Depression can ruin your life.
I am 21.
I am a girl.
I was diagnosed with depression 9 years ago; anxiety 6.
Though we know I was depressed at 7 years old when I refused to leave my bed or eat food. I became anorexic and ended up in hospital. When I was younger, I was boisterous, I had a love for life, a need for more, I had passions. I don't remember it but I've been told by family and friends.
When I was 12 my agitated state and my lackluster for life made me a burden on everyone around me. I retreated into myself, going through life living in my head, mindlessly living on the outside.
My parents blamed it on my hormones, I was a girl becoming a woman, my moodiness was labelled mood swings, my constant emotional unsteadiness was labelled puberty, changing hormones and eventually pms.
When I was 13 I decided the world eventually wasn't going to exist, niether would I and decided my end was supposed to be then. I tried to hang myself. I failed. From then on I marked myself a failure, deep down.
When I was 14 a teacher at my school noticed the cuts on my wrist, hips, and thighs; though I wore jumpers, wristbands, long pants and was never more than shoeless around others there's only so much you can try and conceal them. From here, I was assigned a psychologist and then doctors visits led to being diagnosed and put on medication.
I was still the withdrawn person everyone had come to know for years after, succeeding in things that I felt passion for but never actually focusing fully or yearning for more. I withdrew more, and ended up starting failing schooling and my mood declined erratically. I lost any motivation to continue trying. Through the process I was moved schools and skimmed by.
I lost a lot of people in my life. A lot of relationships ended. Mostly because people didn't understand, didn't want to understand or didn't care. I lost family members because of the unwanted and unchangeable silence in me. I felt locked in this world, that was shrouded by darkness. My own father disowned me for three years because of a shitty teenage fight.
I found my soulmate and lost her. I lost friends too. I got jobs, and lost those within months due to my lack of motivation to leave the house, or ability to fake a happy normal person for longer than an hour. People labelled me as ungrateful, lazy, boring, annoying, a sook.
It hindered opportunities at greater things and it pushed me to the edge of cliff I didn't know could exist. My second attempt at deciding my own fate meant ingesting packets of pills, and sitting for hours vomiting them up. I felt like a train hit me the following days, and ulcers were only a given.
I relapsed time and time again, finding new ways to alleviate this numbness I felt. My mind was foggy, my body heavy, and I had no energy to do anything.
Depression ruined my life and everything that it could have been.
But.. That's not the end.
I've only had control over this invisible sickness for a year now. My meds are steady and my life is on track. But I feel more than positive for the future I have available to me.
I have found my soulmate again, and as I sit here and watch Shameless with her, having moved in yesterday, my cats by our side and her 10 year old Lab down by our feet. I smell the candles on the coffee table, and feel the cool, slight breeze of this lovely winter night and I realise that depression CAN ruin your life, but only if you let it.
I took control, I owned my illness, and I strive for a new positive day every morning. I know that if I feed the monsters that are Depression and Anxiety I will end up being owned by them. Depression CAN ruin your life, but you have the strength, the ability, and the sheer will power to do more and be more.
This here is my voice, though it may be small, saying Depression is a battle and it is hard but it can be beaten.
I believe this, today and always.
If there is anyone who needs someone to talk to, an ear to listen, I understand your battles.