Maybe.
From a very young age I had really bad self-esteem. I used to list the reasons I hated myself. I would come home from school and analyze everything I had said and done, every single human interaction I had been through that day. Then I would start beating myself up for stupid things I had said and done.
I had a really great support net in high school. I had a strong group of friends that stuck with me through the tough times that surely every teenager goes through. There were times when I would want to disappear, to cease to exist. But overall I did pretty well.
The first couple years of college I also had wonderful friends. I am a super yellow extrovert, and social interactions are really important to my emotional well-being. So even though I would get pretty down every month or so, I always got back up.
I went on a 18-month mission to Honduras when I was 21. There were days when I couldn't leave my house because I was so depressed. But I thought that was normal, too.
The depression really culminated months after I returned home. I was living in an apartment with 4 other girls at school, but I was in a serious long-distance relationship and they were all single. My social interactions basically just ceased to exist. I stopped going to my classes. I stopped bathing. I stopped eating. For the first time in my life, I couldn't get out of that hole. All I wanted to do was stay in bed for the rest of my life and wither away into nothing. I would start bawling for no reason at all and not be able to get a hold of myself for hours. I constantly wanted to hurt myself.
That's when I decided I needed some help. I went to a counselor for the first time ever. I started taking medicine--something I had convinced myself I would never need. I wanted to talk myself out of it. The thought of taking medicine for my depression made me feel like a failure.
But the medicine helped. I was finally able to lift up my heavy head and be somewhat productive with my life. I graduated from college, got married, and had a baby. There were difficult moments, but I was able to triumph over them.
Right before I had my baby, I stopped taking my depression meds. I didn't want them to effect her in any way during pregnancy or breastfeeding. I thought I didn't need them anymore. I was sure it was a temporary crutch that had taught me a lesson.
It's been a little over 9 months now. Things were going pretty well up until about a month ago. I started dreading the idea of turning 26. I missed my friends. I felt completely alone. I was only able to see the negative things that were happening to me. I started to do things that I'd done before I got on the medicine. I tried to freeze myself to death in the snow. If my husband hadn't found me, I probably would have stayed outside the entire night.
Nearly two weeks ago, in a fit of depression, I erased about 500 friends from Facebook. Friends who have been there for me for a long time. But I felt let down, left out. I thought, "They won't even notice." And perhaps they haven't.
The point of this post was not really to drone on about my pathetic depressive tendencies, though. It was because the other day I was on the home page of Yahoo. There is a box on the right side of the page that says, "Trending Now:" I was surprised to see "depression" listed.
My first thought was, "Oh, what, it's a trend now? It's trendy?" Then I felt mad. As though other people being depressed would somehow diminish the fact that I was/am depressed.
It's what keeps a lot of people who have depression from doing anything about it, I think. When you see that it is "trending" all of the sudden, it seems like it can't be that big of a deal. You probably are just really sad. If anyone out there is anything like me, the LAST thing you want to be is like everybody else.
But I've been thinking about it a lot over the last few days. Just because it seems to becoming more common does not make depression any less serious or worthy of treating. That just doesn't make sense. That would be like me saying that because more and more people have diabetes or cancer or any other life-threatening disease, that it is not that big of a deal, or that it's all in my head.
It is a big deal.
And it needs to be taken care of. If I have to go back on medicine for a while, or meet with a counselor, then so be it. My husband needs me, my daughter needs me. My life is still important, even when I think I'm just any old regular nobody who has depression just like everybody else.
In fact, in a way, it's kind of nice to know that there are others out there who know what it is like to want to stop living. To give up. Because if we understand how that feels, it might be easier for us to have compassion on others.
P.S. If you happen to be reading this, and I erased you on Facebook--I'm sorry. Feel free to add me again, or I will probably go back and try to re-add most of the people I unfriended.
