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"You never know how strong
you are until being strong is
the only choice you have." - Unknown
In today’s world people with psychiatric disorders are a dime a dozen. Okay, maybe not that severe! Although, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, “one quarter of adults are diagnosable for one or more disorders” (Kessler 617). Unfortunately I am that in four. I suffer from multiple types of mental disorders including depression and anxiety. Anxiety causes a constant worry that the worst is going to happen in every situation. For me personally it makes relaxing an almost impossible task. Depression on the other hand makes me incredibly weak and lethargic. It makes me hate every waking moment of my day until I sleep, which unfortunately having both anxiety and depression takes much longer than normal. It is ironic to me that one disease makes me only want to sleep, while the other keeps me awake until all hours of the night. I have found comfort in speaking to other people with a similar situation, such as my teenage cousin. She is going through a lot of what I went through when I was her age. It is sad to me that so many people do have to suffer through this. Eighteen percent, that’s almost forty million people suffer from some type of anxiety disorder (Kessler 617-627).
Thinking back to my childhood, when it first started, I wonder what came first, depression or anxiety. My guess is anxiety, my only reasoning behind that is when I was about younger I had a severe facial twitch. I was taken to the doctor and it was determined the twitching was caused by over stress and anxiety...I was six. I do believe a lot of my “issues” stem from my biological father abandoning my mom and I was she found out she was pregnant with me. As a kid I remember not knowing if I’d see him again after he would visit. See, my dad had this habit of showing up for a bit then not contacting me for years. That kind of abandonment and confusion certainly messed with my psyche. Growing up, let’s say between ten and twelve, I displaced my depression and anxiety as anger. Displacing it as anger made fight with everyone over nothing. I was just literally pissed off at everyone. I did not like anyone, not even myself.
That leads me to being twelve, where all the not so fun really began. With my family life kind of in order by having a new stepdad and my mom having my baby brother, it should have been a joyous time. Not when I was completely swallowed by my own depression. I hated school; I didn’t like my peers, hell I could hardly stand to be around myself. So I decided maybe I can just run away from all this. In my head I remember where I was going to go, what I was going to do, and what my life would become. I made it eight houses up the street and hung out with some neighbors friends. After a few hours I walked myself back home. I thought it was going to be like in the movies where parents are just glad you’re home and safe. Important life lesson number one: life is not a movie. I was grounded for a while which only jolted me deeper into my own manic force field of depression. At this time depression had a stronger grasp over me than anxiety. The strange part about having anxiety and depression is that when I look back to try to recollect certain memories, it comes back to me like a weird blurry fog. Come to find out many years later that this is actually common with these disorders. When a person becomes anxious the body releases adrenaline into the blood stream. Followed by that release is a discharge of the hormone cortisol. The two partner together for the flight or fight reaction. While adrenaline is a quick release and is rapidly pushed out of the blood stream, cortisol remains in the body for a much longer time. When cortisol reaches the brain, it disrupts the functions of neurotransmitters (Du J, Wang 3543). Since the neurotransmitters carry information from the brain to the designated destination, when they are disrupt the brain cannot sort information. This brain slowing process causes memory loss and awkward blank gazes while it sorts itself out. Imagine being so young with so many empty memories.
The memories were still a blur from when I was twelve until I was fourteen. I distinctly remember 14 for good and bad reasons. It was my years of high school…exciting right? No, not at all. I was at a new school and I didn’t know anyone. As if the overwhelming stress of my own demons wasn’t enough, now I had to deal with high school. To say the least, I did not handle it well. I hated school, my life, my family, and myself. I didn’t try to get good grades, to make friends, to socialize, I really just didn’t care about any. I didn’t think or care about my future. Honestly, I didn’t want one. I wanted nothing more than to escape my own living nightmare. So I tried, I tried to break out of my horror and end any chance I had to have a future. Needless to say, it was unsuccessful. I would not say I was relieved nor would I say I had an epiphany that I had purpose to be here. I was just angry at myself. Through high school I had a few friends, no one that really meant a whole lot to me that I couldn’t live without. If I didn’t even want to live with myself there was really no hope I’d have that feeling towards another person. I didn’t do the best at school, mostly because I didn’t care. I also didn’t do the high school “norm” of prom and dances and football games. I would rather stay home and try to figure out how I am going to handle my life.
After I graduated high school I moved out, on my eighteenth birthday none the less. I was hoping living on my own would help me sort out my issues and gain some self-control. To my surprise the opposite happened, I lost control. I thought I was working hard at putting my depression aside and living life. Shoving my depression deeper away only brought anxiety to the surface. Anything and everything would make me have a panic attack. When my lease was up I moved back home. I really needed to get my life on track. Trying to find a way to cope and deal with these two life absorbing diseases took a lot of work and energy. I was really starting to get my life on track and things were going smoothly. I was proud of myself for winning the battle.
