this blog post is intended to chart my history with depression and anxiety, from childhood to the present.
when I was 8 years old, I remember not being able to sleep. I went to a therapist for a year who taught me different breathing strategies. I don't think it worked very well. I've always had trouble sleeping. was this anxiety-related? I don't know. but sometimes when bad anxieties flared up, I could not sleep at all. I mention this because depression and sleep are often intimately connected.
the next time I was significantly depressed was the summer after my freshman year of college. I had had a great year, but for some reason I started worrying about my parents declining near the end of the year, with no basis for suspicion. I found myself crying over more deep philosophical issues, like death and life being unfair, and could not be consoled. shortly after, my father suffered a very unexpected stroke. although he recovered very well, it happened when he was away from home and I could not see him for over a week. freaked out and still slightly depressed, I developed a breathing issue. I didn't understand why... my parents said it had something to do with "underlying anxiety." I started taking Paxil, a common SSRI (medications will be explained in an upcoming post), but didn't want to be on it. I was not depressed by the end of the summer, but the breathing issues took months to resolve (and they still tend to pop back up whenever I'm distressed).
now starts my sophomore year of college. with high expectations, one bad thing started happening after the next (to be further elaborated upon. sorry for the spoilers!). I decided to try to get off of Paxil, and every time I phased down I suffered a short depressive episode lasting 1-2 weeks. I did not realize it, but I was gradually slipping into severe depression. finally off the Paxil by mid-March, I felt accomplished for getting off medication and beginning to make my own medical decisions.
however, my success was short-lived. the combination of getting off meds plus school stresses and anxiety and a week with 3 hours of sleep per night lulled me into the worst depressive crisis I've ever experienced. before I knew it, everything felt completely and utterly pointless. I didn't believe I was thinking unclearly.... I thought I had finally figured out that life was tragic and because it had an ending, was pointless. I immersed myself in thoughts of death and dying and the concept of experiencing nothing and not existing, seeing myself as a blip in time that, by nature of the fact that I was going to expire, had virtually already expired. I thought of historical figures, devaluing their lives because they were gone.
these constant thoughts about death and dying can be thought of as compulsive thoughts. these thoughts are a sub-category of what is known as OCD, though having these thoughts does not necessarily imply other staples of OCD. essentially, I have thoughts that are fueled by anxiety (and in turn fuel anxiety) that focus around something irrational, in this case, being immersed in death. I cannot escape from them just by willing them away. I have little to no control over them during the worst of my depressive episodes.
these thoughts, totally irrational and against every existential and pro-living-life standpoint I had ever taken, shook my world and robbed me of my life. I was walking in a nightmare... I'm still in its final stages, but it's quite a bit less severe than it was at the start of this episode. I would wake up unable to spend more than one minute without thinking about the fact that I was going to die. this thought filtered into everything I did, making it impossible to focus on school, friends, anything that used to bring me joy. I couldn't enjoy movies, or food, or nature. seeing beautiful things and people having fun just made me more depressed. in my depressed mind, I knew the tragic secret of the world that no one else had gotten sight of. I was the enlightened one. but my logical mind knew this was not the case. I clearly had something medically wrong with me.
the worst point of this episode occurred when I had a wonderful visitor. my [very supportive] boyfriend came out to visit me, and despite being around someone I cared for deeply, I began to experience fatalistic and suicidal thoughts. I did not get to the stage of having a plan, but I believed that if my life ended soon, I would not have to endure 80 years of pain awaiting death. this scared me, and it scared my boyfriend too. having someone there may have saved my life.
and this is where my story of recovery begins. for the past two weeks I have been taking Zoloft (another SSRI), and going to cognitive behavioral therapy twice a week as well as seeking outside counsel. I've started to try therapies to combat my compulsive thoughts, which (again, more posts to follow!) will be detailed in upcoming entries. but this is where I'm at.
welcome to my world.
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