. Things were looking up. For a bit.
Even then, I felt disconnected to the city magazine internship. The magazine catered to mountain-going, beer drinking Denverites. I was a quiet, introverted, fiction writer. The crying fits revved back up.
I trekked forward, though hitting more walls.
I submitted my manuscripts and poetry to tons of publications. None of my work was accepted.
My bank account dwindled.
My credit card maxed out.
I turned 27.
Another year gone.
Lost still, still seeing a therapist, I proceeded to get a job as a teacher. Back to where I’d started.
I started teaching a few weeks ago and now remember why I tried to switch careers. I want a creative life. An adventurous life.
The crying spills that had tipped over during my editorial internship, began violently flooding my life. Erupting me.
My brain kept telling me I was a failure. I’d wasted another year. Nothing mattered. I didn’t fit into the world. I should just go away.
I had thought that I’d beat my depression and anxiety by getting to go off Lexipro after my move to Colorado. I’d thought I’d beat my depression and anxiety through a holistic diet, pursuit of my passions, all the things that are supposed to make me feel better. All the things that the girls I follow and admire on Instagram have done. But depression kept knocking at the door to push me down into the darkest depths of myself. To the point that I no longer felt like sticking around.
And I’d tried everything I thought could work:
Running. The holistic diet. Sleeping. Meditating. Herbs. Praying to a higher power. Yoga. Instagram told me those things would work. My role models told me these things could help.
But alas here I am, perhaps conceiting defeat. Perhaps surrendering again to life, to my genetics, to my inability to control my thoughts alone like I so feel I’m supposed to be able to do.
I’m going on meds for my depression and anxiety so I can face life and continue to pursue my passions despite still feeling lost, confused, anxious, and like I want to run away from my life.
And I’m writing this article to perhaps connect with someone else who hasn’t had the perfect Instagrammable story. The story of changing your life to pursue your dreams where everything so perfectly falls into. Because sometimes shit gets in the way and the pieces don’t fit like you thought they should.
I’m not sure if I want to be on Lexapro for the rest of my life. But I am sure that I want to keep living, even though during my crying spells I wonder if living is worth it. Right now as I write this, I’m excited to feel better in my life. To continue to figure out myself and navigate the pursuit of my goals and my passions, and I know in order to do so I’ll be willingly taking a dose of some prescription that holds a heavy stigma.