Today I am still working on managing my disorders, diseases, issues, whatever the appropriate title may be. I do a lot of research about ways to stay calm and not get so over worked over petty things. It’s tough, don’t get me wrong, but I know if I want to stay alive and be the person I want to be I have to keep going. Although my past might be full of blurry memories due to this, I know I am going to keep making amazing healthy memories from now on out. As much as I battle my demons, and even let them win sometimes, I love helping others cope and fight through their own wars. I would not wish any type of mental disorder upon my worst enemy, but there is no way I would be as in tune with myself and my surroundings if I wasn’t cursed with them.
Thinking back to my childhood, when it first started, I wonder what came first, depression or anxiety. My guess is anxiety, my only reasoning behind that is when I was about younger I had a severe facial twitch. I was taken to the doctor and it was determined the twitching was caused by over stress and anxiety...I was six. I do believe a lot of my “issues” stem from my biological father abandoning my mom and I was she found out she was pregnant with me. As a kid I remember not knowing if I’d see him again after he would visit. See, my dad had this habit of showing up for a bit then not contacting me for years. That kind of abandonment and confusion certainly messed with my psyche. Growing up, let’s say between ten and twelve, I displaced my depression and anxiety as anger. Displacing it as anger made fight with everyone over nothing. I was just literally pissed off at everyone. I did not like anyone, not even myself.
That leads me to being twelve, where all the not so fun really began. With my family life kind of in order by having a new stepdad and my mom having my baby brother, it should have been a joyous time. Not when I was completely swallowed by my own depression. I hated school; I didn’t like my peers, hell I could hardly stand to be around myself. So I decided maybe I can just run away from all this. In my head I remember where I was going to go, what I was going to do, and what my life would become. I made it eight houses up the street and hung out with some neighbors friends. After a few hours I walked myself back home. I thought it was going to be like in the movies where parents are just glad you’re home and safe. Important life lesson number one: life is not a movie. I was grounded for a while which only jolted me deeper into my own manic force field of depression. At this time depression had a stronger grasp over me than anxiety. The strange part about having anxiety and depression is that when I look back to try to recollect certain memories, it comes back to me like a weird blurry fog. Come to find out many years later that this is actually common with these disorders. When a person becomes anxious the body releases adrenaline into the blood stream. Followed by that release is a discharge of the hormone cortisol. The two partner together for the flight or fight reaction. While adrenaline is a quick release and is rapidly pushed out of the blood stream, cortisol remains in the body for a much longer time. When cortisol reaches the brain, it disrupts the functions of neurotransmitters (Du J, Wang 3543). Since the neurotransmitters carry information from the brain to the designated destination, when they are disrupt the brain cannot sort information. This brain slowing process causes memory loss and awkward blank gazes while it sorts itself out. Imagine being so young with so many empty memories.
The memories were still a blur from when I was twelve until I was fourteen. I distinctly remember 14 for good and bad reasons. It was my years of high school…exciting right? No, not at all. I was at a new school and I didn’t know anyone. As if the overwhelming stress of my own demons wasn’t enough, now I had to deal with high school. To say the least, I did not handle it well. I hated school, my life, my family, and myself. I didn’t try to get good grades, to make friends, to socialize, I really just didn’t care about any. I didn’t think or care about my future. Honestly, I didn’t want one. I wanted nothing more than to escape my own living nightmare. So I tried, I tried to break out of my horror and end any chance I had to have a future. Needless to say, it was unsuccessful. I would not say I was relieved nor would I say I had an epiphany that I had purpose to be here. I was just angry at myself. Through high school I had a few friends, no one that really meant a whole lot to me that I couldn’t live without. If I didn’t even want to live with myself there was really no hope I’d have that feeling towards another person. I didn’t do the best at school, mostly because I didn’t care. I also didn’t do the high school “norm” of prom and dances and football games. I would rather stay home and try to figure out how I am going to handle my life.
After I graduated high school I moved out, on my eighteenth birthday none the less. I was hoping living on my own would help me sort out my issues and gain some self-control. To my surprise the opposite happened, I lost control. I thought I was working hard at putting my depression aside and living life. Shoving my depression deeper away only brought anxiety to the surface. Anything and everything would make me have a panic attack. When my lease was up I moved back home. I really needed to get my life on track. Trying to find a way to cope and deal with these two life absorbing diseases took a lot of work and energy. I was really starting to get my life on track and things were going smoothly. I was proud of myself for winning the battle.
Today I am still working on managing my disorders, diseases, issues, whatever the appropriate title may be. I do a lot of research about ways to stay calm and not get so over worked over petty things. It’s tough, don’t get me wrong, but I know if I want to stay alive and be the person I want to be I have to keep going. Although my past might be full of blurry memories due to this, I know I am going to keep making amazing healthy memories from now on out. As much as I battle my demons, and even let them win sometimes, I love helping others cope and fight through their own wars. I would not wish any type of mental disorder upon my worst enemy, but there is no way I would be as in tune with myself and my surroundings if I wasn’t cursed with them.