In high school I tried to be friendly with everyone. I fit in with the ‘smart kids’ because I did well academically as I finished in the top 5% of my class, but also the ‘jocks’ because I played on two of the best sports at my high school in field hockey and lacrosse. Bullying was never any issue with me (except by one girl that I would now consider my ‘frenemy’ back in middle school, but I digress). But other than that, there was nothing, externally anyway, that made my high school experience bad. Looking back, high school really was not all that bad for me.
None of this stopped me from eventually diving into years of a deep depression that led to me hitting rock bottom at the end of my freshman year of college. I was basically just going through the motions. I would wake up, go to class, do my work, eat, and sleep. I rarely talked to anyone, rarely went anywhere, and if I was invited I would make up some excuse so I wouldn't have to go even if part of me really wanted to and instead, I stayed in bed. That made me feel even worse about myself than I already felt. It was a vicious cycle.
In sum, I was just sad and lonely 24/7 with (what felt like) not a soul to talk to who could help me. I know what some of you may be thinking and you are right, I wanted to kill myself. There were times where I felt like the pain was too unbearable and that maybe things would just be better if I were gone from this world. At those times I would cry myself to sleep; I cried myself to sleep at one point on a daily basis. I would wake up with a small glimmer of hope that things would eventually get better, I was only 18 for goodness sake, but the vicious cycle was seemingly never ending.
The breaking point came when I went home to celebrate Passover with my family in 2012. A small, meaningless argument in the car with my younger sister blew up and led my mom to threaten to have me institutionalized because I brought up just how often I thought about killing myself. I responded by saying that I would actually kill myself before I ever let that happen; after all, I had 2 ways thought out already. A compromise of my mom letting me finish out the semester if and only if I agreed to seeing a therapist after I came home for the summer. In hindsight, I do not recommend this approach. But it worked for me. I honestly only agreed to avoid being sent away and to buy myself time but in the end did end up in therapy. This wasn't my first time in therapy in my life but the other times didn't work out. The third therapist was the charm large in part, I now realize, to my willingness to get help. We met weekly that summer and sure enough I slowly pulled myself out of that deep hole I was in.
That was the summer of 2012 and today, I feel like I have almost done a complete 180 in my life. However, it is still a daily struggle to keep moving forward and not fall back into my depression; a struggle I know I am not alone in. I hope that my being very open with my own struggles helps to encourage others to find their own strength (that I know they have) and defeat their own demons. Because I know that this can be hard to talk about with those around you and it may be easier to find solace in others online who have gone through the same.
xx
In sum, I was just sad and lonely 24/7 with (what felt like) not a soul to talk to who could help me. I know what some of you may be thinking and you are right, I wanted to kill myself. There were times where I felt like the pain was too unbearable and that maybe things would just be better if I were gone from this world. At those times I would cry myself to sleep; I cried myself to sleep at one point on a daily basis. I would wake up with a small glimmer of hope that things would eventually get better, I was only 18 for goodness sake, but the vicious cycle was seemingly never ending.
The breaking point came when I went home to celebrate Passover with my family in 2012. A small, meaningless argument in the car with my younger sister blew up and led my mom to threaten to have me institutionalized because I brought up just how often I thought about killing myself. I responded by saying that I would actually kill myself before I ever let that happen; after all, I had 2 ways thought out already. A compromise of my mom letting me finish out the semester if and only if I agreed to seeing a therapist after I came home for the summer. In hindsight, I do not recommend this approach. But it worked for me. I honestly only agreed to avoid being sent away and to buy myself time but in the end did end up in therapy. This wasn't my first time in therapy in my life but the other times didn't work out. The third therapist was the charm large in part, I now realize, to my willingness to get help. We met weekly that summer and sure enough I slowly pulled myself out of that deep hole I was in.
That was the summer of 2012 and today, I feel like I have almost done a complete 180 in my life. However, it is still a daily struggle to keep moving forward and not fall back into my depression; a struggle I know I am not alone in. I hope that my being very open with my own struggles helps to encourage others to find their own strength (that I know they have) and defeat their own demons. Because I know that this can be hard to talk about with those around you and it may be easier to find solace in others online who have gone through the same.
xx
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