This fucking depression
…
Depression; it is the word that brings about so many reactions. Some people ignore it, dispute it and some even exploit it. This is my personal experience with it.
It has been such a large part of my life that it’s almost a part of my being. For a long time I was scared about getting treatment for my depression as ‘would I be the same person afterwards?’ I was scared that I would transform into some happy (yes) but complete stranger if I sought help.
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I’ve been meaning to type out one of these for ages though I’ve been hesitant. I’m always worried about sharing any depth of detail about my life with anyone, including my own family, friends and even my psychologist (even though that’s why I pay him =S) but I’ll get to that later. I also just have to say to everyone on here that have already shared their own stories, I deeply admire you for that :).
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I was an extremely imaginative child. My best friend and I were convinced we would one day transform into cats and we would travel the world free from the people we hated and all restraints. Looking back I realise that I probably found this as means to cope with my family, though in saying that it’s only recently, whilst looking back over the years, that I realised how odd my life was.
I’m just going to give a basic overview as other wise this will be endlessly long. I also intend to write an autobiography one day.
I am the only girl in my family. I was born at the end of December, 1990. I have three brothers, 2 of which are older and one happens to be my 18 min younger twin, I have 2 boy cousins and finally 2 half brothers who I found out about last year. My twin and I were 12 ½ weeks premature as a result my twin brother is hearing impaired; his ears didn’t develop fully. I’ll call him Cody. My mum and father got divorced when I was 5 that would be the last I saw of him for about 6yrs. One of the earliest memories I have of my father was him bashing me over the head with a frying pan and my mum screaming. I think I was 3 or 4. I constantly have flash backs of him hurting us.
It was Cody, my mum (my father until he left) and myself. My 2 older brothers lived with my Nan. I found out when I was 10 that my Nan actually had custody of my 2 older brothers and had had custody of Cody and I until my Mum had managed to successfully gain custody of us both (but not my 2 older brothers). I found out when I was 13 that this was because my mum was a recovering alcoholic and heroin addict and had been using at the time my 2 older brothers were growing up. My oldest brother is 6yrs older - I’ll call him Michael. My second oldest is 1 ½yrs older – I’ll call him William.
Michael, William and my Nan moved in with us when I was around 6, following my Grandpa’s death.
My Nan and Mum had methods of ensuring discipline. My family being Australian Aboriginal/Irish you could damn well bet there was absolutely no wishy-washy ‘no hitting children’ ideology about. If you yelled/argued back or disobeyed that would earn you the ‘wooden spoon’ or the ‘belt’ or when it came to my Nan it was whatever she could pick up first, usually her shoe. We all knew better than to misbehave around my Nan as sometimes when she’d throw things at us she’d make us bring back to her whatever it was she threw so she could hit us with it twice. My brothers and I had worked out a system however: you’d pick whatever it was up and holding it at arms length, keeping the majority of your body as far away from Nan as possible, you’d hand her back the object and then run out of the room as fast as possible thereby avoiding the second part of the punishment. I loved my Nan to bits though. I know that what she did was simply the only way she knew how to ensure we all behaved and I suppose it worked, though perhaps not for us all… My Oldest brother would end up following my mother’s footsteps. He got involved with the wrong crowd of people and became a junkie at the age of 15. He was extremely violent from then on. If we could help it we’d all stay well away from him. On more than one occasion his inflicted injuries would force us to visit the hospital. Cody, William and I would constantly (and it seems forever more) be begging Mum to get rid of him. We hated him. I still hate him. Only a little over a year ago on Christmas, 2009, he beat up my twin, punching out one of his front teeth and stabbed him in the arm. He also stole from someone else, most likely for drug money. He’s currently (and yes I feel bad in thinking this but finally) in prison. Michael terrorized us all. Cody, William and I would runaway from home constantly. I finally up and left home for good when I was in yr 11 following a massive fight between Michael and myself. I moved in with my Aunt and Uncle and their 2 sons.
(their home was to be the first of nine different places I’d live in until I finally found my own)
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At the start of yr 8 (I was 13) my mother had a nervous breakdown and was admitted into psychiatric care. She was diagnosed with Dementia and Schizophrenia. Cody, William and I moved in with my Aunt and Uncle for 2yrs (from yr8-10) until my mother was let out.
