Finding the words
Before
Robin Williams’s death was probably the first major time I was introduced to the concept of suicide. Before that, I knew what it was and I knew that it was a thing, but it hadn’t really come up in my life before. August 2014 (when he died) was the summer before 7th grade for me, so I was still relatively young back then — 12 years old. I knew who Robin Williams was; I knew that he was a famous actor and thus had a pretty great life in a materialistic sense. After his suicide I found out a little more about him, mainly that he was a very good comdian and just in general a funny person. I remember thinking it was so confusing and just downright sad that such a seemingly happy person would take their own life. I found out he had depression, and was told a little bit more about what exactly that meant. I didn’t know a lot about mental illnesses at this point; they just sort of briefly covered them in health every year of middle school, and I had only had one year of that, so my knowledge was very superficial. After being told more about depression during a conversation about Robin Williams, I had this thought in the back of my mind: “What if I have depression?” I don’t think I truly believed it at that point, but it was sort of the first time that I had considered it possible; I had a good life and didn’t think there was any true reason for me to be sad.
After this event the concept of depression became more present in my life simply because I was getting older. I also found myself becoming interested in the concept. During health when we were allowed to choose our topic for a presentation, I decided to pick depression so that I could learn more about it. Fast forward to 8th grade, I found myself truly thinking I might have depression. After researching it I felt like I had a lot of the symptoms, and to an extent I just had this gut feeling. But I pushed it away. I told myself I was just being a hypochondriac and that nothing was actually wrong. At one point my mom actually brought up depression; she had noticed that I was seeming sad a lot lately, and asked me if I thought I was depressed. I said no.
During
A few years passed and then came sophomore year. Things got pretty bad. For the majority of the grade I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t tell my parents. I had a few friends who knew I was having a hard time, but I kept telling myself I was overreacting and making something out of nothing. I told myself I didn’t actually have depression, that everyone had rough times. During this really low period of my life I turned to music for help. Sad songs allowed me to release some of my sadness. I didn’t really know what was going on in my life or my brain, and somehow listening to sad music helped me feel like I had some clarity. It allowed me to immerse myself in the feeling of sadness, and I could find lyrics that I related to when I couldn’t articulate things on my own.
These are 3 songs that I don’t listen to anymore. They really helped me at the time, but now I just associate them with that block of my life and I just can’t listen to them. I still have them on some of my playlists and every so often they come up when I’m listening on shuffle but I always skip them.
After
I still listen to sad music; it’s probably the “genre” I listen to the most. I have this playlist, which I named “Oof” because it seemed most representative of what my emotions were. It has all sorts of types of sad music.
I read this book, which is hard to summarize, but it has a lot of really good information. It has personal experiences of the author, as well as advice for how to help people with mental illnesses. I highly recommend reading it.
Sometimes going through and reading things like the above is actually helpful. I think it is a similar concept to what I mentioned before; reading things that you relate with somehow helps. I have a lot of screenshots of things like these.
I’ve also written some poems to try and better understand my feelings. I think this was the very first one that I wrote. My mom found it — she said it was really good but so sad.
Summary
All of these things have helped me to understand myself better. Mental illness is very confusing. It’s been over 2 years since I was diagnosed and I still don’t fully understand myself. Having these outside sources can be really helpful. I can read or hear these things that I agree with and they work as puzzle pieces that come together to explain what my own personal internal experience is. The problem is, I don’t know if the puzzle has a defined shape.
Outside Sources (that aren’t linked above)
Haig, Matt. Reasons to Stay Alive. 2015
