My Journey Through Mental Health
My story begins at a time where I thought that my life was going alright. It never dawned on me that I would ever spiral into a dark hole filled with bad thoughts and decisions.
I always pictured myself as being a productive member of society. I envisioned myself going to college and getting a degree. I saw a stable job and income to be included in my future. Purchasing a house would’ve been my next step. Starting a family of my own would have completed my goal of being a “normal” person.
What is “normal”? How do we define it? I always saw “normal” as being a healthy and happy person. There wouldn’t be any worries about living situations or income. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and caring for one’s self seems to be an important factor in being “normal” too. In reality, there is no official “normal”. Everyone has their own version of it. It’s based on how you make it out to be. Your decisions impact how your “normal” will be created.
Unfortunately, I didn’t do a great job at creating a great “normal” for myself. Unhealthy decisions and actions were made that would impact me for the rest of my life. Every day seemed like another step into this dark hole. On some days, it seemed like it was a flight of stairs leading further into it. I felt lost. I was confused. I was scared. I needed help.
Branching out for help was one of the biggest decisions I’ve ever made in my life. My “normal” seemed like how life just was. This is what I was used to. I thought that everyone had the same kind of life like I did. I thought everyone’s parents argued every single day. Are other people ever scared to stand up for themselves? Do others feel like they are being controlled by a stronger force? Do my friends also hate how their bodies look? I had no idea how different everyone’s lives were. I had so many questions that needed to be answered. This was only the beginning of my journey.
My journey began in the summer of 2006. I was a tall and slim ten year old. Rollerblading and biking were two of my favorite things to do outside. I joined my sister and her friend while they were rollerblading outside in the street. We were having so much fun. A little while later, my sister’s friend made a comment to me that would change who I am today. She stated, “I’ve never seen someone with thicker legs rollerblade before!” I was so confused. Did I really have thick legs? I knew that my body was changing and beginning to distribute fat to different places, but was I really becoming fatter? I went into the bathroom and examined my legs. From then on when I would see myself in the mirror, I would remind myself over and over again that it was muscle and not fat. Welcome to the world of body image issues, where your brain constantly lies to you when you look in the mirror.
I was finally old enough for my parents to let me be more independent. My friends and I would bike around the neighborhood because we thought we were badasses for not having our parents with us. I would ride my little purple Bratz scooter four blocks away to my best friend’s house. We were inseparable. I was so happy to finally have a friend that didn’t make fun of me.
Unfortunately she ended up moving away to a town that was a bit far from where I was. We promised to call each other everyday. Time passed and I hadn’t heard from her in a little over a week. I didn’t think much of it. She was probably just getting used to her new house and new school. I would call everyday, and everyday her parents would answer and say that she couldn’t come to the phone right now. It was either that or their voicemail machine would answer the call for me. Either way, I was beginning to wonder why she was so busy.
Weeks passed and I still wasn’t able to talk to her. My mom kept trying to convince me to let her go because I would find “new friends” to talk to. I didn’t want new friends. I wanted my best friend. We did everything together. She was the only friend that I actually trusted to bring back my Barbie dolls when I let her borrow them.
My family and I would go camping every summer. We went to so many different campgrounds and make many memories to look back on. It was the middle of July and we were getting ready to drive down to the annual city get together and watch the biggest fireworks show I had ever seen.
I wanted to try and call my best friend one more time. I asked to borrow my mom’s cell phone. She told me that if her parents stated that she couldn’t come to the phone again, she would talk to them. The phone rang….and rang….and rang. Eventually her dad answered. It was the same excuse. She couldn’t come to the phone right now. I gave the phone to my mom in hopes of finding out what was going on. My mom chatted with him for around ten minutes. She hung up and sat next to me. I knew something was up, and it wasn’t what I was hoping for.
My mom explained to me that my best friend told her dad that she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore since she had moved too far away. I was so upset. After being so close to someone for almost my entire elementary experience, she turned around and left. I stopped calling. I didn’t want to go into the fifth grade because my best friend wouldn’t be there. For the first time in my life, I had felt alone.
Life went on and I found new friends. Just as before, we would roam around the neighborhood on our bikes as if we owned the place. We would ride down to the local gas station where we would buy our candy cigarettes and pretend to smoke them at the park. We thought it was great. Months passed and I would eventually find out that these friends were not very nice. I was confused as to why they would lie to another friend and make them mad at me. We were like rival gangs, but in a not so intimidating child form.
The trust in my friends would slowly fade away. I had still not given the title of “best friend” to anyone since she left. I would always be afraid that they too would leave me. I was a very cautious eleven year old at this point and felt as if I couldn’t trust anybody. This would eventually lead me into many of my friends being lost. Anytime we would argue, I would assume it was my fault. I thought that I was always the bad one and the first one who needed to apologize, even if I didn’t do anything wrong. I still struggle with this, but I am slowly working on becoming stronger and standing up for myself.
Middle school was when the bullying took off like a rocket. My friends and I would argue just as we did in elementary, except we now had fancy iPods that were capable of messaging our other friends behind their backs. We were all guilty of it. It would eventually make our middle school years some of the roughest we had dealt with. I was pushed face first into a locker while I was grabbing my books for my next class, pushed in the hallway because my friends thought it was “funny” (even though I would sometimes get physically hurt by their actions). This became my “normal” for awhile.
The decisions I would make throughout the following three years would impact me for the rest of my life. In 2011, I started the tenth grade. By then I was already used to the school that I would spend the rest of my high school years in. I always tried to be part of the “popular crowd”. They would pick on people and put people down by the way they looked, so I did so as well because I wanted to finally be accepted into a larger friend group. Maybe these people wouldn’t make fun of me too. To my surprise, they did. This didn’t work out in my favor and I just looked like a complete asshole to everyone, the complete opposite of what I had wanted.
I felt like everything was out of my control. Friends came and left. My grades began to drop. I was eventually failing several classes on a regular basis. My mom wasn’t very happy about that. I felt like I was letting everyone down. I wasn’t in control of myself anymore. This is what made my depression make its presence known. It was ready to take over.
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