And God said—on the manmade date of October 17, 1995—“Let this girl lead a wonderful and happy life, but suffer depression."
And so, she did.
It’s the silliest way to phrase it, but yes. Something in me (and studies say 25 percent of the entire Generation Z population) determined a long time ago just how my own mind was going to handle the world around me. Blame the schools for stacking homework up to the point where we didn’t have time to read for pleasure anymore (professionals suggest bookworms are the happiest children around), blame computers for using up the free time we had, blame social media for never giving us a moment’s rest from social interaction of some degree, blame instant gratification—blame war, hunger, minimum wage, Trump’s presidential campaign.
Blame anything you want, but one out of four people in the generation of children born—and many people disagree on this, so the years are wide—somewhere between the early-mid 90’s (most popular vote seems to say 1995) and current time suffer from mental illness. That is before factoring in the fact that the “Millennial Cohort” (which includes Generation Y/Gen Next, year's 1975-199[0-5]), generally suffers the worst suicide rates of many generations before us. Commonality of suicide occurrence upped a full 30 percent between the years of 1975 and 1999.
Those are the decided facts by professionals in several fields, and that is why it’s maybe just a little more important for our generation, known for our understanding and acceptance of “different," to come to an understanding about just how mental illness affects a person. I want to preface this with the fact that I am not shy about mental illness, it’s something that I live with and that I feel strongly about people having an understanding of. That said, mine is just one story, it is not my place to share the stories of others. Mine might be different from yours, and that’s okay. Neither of us are experiencing it wrong, it doesn’t lessen its value or effect on our lives—it’s just a situational difference like you see in any other illness.
If you didn’t catch it in the silly and somewhat tastelessly sarcastic introduction, I largely suffer from depression. I’m fairly new to the diagnosis, I’m definitely new to the concept of medication, but I’m not new to the idea of it or to general, non-medicated treatment. I’m going to let you in on another little “secret” (I’m about to sound like a 12-year-old), that I often use to explain to my friends now in order that they may better understand what is happening.
Suffering depression, for me, is like being as close to existing as a werewolf as the real world can allow. There are “Shea”/“normal” thoughts and actions (me during the genuine periods of time where I am almost entirely myself), and there are “wolf”/“illness” thoughts and actions (the ones my illness brings on that medication can normally bring to the background).
Before I started medication, I suffered a depressive episode that lasted almost a year and a half. I had never experienced anything even close to what I was experiencing at that time, in terms of mental health, and it was scarier because I couldn’t separate my thoughts as “Shea” and “wolf." I couldn’t be scared of myself or for myself in the slightest because the “wolf” was the only thing I understood to be real feeling and real thought process. If it said to jump off of a bridge, I was going to do it.
Fast forward to when I started medication—a little over a year in. My therapist suggested I try seeing a psychiatrist (for those of you unfamiliar with the two terms, a therapist is someone that can help you deal with just about anything in your life by discussing it with you and helping you understand why you feel how you do, a psychiatrist is a doctor who can prescribe one medication--they work best for me as a pair, others may feel differently) and see what they said. At the time, I was firmly against medication and really didn’t believe there was any remote truth to it working. My mom convinced me, of course because she was worried, to try it at the least. The mistake is, and my psychiatrist promptly warned me about it, anti-depressants aren’t “happy pills," they do the job to help aid you in handling your illness. They do not make it disappear. It took about a month or two for me to see the difference then, but it was there. I have this obvious, personal symptom, I’ve learned, where I can start uncontrollably crying (picture your stigmatized stereotype of a depressed person and I’d match it in this case), for periods of time with no immediate stressor. I can’t take it and I just break down, but I don’t know why, and—during my time before medication—it seemed totally normal and rational to be crying uncontrollably for no reason almost every day. The difference with medication became noticeable when I started crying, like so many times before, and suddenly it wasn’t normal. “Shea” was thinking, “Well this is absolutely absurd and irrational,” but “wolf” was totally into the crying, feeling it to the utmost, and half the problem was that I no longer had “wolf” actually in my mind. It was the physical urge to cry, but only “Shea” was there.
