Marissa Comes Clean

For almost 7 years I've been battling with something that has only recently become the most common ailment among teenagers and adults. Depression.

It's hard to tell by just looking at me. The only physical features it displays are in my eyes, and even that, is too deep to notice just through a glance. Sure, I smile, I am outwardly seemingly happy. I laugh. And when I laugh, I mean it. Although my depression is constantly hanging over my head like one of those cartoon storm clouds, there are moments when, like most everyone else, I can experience happiness and pure and utter joy. Not everything is counteracted by my disease. I still feel things that are not dark, that are not heavy. But just not as often as I should, perhaps.

I've been on medication for it. I've tried each kind with the same outcome: silly side effects. They say something in not considered abnormal until it interferes with your everyday life and occupational functioning. These pills made me more abnormal than I abnormally am. I would shake, inability to maintain attention (and all types of sexual functions, talk about depression) insomnia or sleepiness (don't ask me how the two go hand in hand) amongst other things. I was up to about 100mgs a day and it wasn't pretty. I not only wasn't feeling better at all, I was beginning to become antisocial--spending days, literally days, on the bathroom floor or in my bed, unable to move. I finally ditched the pills when I ditched the whole therapy sessions on Tuesdays.

It became so bad one year I hospitalized. And the part I don't understand is why when I was in the hospital, I felt like I had hope--not necessarily to get better, but I was just happy. Happy to be there, and that's not something you hear too often. As all my newfound friends in the children's psych ward were trying desperately to escape (think crawling through cieling tiles...) I was reveling in the utter joy I felt just by being there. It was like my pain was no longer my own. I could take some of the weights off my shoulders now and share it with the different people there. It was almost like I didn't want to get better. I wanted to stay there, shielded from the outside world, protected by my steel shell from the torture of life.

No one thing brought the depression on. I didn't wake up one day and say "Wow. I really don't feel well. I think I am going to drag this knife across my wrists." It was nothing like that. It was like building a sand castle. I took time and patience and alot of sand. Each grain of sand was another ounce of my unhappiness. Over time, that amounted to alot and it kept getting heavier, and so did I. I didn't experience any emotional or physical abuse growing up, I didn't fight uncontrollably with my parents. This just goes to show that depression can happen to anyone. And it landed on me, full force.

I've had a few people along the way help me with this. There were suicide scares that would make a friend go to the school counselors, or to my parents...and then there was me. When it gets bad, I know what I have to do. It's scary, but if I want to stay alive to see how everything works out, I need to take care of myself. I've learned you can't count on everyone else to pull you out of the hole you have dug yourself, you have to pull yourself out. And I'm far from getting out, still, even after years and years of fighting it.

I have used this illness as an excuse at some points in my life. And I find myself using it alot more lately for reasons I can't explain. My hopelessness and lack of motivation are justifications of why I can't conquer the world or why I can't get out of bed. And it gets really hard. It's hard to exist for yourself when the pressures from everyone else can seem so demanding. I'm trying to be selfless, and it is misconstrued as selfish. I am not a selfish person. Sometimes I don't know why I just don't feel good. Sometimes I just want to cry for no reason, and at other times, I have a good reason to. Because I am depressed.

I feel like there is no way out. That there is no cure for this. No cure from me. I am my own worst enemy. I am my own personal demon that attacks every ounce of happiness and sanity in me. And that's what I am trying escape. And it's not easy.

Those times when it got really bad I would open my window and stare out into the sky. And the idea of sky was incomprehensible to me, as was death and I was never scared by it. I was lured into it, entranced by the unfamiliarity of it. But over time and after a few too many scares, death became real and it became scary and I knew, that's not how I wanted to live.

Being young and depressed is the source for much ridicule. There are so many cases where someone "cuts" themselves for attention purposes only. (I emphasize "cuts" that way to demonstrate "surface scratches" for outward appearances only) I cut. And I cut deep. I wanted to scar, I wanted the outward criss-crossed abrasions to be noticeable on my ankles and wrists so that I could always be reminded when I was happy, that I was unhappy. And thats what I see now when I look down at my marred skin.

I will never be able to put this behind me as long as I have those constant reminders staring back at me with thier ugly eyes. And right now, my biggest fear is the above mentioned. That I will never be able to move past this and get on with any type of living without the continual storm cloud raining on my parade.

That's it for now.