Trigger Warning

It’s funny. You know whenever you see ‘warning – content may trigger those with etc etc’ – and you just think jeez, I’m never that person, so I’ll just go ahead? For a long time I was one of those people. You’d see it on fanfics containing suicidal characters or those suffering from depression and you just think, how could something like that affect anyone in real life? It’s just a story. Or when you’re watching something and the previews are all like ‘the following may contain adult references – trigger warning’. And you just think, again, how could something make believe incite any kind of reaction in the viewer? It isn’t real.

For a long time, I had denied the truth of what was happening to me. I’d spend a lot of time in my room, in the dark, alone; I’d binge eat and cry in the shower or after everyone had gone to sleep, when no one was there to hear it. I lost my motivation; my grades were dropping, I didn’t care. I lost the motivation to do the things I love. I had no energy to speak with or see my friends outside of school because pasting on the smile everyday was so exhausting, and I was just tired. And I slept a lot. I just felt so negative, and sad, and more than anything I hated myself.

Long story short, I confessed to my parents how I felt – pretty much a big breakdown and I remember saying over and over I just don’t feel good inside anymore I’m sorry and just crying and crying because I was relieved and scared to finally get it off my chest. I went to therapy, and I got medication, and for a while it was good.

The meds weren’t good enough. They were doubled. I think I was expecting some kind of miracle cure, to make all the bad go away. But it didn’t. The first time I self-harmed was actually when I was on the meds; I took a razor to my knee, where nobody would see because I didn’t wear short clothing on my lower half.

The second time was after an argument with my dad. Everything I had worked for with the psychologist, to build some confidence and assert myself, was undone when he put me in my place like he used to. And when he left, and I was alone, I took the razor to my hip, right in the spot where my waistband sat so every time I moved, every time I breathed I would feel it.

The third time is what is relevant here though. This’ll sound stupid. It sounds dumb even to me. But I watched ‘If I Stay’ on Netflix and it was just brutal. And I cried for about two hours after the movie before taking the razor to the same spot I did last time. And something like that normally wouldn’t set me off, and it was just bizarre that this occasion did. And the whole trigger thing came to mind, and I felt myself apologising for all those times I looked upon those words or heard them in scorn. How could something make believe cause a damaging reaction to someone in the real world?

The other night I was watching that episode of American Horror Story when Violet Harmon tries to commit suicide; she downs those pills and almost succeeds. And then I thought how easy it would for me to succeed – I could just swallow down the packets of painkillers in the house we have for mum’s hip. Or I could just slip outside and get into the pool, put the pool cover over my head and seal myself in. Would they find me? Would they realise I was gone? Who would go outside to check?

Now I know how important this trigger warning really is to people with damaging states of mind. I wish that the entertainment industry was more liberal in assigning these warnings – society is so concerned with glorifying the ugly things like mental illness that they don’t stop to think about what seeing something like that on screen does to someone who has been there, or is thinking about going there. It disgusts me that mental illness is used as a plot device as a lazy means of developing character, at the expense of the mental well being of some viewers. It needs to stop being skated over, or euphemised as ‘adult’ (which could mean anything really). Don’t be afraid to show how much something could really have the potential to affect someone. It may just mean the difference between life and death.

My new reality...

Hello to anyone who is reading this. I know its been an awfully long time since I last updated. I didn't really have the time, and I kinda let it get away with me. And, to be honest, I didn't really feel like updating. I have to be honest - I haven't been able to get around to doing much of anything in the past year. I've just been so... apathetic about everything recently. I'd stopped caring about how I looked, how I was doing at school. I couldn't sleep, and basically my entire life consisted of me going through my everyday routine without really living. Until maybe a month ago now. I spent a lot of time in the shower, often just crying. I felt so miserable all the time, about myself, about my life, and I felt so guilty for feeling so miserable because my life is, to the random onlooker, perfect. I mean, to anyone I'm reasonably attractive, intelligent, confident and clearly headed for some future career of repute. I have a great family, brilliant friends and anything (within reason) that middle-class money could buy. I attended a great school, and all the teachers I had thought highly of me, and I of them. So why did I feel so low?

