Step One:

Be depressed. This is the most important step of the process and it can be done a number of ways. You could have some unpleasant circumstances; something bad may have happened to you, it could be clinical, etc. Clinical depression typically happens because it runs in your family, one of your parents or grandparents had it and it just got passed down to you. Or it could be specifically yours and nobody else in your family has the problem. It’s really just an imbalance of the chemicals in your brain. Let’s say you’re feeling pretty down for a long period of time, and you’re in 6th grade. You’re giving your parents attitude, you’re not finishing your homework, it’s a chore just to get out of bed, and none of your friends really want to hang out with you because you’re bringing down everybody else. So you distance yourself, you close yourself off from everybody. You don’t even have an answer for “What’s wrong?” anymore. Most of the time you say “I’m just tired” and that’s not a lie but it’s not the full truth either. Even you don’t know what’s wrong. Of course your family thinks you’re just being a ‘typical teenager’ and of course you’re going to believe them. People will tell you to get over it. It’s just a phase and you’ll grow out of it and blossom into the flower you know you are.

Step Two:

Be very depressed. Before you can get better you have to get worse, right? You think that’s how that mantra goes. So after you get into this hole that you’ve dug for yourself, just keep digging. It’ll be around sophomore year of high school that it all seems pretty pointless. Your classes are too hard, your parents are mentally abusive, even the friends you’ve managed to keep around are tired of hearing your sob stories. You’re dating a person of the opposite sex but the problem is you’re really gay and it would be dangerous to come out to these people or your family. Of course, everybody has problems, you know better than to strut around telling people about your problems because they just get annoyed. So you keep it to yourself. It manifests into this ugly thing that eats at you from the inside with things like “You’re not good enough,” and “Nobody likes you,” and “You’ll never amount to anything.” The biggest issue is that you don’t know you’re depressed. You don’t know that this fog that’s clouding your life is actually a serious problem in your head. You think you’re just sad. You told yourself your whole life you would never be one of those people that gets depressed and has those kinds of problems. Because you’re a straight-A student; You’re smart, you’re creative, and everybody tells you that they know you can do great. But what happens when it gets into your head that you are smart and you can do things but then you start getting bad grades on assignments, then your projects start getting semi-okay grades instead of fantastic ones? That’s when the stress and self-doubt sets in. But these are just problems every teenager has so there’s no reason to talk to anybody about it or to complain about it. Nobody wants to hear about your problems.

Step Three:

Find an alternative solution to end the depression. It’s nearing the end of sophomore year and things really haven’t changed much. Except that you’ve gone from a straight-A student to a C student. You now don’t have any friends. You haven’t eaten more than a bite here or there in a few weeks. You wear over-sized clothing to hide how unnaturally skinny you’ve gotten and sleeping isn’t really all that important anymore. Your family has gotten so sick of your attitude and the way you treat your siblings that they don’t bother asking if you want to go out to family functions anymore. So, you’ve made the decision. You’re going to get over whatever this is. Nobody wants you around when you’re like this, nothing about your life really matters anymore. You recently read Girl, Interrupted so you know that it doesn’t take much more than a few pills to get better. But you’ve got to time it carefully. You wait until your family isn’t home and slowly creep out of the den you’ve come to calling your bedroom. Your family keeps the pain pills in a cabinet over the sink in the kitchen. How many will it take? 20? 30? Let’s just be safe and go with 40. Except there are only 36 pills left in the bottle. That’ll have to do.

Long story short, your family comes home earlier than expected, finds you, you’re rushed to the hospital and shortly after getting your stomach pumped you are admitted to a Behavioral Institute for troubled adolescents. You spend 9 weeks and 3 days there. During that time, you are diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Anxiety. The doctors and psychiatrists pump you full of a plethora of different anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, anxiety drugs, etc. So many different things with names like Welbutrin, Bupropian, Mirazipine, and something with an X that you can’t quite remember. That whole period of time is kind of a haze now. You remember white walls, blank faces, the smell of latex and cleaning solution, uncomfortable beds, rough cotton that made your arms itch, and bland, cardboard-like food. You remember being force-fed at least twice. Pulled out of bed and dressed by other people several times. You were watched when you showered, but they at least gave you the decency to just stand outside the stall when you had to relieve yourself.

When you got out, you were like brand new. You had filled out a little bit, gained at least 15 pounds, there was color to your cheeks, and you had three shiny new orange bottles with about 50 glistening pills inside each. Your parents told your siblings that you had gone to a place where sad people go so they can be happy again. It was the times when you got mail from your siblings that said things like “We love you” and “We miss you” and “We hope you get happy again” with silly little drawings that only an 8 year old could master that would bring you out of your own head even if only briefly. Those little moments that touched your heart so deeply that all you could do was sit on the cold tile floor of your room that locked from the outside and look at the zip-ties that held your shoes together because they took your laces away, and just cry. You would remember that you’re the oldest, these two people look up to you. You’re supposed to show them what being happy looks like, show them wrong from right, show them that you are a caring, loving, compassionate person. Because you do love them. It might not be obvious with how mean you are sometimes, but you do love them. And they love you.

Step Four:

Find the real cure. When you turn 18, and you graduate high school, you decide to move in with your mother across the country. Of course you love your father, your stepmother, your siblings, but it would be nice to have a change of scenery. Your mother is overjoyed at the prospect of having you live with her. When you get there you get a job, you start looking at colleges, you find a new counselor and a new psychiatrist, and things are really going well.

This is when you learn that the problems you’ve been having your whole life aren’t only yours. It’s not just some anomaly that you can’t be happy on your own. Turns out, depression and bipolar disorder runs through your mother’s side of the family. She has depression and bipolar disorder, her mother had depression, her father had bipolar disorder, and on and on through the entire family tree on your mother’s side. Of course you had never known this. You’ve been living with your father your whole life, and his family doesn’t have any of those problems. So now you have a reason. Even though you know it will never really go away, but it can be controlled.

Okay so maybe there isn’t really a cure. There isn’t a simple way of getting over it. Some days are worse than others but you can learn to live with it. When somebody says they love you, realize that that is their way of thanking you for being alive. Take a second to notice how beautiful the world is. Appreciate that now that you’re older you can live however you choose. You can date whoever you want and not a single soul can stop you. Take care of your body, it might be an overused saying, but it’s the only one you have. Put your all into the things you do because it matters. And if there is a day every now and then that all you can do is lay in bed and cry then so be it. Crying is good for you. Talk to people, care about people, and be thankful that your parents came home early that day so long ago.