Introduction to Myself

Well… Hi. I just joined and I thought an introduction to myself might be a good idea so anybody commenting or replying to my posts would understand some of the circumstances and viewpoints of the person they are talking to.

I am pretty young, younger than probably most of the the people on here, but I have definitely met younger in situations similar to mine (as far as the whole depression thing goes). I am 14, my birthday is after the school year starts but before the new year so I am among the youngest of my class.

I am going into sophomore year in an IB program (students graduate with an international baccalaureate diploma). It is ranked the ninth most highly regarded public school in the United States by business insider. My first year of high school was completed with a 4.0 which is the highest you can get because our classes are not AP, and are therefore unweighted. I like to keep my options open and have always been academically successful. In middle school a I got all As and in eighth grade, my lowest class grade was a 98%. I played sports ; softball, basketball, swimming, and track. I also danced for a while too. I had a life plan, I had drive, and cared about who I was and who I was going to become.

For most of my life, that actually was the kind of person I was. It sounds pretty good and it felt pretty good. I found appreciation in so many things. Helping others felt good. Looking around filled me with joy. I loved to draw and tend to my garden, and school was enjoyable too.

In seventh grade I started to notice a decline in my mood. It seemed pretty normal. It was just a phase and would blow over soon. I didn’t really think anything of it. In the later half of eighth grade though, I noticed it more. I didn’t like school at all. I found it really boring. I decided not to study for any of my finals because I knew I could bomb them and still get As in all of my classes. Just passing by was all I cared about. I didn’t want to screw up my future but I didn’t try to go above expectations and try hard like I used to. Ninth grade was when my emotional downhill got a whole lot steeper. The summer between 8th and 9th I did club swim which was two hours of practice from 7:00-9:00 am and we also had two hours of practice in the afternoon (sometimes practices went longer if there was land practice). Sports had always been more of a recreational thing for me since most of my time and effort went toward education, but club swim just tired me out. One day one of the coaches was helping me perfect my flip turns and told me it seemed like I didn’t even care when I was not understanding one of the movements. Of course I cared about swim if I dedicated 4+ hours of my day during the summer to it. It really hurt me though. I felt more anxiety when I went there every morning. Started skipping more practices, and I decided not to swim for my high school that year. But even though the swim situation was upsetting, it still wasn’t the worst. I knew I was just being overly sensitive. Most people would have just moved on that day.

That school year, compared to my others was one of my worst. My work ethic sunk down to hardly anything. I only studied last minute, and procrastinated even more than usual. Yes, all of my semester grades ended up being As, but on some of my progress reports I had an A-. Once in math and once in biology, which are classes I typically excel at. That year I felt like a zombie. I was dead inside but somehow my legs still moved. I skipped so many school days because I was not going to get out of bed. I slept ALL the time. I cried every night, couldn’t fall asleep at my moms house because I felt so anxious around people, I did everything I could to avoid them. I slept on the couch whenever I was there so I wouldn’t wake up my stepsister (who I shared a room with) while I cried. Usually my crying was pretty much silent anyway though. I don’t know if it is a common thing to do… But you know those times when you scream but it sounds between a whisper and a wince. That is what I did a lot. I though about killing myself all the time. I wondered what was the point of living if I already feel dead. I am just going through the motions of life and it is draining. It is not bringing me joy. I am not even living for myself. I am living because 1. I can’t get my hands on a gun 2. Because my family would be heartbroken.

I know that they care about me and would be devastated if the lost their daughter but I didn’t feel like I owed it to them to live. I shouldn’t feel like I have to live for anyone else other than myself. After all, it is my life. I should be able to do what I want with it.

In a nutshell, during the day I was a careless, thoughtless, apathetic zombie. And at night I was a suicidal basket case.

I distanced myself from everybody. I stopped talking to my mom (we used to have a really close relationship). I completely ignored my step family, and for about a week I refused to speak to my stepdad.

All the symptoms of depression were present. The apathy was obvious, my mom was concerned because I thought killing babies was okay (after doing some research I decided that it might be more humane to kill a fetus that has not yet developed a nervous system). But that was all anybody ever really noticed. I knew I was depressed but not 100% positive because I hadn’t been diagnosed yet. In my health class our unit on mental health included a section on depression and I silently cried that whole class because it only confirmed what I had thought before. I was thinking about killing myself all the time. I devised a plan, but before I acted upon it, I decided that I would at least getting some help for a little bit. My parents were surprised when I finally asked for a therapist. I just told them I wanted someone I could talk to, but for about 2/3 months they ignored my request. I asked them a couple more times until finally, I had an appointment.

Just to give you a fair warning: if you are thinking about going to therapy or have just started, if you tell them your plan for killing yourself, they WILL send you so a psych hospital and are required to do so by law. I’m not saying don’t tell them, but if you do, that will be the consequence. They have written in their confidentiality forms that they are only allowed to break confidentiality if you are thought to likely hurt yourself or others. I did read this in the forms, but it slipped my mind when I told her. I thought the worst she could do was ask me not to, right? Wrong. They will find a way to force you not to, at least for a little while. To be honest, the experience with my therapist was a total waste of time. I went to the psych hospital twice and was told to go back four days after a previous hospitalization. I just don’t know who knows how to help me. I was never raped. My parents were not abusive. I have never tried drugs. I could have a great future ahead of me if I wanted it. But I don’t.

Since my parents only found out about my suicidal ideation after my first hospital visit they decided to drug me. I have to take Prozac, Buspar, Wellbutrin, and Lamectol. I feel like an old lady with all the pills I take. At first I thought the pills would help, but it has been six months and they should DEFINITELY be kicking in by now. Now, I am just confused because I don’t know what thoughts are actually ME and what are the pills. I have asked my parents if I could stop them, but they say I should at least take them for another year. I thought the medication and therapy would help me get back to my old self but it hasn’t and now I don’t even know what is me anymore. I don’t care if I end up killing myself in the process. If I am going to live or die, I want to mentally be me, not some drugged up version of my brain.

I know all the doctors say that suddenly stopping your medication will have very negative effects. I don’t exactly know what those effects are, I haven’t researched them, but doctors, parents, family seem to think that wanting to kill yourself of seeking sad or desperate is a bad thing. I disagree. I like having those feeling more than I like having none. One time in November I had an economics test. I didn’t feel very confident about my performance ability for it, and the night before I was nervous and couldn’t fall asleep. I was so HAPPY about actually feeling nervous (typically viewed as an undesirable emotion) that I started crying tears of JOY. That was the last time I remember feeling genuinely happy, without the diagnosis of depression looming around my head.