Note: This post mentions suicide and may be triggery for some.
In July I was diagnosed with depression.
It wasn't a surprise.
Truth is I've had it since I was fifteen. 9th grade. I started to cry on the bus on the way to school. Everyday. I would rummage through my school bag in order to hide my face. I would tell people I had a cold or hay fever if they questioned my red eyes. I didn't want to be around anymore. I took up smoking which, it must be said, was the lamest suicide attempt in history. When I got my driver’s license at 17 I would skip class to sleep in my car and I'd drink myself to nothingness on the weekends. Things didn't get better after high school. Eventually I had to sell my car, not because it was too expensive to run as I claimed, but because I was scared I'd hurt someone if I decided to plow into oncoming traffic. I kept shedding people to make my world smaller enough that I could just drop out of it.
Why did I live with this cunt of a thing for so long? Depression saps all your energy, your concentration, your concern for others and yourself. It took away everything until all I could do is lay in bed all day watching as many cooking shows as possible. I thought I was going to die. I hoped I would. Why bother seeking help if I'm gonna be dead soon? I thought. They say depression is prolonged sadness in the absence of reason. But I felt I had a reason (tl;dr Muscular Dystrophy). Surely I couldn't be depressed if I had a reason? Maybe I didn't deserve to have a disability, but I sure felt I deserve the sadness that went with it. And besides the physical stuff isn't going away whether I fixed the mental stuff or not. Damned if I do and dead if I don't. I needed to do something. I made an appointment two months ago and told my doctor and his response was the equivalent of "Well, duh", which actually made me feel a little better.
I'm sitting here on RUOK day, having just taken today's little pink pill, at the start of my journey (for the lack of a less X-factorish word) and for now I'd rather not die.
