Climbing Out of Depression
Climbing Out of Depression
| Author: Elizabeth Drucker |
| Published on: January 2, 2001 |
What do you do when you feel so sad, you don't even know what to do anymore? When the pain rushes through your brain and it is hard to smile, talk, be a normal person? How can it be that life is continuing right around you while you feel like an outsider? Why does everyone smile when you are hurting so much inside? Why can't everyone else feel what you are feeling just for one day so they would leave you alone, already? What can you do when you are so incredibly low that nothing seems fun anymore except sleeping? Or maybe you have been up for nights on end searching for an answer to your troubled mind? How come problems keep growing exponentially until you are buried underneath a muddled mess of quandaries? What can you do when everything seems wrong and all you want to do is give up?
I would like to tell you that there is HOPE and you can find it too. It may be hard to see, but I assure you that there is something bright and real lingering on the edge of your perpetual darkness.
In January, I started to notice that I was stumbling into a depression. It started out as a rut, but quickly grew into something greater and more debilitating. First, I noticed that I was having a difficult time completing my homework at night. I sat down to write an essay about Huckleberry Finn abandoning civilization, and all I could think was that I wanted to leave civilization, this school, this world. The beginning of each quarter is a stressful time for me for some reason, and to me, it seems like everything is wrong. No grade is good enough, so I will fail and there is no way that I will get into college. No matter how I looked at my life, it seemed that I was screwed.
Why on earth did the Zoloft stop working? I had been on it since May with great success, but now I was crashing majorly. Each night, I could feel the clouds settle upon me until it got to the point where I couldn't breathe. I paced the perimeter of my dining room praying that a solution would come my way - some kind of quick fix solution that would bring a smile to my face.
My psychiatrist changed my medication to Prozac, and as I left the office I tried to think about what my life would be like if this little chemical could fix some of my problems. As I swallowed the green and creme pill, a tiny slit of hope made its way from deep within my soul, where it had been lurking for a long time. Maybe, just maybe, this will make me happy. I knew that pills are only part of the equation and that I needed to have some inner strength, but it is hard to see even one centimeter past your misery, when you are depressed.
And then trouble struck. I had horrible panic attacks in the middle of my sixth period class. One day, I felt like my eyes were bulging out of my head, and that I was going crazy for sure. It seemed that I was fighting my way out of a labyrinth maze, hurtling around the corners, while spinning and twisting. The world looked distorted and nothing seemed real to me. I spent at least three days that week at the nurse's office.
Then my psychiatrist put me on Effexor. By this time, I had a blank stare about my face that scared everyone that was close to me. My friends, family, and teachers had no clue how to pull me out of this non-Liz, alien-from-Mars state. When I wasn't at the nurse or the counselor, I sat at my desk quietly trying to keep up with my work. Pretty soon, I experienced another symptom: I couldn't write. I realized this in the middle of an essay test. I put my pen to the paper and my hand jerked across the page. Something inside of me was shutting down my entire system and I was struggling to figure out what it was.
Things kept getting worse. My anxiety increased with each breath I took, and I was scared to death. This was one of the very few times in my life when school wasn't able to pull me out of my pained state of mind or being. My psychiatrist brought up hospitalization and I knew that that was one place that I didn't want to be. My mom and I decided to give the Effexor a chance before we tried anything drastic.
But then a remarkable thing happened. I began to feel better. About a week and 1/2 after starting the Effexor, I was able to write again, and my counselor said that I seemed more animated. Although I was still obsessed with my grades, I was able to handle some mistakes in a better way. I was no longer locked in a chamber of darkness. Recovery happened slowly, and I am by no means cured. My depression and OCD seem to occur in cycles, and sometimes some medications will work, while other times, I need a completely different regime. That is the most frustrating part of coming out of depression - the fear that it will soon strike again, leaving me even more vulnerable than ever.
The purpose of my telling you my story is to prove to you that there IS HOPE. All or nothing thinking will only get you in trouble. I know that it's trite, but within every black cloud there is a silver lining. It's true - and I am proof. If you are in a depression right now, do whatever you need to do to get well. Please reach out to people; they are there to help you. School Counselors are great resources, and they can often hook you up with Psychiatrists and Psychologists in your area. Remember this too - you are not alone. I know that you've heard that before too, but sometimes depression can seem isolating. I know that when I was depressed, I had a hard time even realizing that there were other people on the planet, because I was so enamored in my pain. Hang in there. You deserve to be happy! There is so much help available for the asking.
Good luck!
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