Depression gets really hard in the winter. With the sky darker in the morning, getting myself out of bed becomes harder. Anxiety does not really help with not wanting to leave the house either. I have really bad anxiety about snow, driving especially. I was in a car accident in the snow, and that is what kind of set off my anxiety. When we had the cold days recently, I just stayed inside the house.

I was always shy; I did not talk to anyone until I was four. Other than family. I would hide, and never wanted to talk to people. That is when I started to hide everything, like not telling people if I was sick or upset. It just got too far. My grandma, mom and sister also have depression and anxiety. But, my sister has way more problems than I do. When I was younger, my sister started doing terrible things, and I constantly felt that no one would believe me. My mom would leave me home alone with her not knowing what was happening. When I was in sixth grade my sister convinced me to go to a high school party. She got me doing drugs in seventh grade. She kept saying, “Just do it, just do it.” To this day I still smoke weed. Then I started getting into really bad drugs. I did stop. But if someone were to offer me any type of drug, I would take it. I do not care enough about my body to think that it is bad for me. My sister physically abused me until eighth grade and that is when depression first hit me. She became so reckless that she was sent to the hospital, and that was when my mom realized what was happening.  The worst time was when my mom had to hit my sister to get her off of me.

My parents got a divorce when I was four. I disowned my dad this past summer. My dad would not accept anything that I was. When my sister went to the hospital, he went to the hospital and told her that that she is looking for attention. He was really mean. My dad knew I went to therapy, but did not know I was on medication. I have been on medication for five years and he still does not know. He forgot my birthday. He texted me a day after and said, “Happy Birthday.” I just replied saying it was yesterday. He lives 10 minutes away from me. He does not care about his family. I know he knows my birthday, but he just never wished me one. His hate for his family came out of no where. My dad cheated on my mom with the girl across the street. After my 17th birthday, he and his girlfriend, who I hate more than life,  told me that I needed to get off their phone bill by the end of the month because they were not going to pay for me anymore. It was the 27th when they told me. Then a week after my birthday they tried to emancipate me. He drinks all the time. He is not an abusive drunk or a mean drunk, he is just an annoying drunk. He always has a beer in his hand. He chooses drinking over his family. I just remember whenever I was with my dad, my sister, his girlfriend’s two kids, and I would always play outside while they would sit at the bar and drink. Or we would play with the dartboard or with the games they had there. We made our own fun. They would drive us home until my sister got her license, and it was so scary. Completely unsafe. But it is not like we could be left home alone. That would be terrible. I do not know how my dad could be so mean. My dad’s girlfriend concocted a story that my dad and my grandpa sexually abused me and my sister around the neighborhood. And now she is dating my father? That does not make sense. I do not even know if my father even tried to stop the rumors going around. All they do is lie. I asked my dad what nationality I was, and he told me I was polish. I guess he thought it was funny to not even tell me what my culture is because I learned that I am not polish. All he wants and tries to do is confuse me. I hate him for it. My mom had a brother, who ended up committing suicide right before my mom had me. He was my dad’s best friend. It hit my dad hard when the incident happened, so for him to tell my sister and me that our reactions were just for attention is hypocritical. If my parents divorce happened before her brother passed away, the divorce would not be as violent. My mom’s brother probably could have helped the situation. When my dad started cheating on my mom, he probably would have told my uncle early enough within his affair. Then my uncle would have never allowed it to get to this point, and would have ended their relationship immediately. So I kind of blame my uncle for that, but it is not like he knew.

My immediate family knows about our hospitalization. They are great support, especially my mom and grandma. My boyfriend also knows everything. We reached over a year in our relationship. He helped put me into the hospital this past time. I just got out not too long ago. Him and my mom talk about how my mental health is and my safety, and if they want to bring me back into the hospital to get help. This past time it was an out patient visit. You go there and do group therapy.  They teach you how to rethink your thoughts, how to reframe, and they help you look at the big picture. We are not supposed keep in touch with anyone within the therapy session. You are not allowed to know last names and you are not allowed to hang out with them outside of the hospital. Every time we walk outside of the session, we get each other’s name and phone numbers to keep in touch. We all hung out and one time we went to the starbucks acrossed the street. I got really close with one girl, and I would go to her house a lot. She left this past Thursday for therapeutic boarding school, so that was pretty rough. Her leaving is really hard for me because she is the first friend I have had in eight months. I do not talk to people. I do not leave my house. When someone does not understand your problems its really hard.

I was at a party with my group of friends from the hospital and we were playing “Cards Against Humanity” which is really grown up “Apples to Apples”, and it was really hard playing because some cards trigger other people’s problems. One of the girls had an eating disorder and when I had the card binging and purging I said, “Yea, I am not going to use this card” which made everyone want to see it even more. And when I said it, and for the rest of the night she was in a really bad mood. It was hard. Anything you said, feel, or saw you could get any type of flashback that you cannot control. We continued playing, and at one point the cards were going in different directions, and we had a huge argument over the deck being messy. I have OCD so I wanted to fix the cards, but everyone else felt differently. We all just started laughing because this was why the hospital did want want us to hang out together. Most of us do drugs, so the hospitals do not want us doing drugs together or making a suicide pact neither.