After she was diagnosed we finally realised why she did so many things. Growing up with her fanatic phases were a constant:
- She carefully warned us all to be wary of the old man next door, saying that she suspected him to be a murderer; she stopped going into the back yard swearing that he was watching her and didn’t set foot into the yard again until she had hired workers to come and reconstruct our fence so that it was higher and you couldn’t see through to the other sides.
- She would get up at around 1-4am and start “Spring-cleaning” as she called it. ‘Spring Cleaning’ went on for around 8 months straight it all amounted to practically nothing but erratic sleeping patterns and bad moods for everyone in the household. Instead it was up to us kids and my Nan to do all of the cooking and cleaning.
- Mum always forgot things and that even included picking me up from primary school as a kid (my brothers went to different schools), I was left with either the lollypop lady (a person who helps children cross the road with a stop sign) or one of the office ladies. Thankfully in the end my Nan started to pick me up from school and then she applied for me to be sent to after-school/vacation care.
- She started talking to birds and our cat (and still does on occasion when she forgets to take her medication).
- She ran-away once for 3-4 days. She was found by the police wondering around a train station 2 suburbs over. It was horrific experience. She has always seemed somewhat fragile to me and I kept wondering if she was alive or not.
I’ll always love my Mum even though I sometimes get frustrated with her. People used to remind me that you couldn’t blame her for anything as she wasn’t right in thinking and I know that’s true but sometimes that’s a hard thing to do. I’ve always felt as though she was more like a child than a parent. Thinking about her and how hard it’s going to be when she’s older terrifies me. Her illnesses will only worsen with time. It’s a possibility that one day due to her dementia she might not even remember who her children are, who I am, one day.
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During yr11 I started to realise that I kept feeling excessively set apart and alone. Thoughts that my friend’s didn’t and couldn’t like me were the only things I could hear, I subsequently lost all confidence in myself and my abilities, I started skipping classes and cutting. I would skip meals and work-out for 5+ hours a day, convinced that I was fat. I held this belief inside of me that if I was thin I would be happy, I would feel accepted and loved. My insecurities intensified and I found that I was now planning my own demise. A few months following the end of the HSC I swallowed an amount of sleeping pills in the hopes that I could just never wake up again. I did wake up. I never told anyone about it and continued with life telling myself that my feelings weren’t real, I kept exercising and ignored the constant emptiness I felt. The next I started to think and plan about dying once more I was in my 1st year of uni. I felt so alone and out of synch with the people and happenings around me. My Nan then passed away in June that year and I was more depressed then ever. I was with her on the day she died, she went to sleep and never woke up again. I was consumed with so many emotions I could barely handle it but this time, after watching Nan die, I couldn’t kill myself but the complete sense of loss was all over me. I found I couldn’t concentrate at uni and my marks were reflecting my mind’s preoccupation. Following an incident in one of my classes where we were to analyse the makings of a documentary a funeral procession came onto the screen and I started crying. After class my tutor came and asked me what was wrong and I completely broke down. She had to steer me with tears cascading down my face all the way to the University’s student association. It was there that I saw my first counselor. On that same day I applied for withdrawal to part-time.
After having withdrawn to part-time I started spending almost everyday at home and started to hate having to go out in public at all. I felt flawed, disgusting and lost.
The past 2 years have been a tremendous battle for me mentally. I’ve thought about ending it so many times.
It was a year ago now that my bf and I got together. One night when we’d been partying for a friend’s 22nd I was extremely drunk and broke down crying infront of my boyfriend. For the first time in my life I ended up telling someone everything about past. My mother’s mental illness, my abusive father and brother, my Nan’s death (as well as other things that I’m still not sure I feel up to discussing). I expected my relationship to end that night because of what I’d told however my bf didn’t leave me. He didn’t get repulsed or over-whelmed, he stayed by me. I found out he had suffered with depression 2 years previously and gave me advice on how to deal with it. With his encouragement, I took the first steps on the road that I hope will help beat my depression.
Currently I’ve been seeing a psychologist for about 4-5 months and have been on anti-depressants for about 11 months. I’m in a better headspace then I’ve been in for a while now and yet I still have a very long way to go. My mood still wavers tremendously which is why I’m taking each day as it comes and trying to look towards the future (though that’s a hard thing for me to do sometimes).
To everyone reading this just know that no matter how hard it is you just have to keep pushing, even if you just tell yourself to hold out for tomorrow, the hours between today and tomorrow can be so crucial, so much can change for the better within a day
<3 Stay strong <3
