Thursday, June 14, 2012

i fell in love with the world in you

I am depressed.

Not in a, "I'm just so sad" kind of way, but more like, "I am actually clinically depressed."

And that's what I've been avoiding talking about. Or writing about. But I can't avoid thinking about it.

I hate the label.

I hate that whenever I would hear that word before, the first thing that would come to mind were people who would purposefully hurt themselves or people who've lived really traumatic lives. And I hate it so much because now that I'm associated with that word, I know that's not the case because I am neither one of those kinds of people, and I wonder if others will have those thoughts about me when they find out.

It's not like I'm planning to make some sort of grand announcement. I'm definitely done posting the links to my new blog entries on Facebook. Outside of my parents and my brothers, I've only told 4 other people - 3 of my sorority sisters and my best friend. And actually, I asked my mom to be the one to tell my dad. For some reason I didn't want to say the words to him. And with Bryan and Erik it was a very casual thing. They asked me what was in the bag and I told them it was medicine and they asked what kind so I answered that too and that was that.

My mom's the one who took me to the doctor.

I had been complaining of lower back pain for about a month. One night while I was at school it was really intense. People started telling me that it could possibly be my kidneys, so I freaked out. Heather hugged me while I cried a little bit and called her mom, who is a nurse. She took me to the store and we bought a few things and after trying some stuff out and sleeping on a proper bed that night, I woke up the next morning feeling a lot better. The pain was still there, but it wasn't as bad.

So I'm waiting at the doctor's office and they call my name. I usually get my mom to come in with me because I'm actually a child stuck in a woman's body. But this time I asked her if she could wait outside. So after a few tests the doctor said that everything looked fine. He told me that it could have possibly been an infection of some sort that had ran it's course, but he would send the sample off to the lab just to double check. Thankfully, a few days after that, the back pain went away completely. I think it had a lot to do with sleeping on a couch when I would stay at school, but yeah.

So there I was about to leave and he asks me if I have any other questions or concerns.

I kept on thinking, "It's now or never, Karen."

I was apprehensive to talk to him, because not only is he my entire family's doctor, but he's also one of my dad's very good friends. They're so close that he actually lets us borrow his BEACH FRONT MANSION in Florida every now and then. Yeah, no big deal or anything.

And I know he had to abide by doctor-patient confidentiality and all of that jazz, but still.

I think I said something along the lines of, "...I-I think there might, umm...I think there's something wro-wrong with...um, me."

And the next thing I know, I was telling him every thought and feeling and emotion that had led me to this conclusion. I just rambled on and on and I let it all out.

And I told him that I had no idea where all of it was coming from.

I have such a good life. I am surrounded by so much love. I've never known true hardships. I've never lacked care or attention.

"So why do I feel like this? It doesn't make sense! Why do I feel...stuck?"

And he explained all these different things to me about how sometimes there's a chemical imbalance in people's brains that makes them feel a certain way or how sometimes even the smallest changes trigger emotions.

And what I basically walked away with after that conversation was that I didn't need to try to make sense of it anymore. There was a problem. I recognized it. I decided I wanted to get help. So now I was going to fix it.

In a more literal sense, I also walked away with two different prescriptions. One was for a sleeping pill and one was the anti-depressant. I was on the sleeping pill for ten days, and they were supposedly going to regulate my sleeping habits. They were nice because I would pop one in at around midnight, and be completely knocked out in 15 minutes tops. But as soon as I stopped taking them, my sleeping habits actually got worse. The other night (day) I didn't go to bed until 10 AM! Like, no, Karen. That's when you're supposed to wake up, Karen. So I'm totally going to talk to him about that tomorrow during my follow-up visit. I'm going to be on the other medication for at least 6 months. He said after that we'd see if I felt ready to slowly come off of it, or if I needed to continue on it or maybe even try something different all together. The problem with this is that if I calculated right, this would be around the time of midterms, and I don' think it would be very smart of me to go off of anti-depressants during midterms. Hopefully my doctor agrees and if we both think I'm ready to be done with my happy pills, I think the safest bet would be to try going off of them during Christmas break once I'm done with finals and have the time off of school.

He told me that the next time he saw me, he wanted to see a big smile on my face (since I'd spent a good thirty minutes crying my eyes out with him that day).

So I'll go in to see him tomorrow, and he'll ask me if I feel different, or any better, and I'll say that I do, because that's the truth. I think I'll probably notice a more significant difference once school starts again, because even though I said I didn't want to try and pinpoint this to something specific anymore, school was without a doubt a big part of it.

There's this quote about how just because other people have bigger problems than you, it doesn't mean that yours don't matter.

Try as I might, I can't help but feel a little guilty. There are children who are starving all over the world. Kids who go to bed cold. Who don't have a home or a family. People who've been abused. People who are sick. Dying. Hurting.

I've been handed everything. I've lacked nothing.

Within the last month that I've been on medication, the same questions that I asked my doctor that day have popped into my head repeatedly. And again, I know I said I was done trying to make sense of it all, but still.

"Why do I feel like this? It doesn't make sense! Why do I feel...stuck?"

And my heart breaks for these people who have it worse than me. I cry for the children that face situations that I pray to God I'll never know anything about.

But I think about that quote. And I think that I shouldn't be so quick to invalidate what I'm going through, even if I don't understand it, it's real and it's happening.

And I hope to get better soon. Not that I'm completely broken or anything. I know there are good days and bad days for everyone. But I just want to regain my, I don't know...spark? Whatever it is that I lost, I want it back. I want to be motivated and passionate about life and everything that pertains to it because most days life is so overwhelmingly beautiful that I can cry tears of joy just thinking about everything good that exists in this wonderful world.

So weather it's 6 months, or a year or perhaps even longer than that, I'm going to leave this little thing called depression behind. This little thing that thinks it can constantly bring me down, this little thing that wants to beat me, won't.

And I won't be ashamed of it. I won't be embarrassed by it.

Because one day I will have kicked this little thing's ass so far back into my past that thinking about it won't even phase me anymore.

Just as simply as putting one foot in front of the other, I'll move away from it all one day.

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