It happened on a Wednesday. I don't remember the date, but I remember the day. I didn't have a particularly horrible school day - by all accounts, it was actually rather mundane. I spent a lot of time in my room by myself that afternoon, just not wanting to be around everyone. I went to have a shower just before dinner, and soon enough I found myself crying while Lana del Rey played on my iPhone outside the shower stall. And then I just couldn't stop. I usually always stop. But it just got worse, and that's when I knew I had to come clean about how I was feeling to my parents. I had to stop pretending that I was okay when inside, I didn't really feel okay anymore. So I got out, got dressed, and broke down on the couch with my mum just comforting me. She was really freaked out - so was my dad. They didn't really get what I meant when I said I didn't feel good anymore. They asked me if I felt sick, and I said no, I just don't feel good inside about anything anymore. I wasn't excited anymore. I wasn't happy anymore, and I wasn't okay with pretending anymore.

I stayed home from school the next day, and my mum took me to the doctor's. The doctor was great about it - she's my brother's doctor and she's always known our family really well, so when I came in feeling and looking that fucking miserable she just knew it was all wrong. She referred me to a psychologist that worked just across the street, and I was able to get an appointment for the following Monday. I took the rest of the day, and Friday too. Those two days I was just so mentally exhausted I couldn't even contemplate getting out of bed. I was so tired of pretending I could just get on with my life, that I just... didn't. I emailed all my teachers, and they were really kind and understanding about it all. I think it shocked the hell out of them, because I always seem so calm, clear-headed and grounded that I was probably the last one on their list of graduates that were scheduled to have a meltdown before WACE exams. My year coordinator was particularly good about it all; he notified the teachers that I didn't particularly want to tell the specifics of my absence about. He arranged for me to do assessments when I 'felt better', and he offered to push all my assessments back to accommodate my fragile state of mind - I definitely didn't take him up on the offer, or I'd have felt like I was taking advantage from the school. If it weren't for the strict rules at my school, I'd let everyone know who it was that helped my through my final weeks at school. He really moved heaven and earth for me. Thanks, sir. You're the best.

Anyway, that Monday I went to the psychologist (as she is bound by confidentiality agreements, I feel bound to offer her the same courtesy, so I won't share her name or her business) and we had my first session. It was... confronting. I've always been different from my family - they hate to say what they're really feeling, and so we just don't really talk about it. I never really noticed to what extent I had been forcing myself to adapt to them until I had that therapy appointment. It felt completely wrong to tell her my feelings and not have them attacked. My family has this thing where they just stonewall every time they hear something they don't like. I spent a long time having feelings I felt were wrong because my parents refused to validate them. If I felt sad or angry about something, I'd get no understanding or comfort from them; instead they'd take the opposition against me and basically make out that I was wrong to be feeling the things I felt. If I had a problem with them specifically they'd completely deny my claims as 'false' or 'lying', and they'd spend the rest of the day engaging in passive-aggressive behaviour or just completely ignoring me. After a while, I just stopped going to them when I had a problem or a feeling because the expectation I had was that they'd just make me feel bad about it.

