Chapter 1: When I first started feeling depression and anxiety
I am going to try my best to tell a story about the beginning of my experience with mental health & illness. Which is a such daunting task. So I'm going to try to attack it head on and hopefully write about it in a clear way to tell my story the best I can. I noticed something was wrong when I was a freshman in college living in Hawaii. About halfway through freshman year my motivation was low, I felt misunderstood, I wanted to sleep all the time, and I had low self-esteem; which was something I had never struggled with before. I lost interest in school and hobbies that I typically excelled in, and could barely concentrate on simple tasks. It was something I had never experienced, and since it happened so gradually, I was in denial about it. I thought that maybe I was just this lazy sad person and I that had failed to notice earlier in my life. Which couldn't be further from the truth. Growing up I was extremely interested in school, extracurricular activities, and was an overachiever. If I ever felt sad it was about a boy, or an argument with my mom, and it usually went away after a good night's sleep. No amount of sleep could get rid of the tiredness and fatigue I was feeling. So I did what you aren't supposed to do, I ignored it and thought if I waited it out, the universe would just fix everything. What kept me going was minor life changes; new classes, moving off-campus, new friend groups, etc. I had good friends and a strong family unit, so I feel like that definitely kept me from reaching a lower point. I didn't really confide in many people during this chapter. I think I told one of my friends from high school who I knew had gone through something similar.
I started to notice a shift when I moved off-campus and into a house. I lived in a back unit of the house and I only had roommates a couple of times. I feel like being by myself, even though I felt lonely, was a relief after being surrounded by girls in the dorms and constantly running into people on campus. I felt like I was constantly holding up a facade, and I felt a sense a shame from keeping my secret. So being able to feel my feelings, cry, and be in a chill environment right across from the beach kind of helped me out of the super depressed state I was in. Which was really lucky for me. I'm not saying that I was never sad after that, I was definitely sad, but this was around when I started to feel more anxious than depressed. It had hit me that that period of low energy and depression really put a damper on all of my academic goals at the time, and I was feeling so anxious about my future and how I would ever be my old self again. Anxiety feels like you know something is wrong and that you need to fix it, but you don't know what is wrong or how to fix it...so you just worry contstantly. I was not getting good grades in school either which is a huge part of all of this. It wasn't because the classes were hard; school actually comes pretty easily to me, but my motivation was really low and once I started to feel anxious or overwhelmed, fear definitely crept in making it impossible to accomplish anything. To ignore the fear, I hung out with friends, went on hikes, did all those fun Hawaii things. And I still had a fun time many days. I think that's an important detail. I was still having fun and had some good friends and a fun job, but just because I had good times it didn't mean that I felt fulfilled and content on a deeper level. So don't always judge someone's quality of life on the amount of fun it looks like they're having. I think a lot of times in life we analyze our thoughts and feelings by things that happen to us and around us, but with mental illness its something inside of us. I spent so much time trying to find out an external cause for the problem. Some ways I felt anxiety was in social settings. Around this time it really took a lot out of me to constantly be engaging in conversations and small talk with people, which is pretty much what college is haha.
I remember one specific time I was hanging out with a group of friends at these guys' house. We were playing a game, and someone made a joke to indicate something negative about my character. I remember that being the last straw. All of our friends were getting rides home, and I just ignored everyone and started to walk. It was raining, and I was walking home, getting soaked, and just crying because I couldn't hold it in anymore. This bad memory, in hindsight actually became a good memory and kind of restored my faith in humanity. A couple of my friends followed me in their car, were telling me to get in and that they would drive me home. I refused, so they parked, got out, and hugged me. I was stubborn and still wanted to walk home to clear my head (I was also super embarrassed they were seeing me cry so much), but after I got home and showered, they came back and picked me up, and made cookies for me. Which is always a sweet memory. That experience in hindsight really solidified the importance of not feeling ashamed and that there is nothing wrong with expressing what you are feeling. Around this time was when I started having some weird episodes. There were a couple of times where I literally blacked out and couldn't see, but was still fully aware of my body. I could even walk around, but seriously felt blinded. Really weird. I had a couple of panic attacks too. I hate to just cut this off right here, but I feel like this is the end of the first chapter. So in my next post about my story I'll talk about what events transpired after this. I guess the main takeaway you can get from this story is that if you feel inclined to help someone, listen to that gut feeling. Check up on your friends. Don't assume that all of your friends live these charmed and obstacle free lives. Be a nice human.
xx, Al
I started to notice a shift when I moved off-campus and into a house. I lived in a back unit of the house and I only had roommates a couple of times. I feel like being by myself, even though I felt lonely, was a relief after being surrounded by girls in the dorms and constantly running into people on campus. I felt like I was constantly holding up a facade, and I felt a sense a shame from keeping my secret. So being able to feel my feelings, cry, and be in a chill environment right across from the beach kind of helped me out of the super depressed state I was in. Which was really lucky for me. I'm not saying that I was never sad after that, I was definitely sad, but this was around when I started to feel more anxious than depressed. It had hit me that that period of low energy and depression really put a damper on all of my academic goals at the time, and I was feeling so anxious about my future and how I would ever be my old self again. Anxiety feels like you know something is wrong and that you need to fix it, but you don't know what is wrong or how to fix it...so you just worry contstantly. I was not getting good grades in school either which is a huge part of all of this. It wasn't because the classes were hard; school actually comes pretty easily to me, but my motivation was really low and once I started to feel anxious or overwhelmed, fear definitely crept in making it impossible to accomplish anything. To ignore the fear, I hung out with friends, went on hikes, did all those fun Hawaii things. And I still had a fun time many days. I think that's an important detail. I was still having fun and had some good friends and a fun job, but just because I had good times it didn't mean that I felt fulfilled and content on a deeper level. So don't always judge someone's quality of life on the amount of fun it looks like they're having. I think a lot of times in life we analyze our thoughts and feelings by things that happen to us and around us, but with mental illness its something inside of us. I spent so much time trying to find out an external cause for the problem. Some ways I felt anxiety was in social settings. Around this time it really took a lot out of me to constantly be engaging in conversations and small talk with people, which is pretty much what college is haha.
I remember one specific time I was hanging out with a group of friends at these guys' house. We were playing a game, and someone made a joke to indicate something negative about my character. I remember that being the last straw. All of our friends were getting rides home, and I just ignored everyone and started to walk. It was raining, and I was walking home, getting soaked, and just crying because I couldn't hold it in anymore. This bad memory, in hindsight actually became a good memory and kind of restored my faith in humanity. A couple of my friends followed me in their car, were telling me to get in and that they would drive me home. I refused, so they parked, got out, and hugged me. I was stubborn and still wanted to walk home to clear my head (I was also super embarrassed they were seeing me cry so much), but after I got home and showered, they came back and picked me up, and made cookies for me. Which is always a sweet memory. That experience in hindsight really solidified the importance of not feeling ashamed and that there is nothing wrong with expressing what you are feeling. Around this time was when I started having some weird episodes. There were a couple of times where I literally blacked out and couldn't see, but was still fully aware of my body. I could even walk around, but seriously felt blinded. Really weird. I had a couple of panic attacks too. I hate to just cut this off right here, but I feel like this is the end of the first chapter. So in my next post about my story I'll talk about what events transpired after this. I guess the main takeaway you can get from this story is that if you feel inclined to help someone, listen to that gut feeling. Check up on your friends. Don't assume that all of your friends live these charmed and obstacle free lives. Be a nice human.
xx, Al
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