When I was a little girl, I dreamt of adolescence and adulthood being the happiest time of my life. Unfortunately, it proved to not only be the joyous start of life, but was almost the end, too. I used to imagine myself happier than could be in a world where sadness and mental illness were just words, however when you're that young, depression doesn't really exist yet for you. Sure, you'd get a little sad when something didn't go your way, but depression was a foreign concept.
As I went into 10th grade, I was used to thinking, "am I actually sick?" I'd only ever seen depression as a lonely girl who had endured horrible things during her childhood, maybe a survivor of sexual assault or abuse. I never thought it would also be one of the happier kids whose childhood wasn't anything out of the ordinary. I often found myself confused as I had no idea what was wrong with me, or if I simply was imagining if anything was wrong with me at all. No one I knew of felt like I did, surely I was just feeling what everyone else was feeling... right?
At the beginning of 11th grade, I returned back to high school with tattered arms from self-harm, and a seemingly sporadic attendance record due to an impulsive decision to down an entire bottle of ibuprofen.
The thing with depression is that it changes who you are as a person and can make you rationalize things you had never dreamed of doing previously. I had never dreamed that at 15 I would attempt to end my own life, or that I would ever engage in any self-destructive behavior— yet it had brought me to a dark place, where causing myself any harm and tearing apart my own skin was a daily struggle.
My depression had taken me from not thinking anything was actually wrong with me at all, to knowing the absolute ins and outs of the disease and its symptoms. However, I never took the steps to seek help from anyone, and never talked to anyone about it.
It took me years to accept what I was feeling, and it took me a few more to engage in conversation about it. I was desperate to be happy again, but I could never bring myself to actually seek any sort of help. This was incredibly out of character for me. If there was a problem, I would fix it; not wallow in it and watch myself fall further than rock bottom. It was as if someone else had taken control of my body, and I was watching as they destroyed it while I was screaming to get out. As many times as half of me would think about talking to someone, the other half of me would box the idea shut and hide it away.
It was like a darker form of myself, whom only wanted to see my mind and body burn while I sat by and watched. I had gone from a happy girl to being unable to cope with everyday life in a matter of months.
Fortunately, I managed to keep my depression at bay until a few years after high school; where it took its darkest and truest form yet.
My self-harm had gotten to the point where it now needed staples and stitches, and my suicide attempt had gotten me hospitalized and almost in heart failure. Even when I thought I wanted life to end when I was 15, it couldn't compare to the desire to truly leave this earth, now.
My depression came in waves, taking more and more of my identity with it each time. I only realized who I was before my depression, until I was lying in the shreds of myself.
I have no idea why it took me this long to realize how far I've come, but I'm determined to become better than who I once was. Mental illness has its way of eating away at you until you are no longer yourself, and most often it will change who you are into someone you do not want to be. I never wanted to carry scars of my battle with myself. I never would've imagined my death could have been my own doing.
Nevertheless, I'm here now and its time to box up my darker self. I will overcome, and no matter what my depression did to me; I will become better than I could've been without it.