That day she diagnosed me with reactive depression. She thought I had degenerated to this point as a defensive reaction to events that happened last year. See, last year, in September my dad left my mum. He sat us down one Sunday morning - or was it Saturday? - and told us that he wasn't happy anymore, and that he was leaving mum for a while to figure things out. There was no discussion - within two hours he had packed his bags and he was just gone. Just... gone. He was gone for a month. My mum really leaned on me that entire time, and so did my little brother, and it placed a lot of stress on me to keep what was left of the family unit together. They cried a lot. I confess I didn't - the truth was that, despite all the sadness in the house, I was actually kinda glad he'd left. I felt happier - there was less pressure to succeed, and less tension in the house (because when dad had a bad day at work, we'd all pay for it in the form of passive-aggression and unpleasant, but never violent or awful, mood swings - I will state now that my dad is not, and has never been, abusive in any way, just unpleasant to deal with at times). I felt like I could breathe a little easier. Then after my seventeenth birthday, a little over a month later, he announced he would be moving back in. Again no discussion - just moved back in, and of course my mum and brother let him back with open arms, and by dinner time that day everything was back to the way it had been before he left. I was so fucking angry at everyone for the way it was dealt with. I was pissed off with my mum for letting him treat her like a doormat, and then just stepping aside and allowing him back without so much as a 'fuck you'. I was furious at my dad for his behaviour - how could he ever expect to take the moral high ground again after what he did? He went right back to bossing us around and ruling by intimidation, and my tenuous freedom was over. I was so angry, but sad too, because I knew I would never be brave enough to confront him about it - he'd get so defensive and make me into the bad guy somehow.

I held onto that for a year, though my problems had existed for a long time. I'd always been overly dependent on the opinions of others, and I let them shape my life, I regret to say. My relationship with my parents was unhealthy - I was never happy with what they'd say to me, but I'd still depend on it like nothing else. Especially my dad. His opinion meant the world to me. He was like my God, and it fucking crushed me when that little bubble burst and I found out that he was just a man, and a flawed one at that. He made me all these promises that he broke when he said he was moving back in. So yeah, it made everything building up that much worse. 

But, after one appointment, I confronted my parents about everything I really felt. They didn't like it - they got defensive and weird like I expected, but they also tried their best to be understanding given that their lack of it had led to depressive episodes in the past. I cleared the air with them. Our relationship is a lot more functional now, and I'm doing my best to be more assertive towards them and tell them when I have a problem with their behaviour, because somewhere along the way I think we all forgot that they weren't gods - just parents.

After another couple of appointments it became obvious that something wasn't right. I reluctantly revealed that I had had frequent suicidal thoughts only stopped from acting on due to that unhealthy need to please others and be there for them. The day I told the psychologist that was the first, and only time to date, that I cut myself. I took the razor I use to shave my legs and I just sliced into my knee in a fit of rage and despair, and for a while it made me feel better. It frightened me, and I promised I wouldn't do it again. I still have the scars now, and I'm not sure if they'll go away ever. That day, she told me my depression was a little worse than just reactive. She believed that (also given that I had a family history of depression) I was more clinically depressed, and ordered I go on medication immediately. This frightened me a little bit, especially seeing as she told me she never gave out this order lightly - in fact, she'd only ever done it a couple of times. So I went back to the doctor, and she gave me a prescription for a drug she believed would make me happier. The aim was to correct the chemical imbalance in my brain in order to help the therapy work properly, because I wasn't getting anything out of it before the medication. I started taking the meds. Man, the side effects were crazy! I take them at night, because they make me feel really drowsy. I mean, high-as-a-kite drowsy, like that feeling you get just after waking up from an operation in the hospital and you aren't sure if you really exist or not. But it has definitely worked - I'm more motivated, I'm happier, and it's far easier to bounce back from perceived failures than it was before.

So, that's me. Its been hard, living with this, but its far better now that I've stopped lying to myself and to everyone around me. My friends, bar one, are doing their best to support me and help me through this. I'm more assertive than I was, and I feel more comfortable in my own skin. I'm sleeping better, I'm more alert, and I suffer from depressive episodes and suicidal thoughts far less and with far less intensity. I'm finally comfortable labelling myself with depression, and I'm almost comfortable with who I am as a person. I'm getting there, finally.

To all those who feel down, or if this story sounds familiar to you, or if you want to share your own experiences with depression (whether or not you have been affected personally), feel free to message me. I know what its like to feel alone in this, but you're not. There is a whole network of people going through what you are, and if you don't feel ready to talk to an adult, you can always talk to someone closer to your own age. Please don't lie to yourself. If you've been feeling down for over a month, you may have depression. I encourage you to talk with someone, anyone, please.