A decade has gone by since I was diagnosed with depression.
Can you imagine? A 10 year-old girl diagnosed with chronic and manic depression.
Most of the psychologist I visited stated that my trigger was my parents' divorce.
It seems fair to think that as a kid coming from a "broken" family I would have greater tendencies to depression and suicidal thoughts.
After my parents had a divorce, I suffered from physical and psychological abuse coming from my mother. She was dealing with depressive feelings on her own and I happened to be around for her to vent.
I was once described as a "vomit bag". You know, the ones you get when you fly on an airplane? If you get dizzy, and decide to puke, you can do it in that bag because it is made exactly for that purpose.
I remember I was 12 years old the first time I thought about killing myself.
It seems that throughout my life I have been that vomit bag for people around me. Everyone who doesn't seem to be happy or satisfied with their own lives, throw what they don't like right at me. And I deal with feelings that are not mine.
A constant "you are not worth it" followed by physical abuse turned my brain on itself.
And then I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Sometimes you could find my at 3 a.m. wandering around the streets screaming and scratching at myself without really knowing I was doing it.
My journey took an awful turn when I got sent to a psychiatrist instead. And that doctor made the decision to hook me up on your good ol'happy pills. Which only felt they turned my brain upside down.
After my body shut down and I experienced a hemorrage, I chose to stop taking medication and deal with depression by myself.
Most people feel depression is a dark, cold hole from where you can't get out. But in my case, I feel it more to be like wandering around a fully lit room, with your eyes burning from the whiteness, and it feel so hot you can't really breathe.
It has been 10 years now. And my depression has changed. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst. And I even had some story changers thrown in like anxiety, bipolar disorder and some doctors have thought about me having OCD.
I'm past over killing myself.
I am not saying it always gets easier, or better...
But you won't know if it does if you are not around to see for yourself
I own my depression. Not the other way around.