I would be unable to wake up in the morning, but I would be there saying to myself, “Shea, you have to,” and eventually everything picked up. I got taken off my medication and I was fine in the sense that I could now help myself without the aid of a pill that helped me distinguish myself from the illness inside. Finding that distinction has absolutely driven me crazier since.
Only four or five months after I was taken off my medication, I relapsed. Only this time, I went into it knowing the difference between the “normal” and “illness” behavior, but the “illness” still managed to take over. I’m fortunate to have loving friends and family, be in a good school, have the opportunity to willingly work two jobs that I adore, the list goes on. These are things I know to be true, and they were floating in the back of my mind with “normal” and “illness” still jumped to the front.
“Illness” asks a lot of questions and makes a lot of decisions. “Do I love my jobs?” “Do I want to even wake up right now?” “Cry now, you can’t handle this day even though you just woke up.” “Is it even worth going to class when I’m too stupid to contribute anything?” “Does anyone care about me, let alone love me?” “You should probably just do something harmful because that will fix this. It will fix it.” “Do I text someone that I need help or should I post about it and see if someone helps me?” “Don’t go to class. You need to sleep 14 hours and then stay up all night.” “Do I just keep pretending I’m fine?” To me, and maybe others, it’s like a commercial for antidepressants come to life with a vengeance.
And the conflict of having been let in on the secret, through medication, that my illness didn’t really control me—it was just an illness and I was still Shea—I went insane. My mother would tell me she loved me and I wouldn’t understand it because my illness couldn’t let that process, so her words would come through as hollow and empty, but then “Shea” is living underneath all of that and I know she’s there, so I would try to make myself accept the love and know I was loved and keep my illness quiet—but I couldn’t control it. A friend might, misguidedly but with the best intention, tell me to just be happy and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t find the energy to go outside for coffee with them, I’d rather sleep. “Shea” wanted to go so badly. I know I wasn’t the least bit tired, but my depression would put me back to bed, tuck me in and turn out the lights.
Those are the two most important things to learn, as an outsider looking in on a friend.
1. They, probably, know you love them and care for them. If they have said something about nobody caring, the world being better off without them, anything like that—if they have been as fortunate as I have to experience love (and I hope they have), they do probably deep-down know that people do care, that you care. They probably just can’t access that right then and there, it isn’t something they can understand. I know I can only understand what’s real to me when I get like that, and what’s real in that case is entirely dictated by my illness.
2. We are not our illness, but our illness isn’t us either. Think werewolves. We act of ourselves in our right state of mind (human), or we do not act in our right state of mind (wolf). Sometimes, one gets the better of us and it is sometimes the ill, wrong state of mind that we act from. If you have a friend suffering depression and you fear they are in a mental state where they might harm themselves (but note that depression is not the only illness that may cause self injury), get them immediate help. No one can always, in every instance, save themselves from their illness, but you might not be able to help them best their illness in that moment either. They will appreciate, in the long run, that you did what you were able to do and got them the help they needed, whether that be an RA, a medical professional, their parent or the suicide hotline.
I know many people have shared their stories before. I know mine is different than some, similar to others, and that what I understand and experience might not be what someone else does. I think, in the long run, this just helps contribute an understanding of the 25 percent of our generation so that peers of the 25 percent or 75 percent both have a wider knowledge of how some illnesses that they or a loved one might have is different than it may seem from the outside, or just generally different for other people outside and inside. Like I said, I am not shy about my illness because I have been raised in such a wonderful family and have such supportive friends and I hope this contributes to the slow-but-sure movement towards destigmatization of mental illness and disability.
If you need someone willing to listen, so many of us are always here with open ears and hearts ready to hear you. Know that, while the experience and feelings may differ, you are not alone. I encourage you all to, if you are ever comfortable, to take the time and share your own story of experience with mental illness, whether you be the friend or family member of someone, or experiencing it yourself. The more voices, the better understanding we can create and understanding is the one thing that can conquer fear and stigma.
