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History and Decisions
18 June 2003 @ 8:14 a.m.
When I was fifteen, I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression. It was one of those horrifying experiences that parents do to their early teenagers � pulling me aside when I had friends over telling me that I was to begin seeing a psychologist starting the next day. The Father had screened several in the area and chosen someone who he thought would be best for me. It�s one of the benefits of having a father experienced in child psychiatry. Within weeks I had been diagnosed with depression, though at the time they figured it was situational surrounding the stresses of High School and the activities I was involved in.
By sixteen, I was on a fairly high dosage of antidepressants, though nothing seemed to be working. The therapy was fine, but the medication didn�t seem to help much so they increased the dosage. By the time I graduated High School, I was on 200 mg of Zoloft per day. (I didn�t realize that this was a fairly high dose until I worked as a nurse at camp and was medicating other staff and campers who were also �clinically depressed� and were on 50 mg per day).
I hated the medication. I completely lost all emotion, period. I felt nothing for years. No happiness, no fear, no hatred, no love, no passion. When I went away to university, I made the decision to take myself off the medication because I was totally under the impression that it was only High School that made me feel the way I did. Basically, I wanted to feel again. So I did, I went off my medication as I moved to an area with less sunlight, higher levels of stress, and unfamiliar territory.
And I had the best few months of my life. While I still had all the signs and symptoms of depression, I ignored them as I made new friends, joined a co-ed fraternity, did my coursework, and explored the area. I dated several people without luck and never for very long, but it was great just to get out. It was during this time that I met J, Bubbles, and numnum as well as the ex-bitch. These were the people that changed my life for the better. I wasn�t truly happy, but it was so damn close that I was content. The next year included J and I beginning to date as well as when I got sick and had to have the spinal surgery. Yet I never went back on the meds. My parents wanted me to head back into therapy but I, being the crafty person that I am, fooled the therapist into thinking that I was fine.
It was shortly after this that I hit the happiest point of my life � J and I reconciled any problems we�d ever had and started a proper, committed relationship. Two young people totally in love spending time with their closest friends and Brothers. It was fantastic and wonderful and perfect. But of course it couldn�t last. Less than three years later he and I grew apart and he decided to end the romantic relationship. I had been falling back into the nothingness the depression gives me and it ended. Sure we started a true friendship shortly thereafter, but I wasn�t the same.
Fast forward to now where I have fallen so incredibly far back into that fifteen or sixteen year old girl, back into the days where I am afraid to be awake the days where I cry all morning and am short with people all afternoon only to shut myself off from the world every evening and force myself to sleep so the dreams take me away from everything. And I of course have moved back into the house where everything happened so long ago. Only now it doesn�t quite work for me to crawl into my closet and cry for days at a time. Instead, I work my ass off trying to find work and fret over the fact July 1st is quickly approaching and I don�t have the money to pay my bills.
The other day, The Mother mentioned that maybe I should go back to my old psychologist for the remainder of the summer that maybe its time for me to think about going back on a medication, though not the Zoloft as it made me feel like, well, nothing. She finally admitted that maybe they were all wrong about me just going through the typical teenage situational depression that most teenagers go through, especially today. She�s realizing that this is something that I�ll have for the rest of my life and that I need to deal with it and submit to the medication.
I�ve been considering going back on meds for the past year or so. The crying is becoming out of control. I realize that no one wants to hire me because I�m sure that potential employers can see right through me. This is a huge decision for me. I realize that once I go back on any type of medication I won�t come back.
And that�s what scares me. That is what is on my mind � the history, the past, as well as right now.
currently reading: Timeline � Michael Crichton
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