My sister and I worked out some of our issues. During my junior year, she went to the hospital for a while. When she came back is when we started to go through counseling. I think my depression was caused by genetics and also my own thoughts. There is a chemical imbalance in my brain; I do not really blame it on anything.

I wake up right around five in the morning and then every hour after that, depending on my mood. If I am upset I will get up around 12. If I am not as upset I might get up around ten. I try and stay up later at night to make myself sleep in the morning. On the weekends I don’t get out of bed. I get up to pee and maybe get food. No one in my family knows how to cook or has time to. My sister, who is 21, is never home because she works, and my mom works two jobs. So I just have to eat what might be in the fridge. I go through ups and downs where I will eat a lot or I’ll eat once a day. I do not eat fast food, pop, or anything bad or with fat. I kind of just sit and think. I just feel like I am mentally exhausted all the time because of thinking all day.Sometimes I will just wake up and force myself to go back to sleep so I do not have to start the day. I have a new sleep app called sleep cycle and it studies my sleep so I know when I wake up consistently. Even on medication I will wake up every hour. I eat and get back in bed. Then my mom will always try to get me up. If I have something that I like to do that day, then I will get up.

She usually bribes me. For me, it is more of getting over being upset to leave.

On March 15, 2013, I overdosed. I took 600 milligrams of effexor, my medication.

I sent one of my really good friends a good-bye text before I overdosed. She called my sister, who then called my mom, and she left work to come home and find me. I already overdosed on the pills. She rushed me into the emergency room. When I was being seen by the doctor, it was too late to pump my stomach. They took charcoal, crushed it, put it into a cup of water, and I had to drink it. You are messed up out of your brain. You begin to throw up all over yourself. It was terrible. For the longest time after that I couldn’t even say the word charcoal. I couldn’t even look at it in the stores or go down the aisles that have it. You know the feeling people get when they hear nails on the chalkboard? That’s how I felt with charcoal. My avoidance for charcoal lasted for nearly two years. I am just now starting to get over it.

All the stuff I went through when I was little I tried to block out, so now I suffer from short-term memory loss. Especially from the medication I started about a month ago. I do not really remember a lot. Honestly, I cannot tell you what day it is. I can tell you the year, just because it’s new. It is kind of a fog. Almost like I am a zombie. I do not like the medication I am on. Just because it messes with my mind. I go to see a weekly therapist, and a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists are really busy. It is really hard to make an appointment with them. You cannot go in every other week. You can barely get in every two months.  You try and call them and they do not even answer sometimes. It is frustrating for me because I am going crazy on these medications. They are giving me migraines that I cannot stand, and they do not even know or care enough. I get migraines six days out of the week, and I have to take extra strength medication to make them go away. Once I do go in, they just up the dose of the medications. They do not think about how much pain I am in. Doctors promote to the general public that depression is not a big deal. Where to me, I cannot even get up in the morning. Nor shower. Being sick does not help. I was sick for about six months with a weird stomach infection. They just did not really care about me. Then I made them go in my stomach with a tube to try and figure it out. It took them another six months to figure what my problem was. I was in constant pain and they did not even care to try and work even the slightest bit faster. I went to the emergency room twice during the whole illness. I always ask myself how doctors can go to bed perfectly fine at night knowing I am in pain this whole time.

I have always been skinny. Really skinny. I was never over 120 and now I am 145 because of the medication I am on, and it is not going well. I am on two prescriptions right now, amitriptyline and klonopin. Klonopin is similar to zantac so it is pretty strong.   I have a lot of body issues. My sister, who is three and a half years older than me, always called me boobless. She would just be so mean to me. I have been going to the gym every single day since I have started noticing my weight gain. I have been doing crazy stuff to lose this weight. This medication is kind of working for my symptoms, but I want and need to get off of it. Being heavier now, I am beginning to have stretch marks. I would much rather be sad and skinny than happy and fat. The side effects of this medication is cravings. I have been craving sweets so much that I am annoyed of it. I am on this old medication where you have to get your blood levels tested to see if the medication is even working.

They do not let you go home after you attempt suicide. You get put into a patient facility and it is scary. They are scary. We had to share rooms. My roommate swallowed a 200 piece puzzle and 20 staples. The people in the hospital are normal people though. You can have a conversation with each other and, in a sense, it was not weird, but we talked about each other’s situation.

For a long time I never planned to live past 35 years old.

To me, that is when someone is married, has kids, etc. My boyfriend changed that though. I can actually picture a future with him. It is weird, and I do not know how he puts up with me. I have a thing with my neck where I do not like being touched there. We were just messing around and he accidentally touched my neck, and I got scared. He dealt with my panic attack so well, and comforts me when I cry at any time for no reason.

The sad part is you will never know who is affected by it, and sometimes people throwing out “I’m depressed” in everyday conversation is what can set someone off. It isn’t what anyone would think because we glorify it quite easily. It’s hard because you just never know who is suffering, like really suffering. You don’t choose to be depressed. I didn’t pick to suffer like I do. Now, I just have to learn to live and to realize that turning 36 will be pretty awesome someday.

If you or someone you know is currently suffering from depression do not hesitate to talk to an adult—parents, family, teachers, administrators or counselors. The Mental Health Association of Illinois Valley has a hotline available Monday-Friday if you are struggling and need to speak to someone. Call 309-673-7373 to reach the hotline. Other organizations offer similar services and can be found by a quick online search.