Untitled.
I find myself continuously asking myself questions like “what’s the point?” and “why?” anymore. But this is only when I choose to break from taking my Lexapro. Because that’s what it is anyways, right? Just a break? Never will there come a time for me to feel happy enough to never take medication that will regulate my mood, which to me, is disgusting.
Why can I not control my own thoughts and feelings? I am forever feeling as if I cannot get a grip on my life, and it’s just defeating… And so damn exhausting. Anymore I just wonder if I will ever get back to how I ‘used to be’. Back before everything started to slowly fall apart, and then shatter so fast before my eyes that I didn’t even know what the hell hit me… Which is when I began to question everything about myself. Who I am, who I want to be, what mark I want to leave on the world, will I make a difference or just be yet another passing soul, brought to life only to be given to the dirt upon my death.
What’s funny is that I am still just continuously looking for the answers to all of my questions, which makes me laugh because my biggest question is “what’s the point?”. I am forever just going around in a big, ugly circle never-ending. But in all fairness, looking for the answers is what’s been keeping me alive; given me meaning. The lows I have felt… They are feelings that I would never wish on my worst enemy. Yes, I do wonder what the point is to almost everything in my life anymore, why I have to keep going through the motions when all it is doing is beating me down, down, so far down… That it’s pushed me to think such sad, somber thoughts… “Am I really doing anyone a favor?”.
Trying to pinpoint the time in my life where things got rough was easier than I though. I think the first time I realized that my life had hit such a low was my sophomore year of college. I was living in an off-campus house, and thought that I had all I needed, I had my best friend that I knew I could talk to about anything and my boyfriend who I could always count on, my first love. I will never forget it when he came over and ended everything though. I was blindsided; it felt as if someone had split me with a knife straight from my chest to my gut. I had never felt such raw pain in my life and was not in any way equipped to deal with it. I drove to my best friends dorm at Ohio State after he left that night and cried in her arms on the cold tile floor of the co-ed showers to the point of hysteria; she had given up on understanding my words through all of my sobs and sniffles long before I cried myself to sleep. Waking up the next morning was even worse. Everything was foggy and distant, and then all at once it hit me like a tidal wave, crushing me. Making it hard to breath. I couldn’t stop wondering what I should do next, why this pain was literally resonating from my chest, from my heart. I kept asking myself if this is what people meant when they say the word ‘heartbreak’, and I hated the fact that I could relate to it. You never plan for your world to be turned upside-down in an instant, at least it’s something I never did before. For weeks after, I cried myself to sleep. I skipped classes days at a time and became extremely distressed when thinking about having to get out of my bed and putting on a happy face to show the world that I was doing okay, even though everyone knew it was all just an act. I lost weight and became distant, bottled everything up inside myself around everyone but my best friend, with whom I shared every dark feeling with. I had begun to realized that I didn’t have much of an identity at my school because I had devoted so much time to the people I knew before starting my freshman year. I’m not sure if I thought that by having them, I wouldn’t need anyone in college or what, but it was flawed thinking for infinite reasons.
Looking back, I wish I wasn’t so stupid. Breathing that misery upon my best friend was the worst thing I could have ever done, and I hate that I did not see it back then. In the end, it was breaking her that sent me into my depression, not my heartache from ‘the one that got away’. It was near midnight and I was in my room in the basement of my off-campus house, and my mind refused to turn off. I kept asking myself “what’s the point?” and “why?”, tears streaming down my face. I called my best friend because I had crumbled. I told her that I didn’t want to continue living anymore, that I could find no reason for me to keep enduring so much pain, because I saw no end. I had the honest belief that I was doing no one any good by being a part of their lives. In turn, she involved my mother, which I hated her for at the time but now, could not be more thankful for. Her and I may not be friends any longer because of how far and hard I pushed her, but I owe her my life. She saved me, made me realize that depression is not something that will just go away in due time. It’s more than that, it is a mental illness. An imbalance in the brain that is treated successfully through therapy sessions and medicines. It is not something to be taken lightly or to be shrugged off.
I am starting to see that it’s all a learning process. Me, I am regretfully learning from my mistakes and trying to find where I fit in this world, trying to find my answers. I was raised as part of a relaxed Christian family. Taught that I should put my faith in God and he will lead me to salvation. But… Maybe what I really needed back then (and still now) was to focus on finding myself, and worrying less about acting as if everything was just fine so no one would ask me if I was doing alright.
I really do need to give my family the credit they deserve, however. Without them, there would be no question of if I would be here now, writing this. They have paid for my treatments, therapy session, doctor visits, and medication because all they want to do is see me be myself again. And damn it, if I could simply snap my fingers and give them that peace of mind… Absolutely nothing would make me happier.
Regardless, all I can do is continue my search. My never-ending quest for the answers. For contentment in my own body, to not feel pressure to be happy every waking second of my life. Like everything else in life, it’s a process, and I think what is really important to point out is that no one will find happiness in the same things, so searching in the same places as others will do you no good.
The best advice that I can ever give to someone going through this pain is something my mother shared with me. Seven words that have helped me in the past and continue to help me now, “take it a day at a time.” Hell, those words have gotten me this far, so putting my faith into them is better than nothing. As much as I hated myself when I first acknowledged my struggles, and sometimes even now when I choose to take breaks from my medicines and therapy, depression is real. It’s engulfing and sickening, and so real that it terrifies me to this day. But all I can do is take it a day at a time.
