I spent my whole life waiting to turn 21, and then this past May I turned 22. I grew up wishing every day away because I wasn’t happy and I believed that there was always some next step that would make my life a little bit better. There always seemed to be something worth waiting for.
Being 22 has been difficult for many reasons — I don’t have a job yet, my student loans are going to start up soon, and I’m stuck in the suburbs while most of my friends have new apartments in the city — But I’m hoping those things will change as time goes on.
Recently, I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve felt very… off. I use the word “off” because I think I’m having a hard time admitting to myself that I might be depressed.
I keep thinking back to before I turned 21 because I think I was happy then. I’m unsure because sometimes I read my old blog posts and my words beg to differ. But honestly, all I had to complain about were boys, so if that was my biggest issue, I must’ve been doing ok.
What I feel is much different now though, and that scares me. I grew up with pretty severe anxiety, but I didn’t know what was wrong with me until I made a friend in high school who felt the same way. He finally had a name for what I was feeling all of the time.
I’ve spent the last 5 or so years coming to terms with my hormone imbalance and that sometimes I can’t control it, no matter how badly I want to. Depression, on the other hand, is something I’m not sure I’m ready for yet.
The major issue is I’ve had anxiety my whole life, so that made it pretty easy to understand. My depression is new though, and I’m still trying to pin-point it to something else in my life because I still can’t understand why I feel this way. I should be happy. I want to be happy. But something is pulling me in the opposite direction.
I keep thinking it’s from my birth control, or I think it may be because I gained a lot of weight over the past year and a half. I’ve always struggled with my weight, but I’ve never been this heavy before. I’m starting to lose some of it now, but I think it’s going to be a while until I’m happy in my own skin again.
If I can lose the weight, find an alternative to the birth control, and start going to therapy, I might feel okay again. It’s not going to be easy, but I need to feel better. Hopefully I can make this my next step, and this is what I’m waiting for now.
