A Truly Uplifting Essay on Depression

In lieu of my own words today, I'm posting the incredibly moving writings of my good friend Meghan. Her journey through the discovery, diagnosis and understanding of depression is something everyone should connect with, no matter their personal struggle. For me, this is not a piece about the fact that Meghan has a disease and is now making her triumphant march toward a more stable life. This is a piece about Meghan accepting her reality, getting the right help and being brave enough to share her story with others. I hope you'll learn as much from it as I did. 
 

Dear world,

Here it is: I suffer from depression. At the risk of sounding petulant, or whiny, or emo, or�worse than all those things�like a blogger, I have decided to publish a somewhat detailed account of my experience with this horrifying illness. And this isn't, as (arguably) many works writers produce are, a way for me to purge myself of lingering thoughts and feelings on the subject, at the sake of readers who may or may not have wanted to be intimately privy to the depths of my despairs; but rather, it's a letter to anyone who may be suffering through something similar. The message here is rather simple, really: you are not alone, and you are not a freak.

The sub-message, I guess, is that the stigma associated with mental un-wellness�not unlike most things that may be called �stigmas� in general�is complete and utter bullshit. As hard as many people try not to accept this fact, here�s the truth: textbook depression, along with many other mental illnesses, is not the result of the sufferer�s circumstances, or her diet, or the last book she read, or any external circumstances. To be sure, these sorts of things can make depression more severe (I�ll talk more about this later), but they are never the root cause. As with any serious disease, depression has its roots in the actual chemistry of the body, stemming often from the genetic code; in this case specifically, it�s in the brain.

My journey with discovering my own depression began toward the end of 2012, a few months after I had started a new, very stressful job in the fashion industry in New York. Not to be all �poor little privileged white girl who works in fashion,� but it was really, objectively difficult for me. I worked long hours with no overtime and all that jazz, but the worst part was the psychological duress I faced as someone relatively new to the industry who didn't know how to cope with the stresses that came at me on a daily basis. My mind was like a tennis ball, batted back and forth innumerable times each week. This sort of mental chaos is the kind of environment depression loves; much like a weakened immune system can invite many kinds of disease inside, a mental weakness allows depression to make itself known more easily.

This mental tennis match began to really wear down on me. I stopped sleeping. I mean I really stopped sleeping. Insomnia, for me, became the first major sign that something was very wrong in my brain and my body, and I believe it was the most prominent symptom of my depression. At first, I had one sleepless night and thought of it as a random spell that was the result of a build-up of stress over time, something that would swiftly pass. But, unfortunately, it didn�t stop. Sunday nights were the worst; even as I tried to sleep, my fear of the insomnia became the impetus for another sleepless night. I liken it to performance pressure: under enough of it, even the most professional performers can't deliver. For me, my performance was sleep, and every night, I felt that there was a glaring, unwavering spotlight right on me. I just couldn�t do it.

This went on for weeks. I would go two or three nights in a row with either no sleep or only a few hours total. I think once or twice I even went two consecutive nights with absolutely no sleep. I can�t be precise, because this period in my life, as you might imagine, is very unclear as a whole; I could barely function in my day-to-day life, much less try to recall it in detail now,months down the road. I began to lose weight because I really found eating to be a wasteful and no longer enjoyable use of my waking energy, which was already at a minimal supply. I became gaunt, pale. One might accurately use the word �ghost�to describe it; but of course, partially as a result of the warped standards of the fashion world in which I found myself, I simultaneously held the belief that I looked better and better everyday.

About two months after this all started, I began to draft scenarios in my mind detailing how I would kill myself. The weirdest thing about the kind of depression that spawns suicidal thoughts is that it�s not even conscious. You don�t sit down and pull out a pen and pad and go,�Okay, I want to die. How can I do it?� Thoughts of self-destruction just come to you; I personally think it�s because you are just so worn down, miserable, and desperate, that the possibility of no longer existing becomes the most savory and plausible opportunity for escape. Suicide stories came to my mind all the time:jumping out a window, stepping off the platform in a subway station. The closest I ever came to actual suicide was fondling a razor blade in my boyfriend�s apartment while sobbing alone in his bathroom with the door locked.I toed the line between a desire to die and a (quite natural)  fear of it; I wanted to try to ease into my own demise. I thought things like, �Well, maybe I won�t slit my wrists today, I�ll just cut into my thigh a bit and see how much I bleed.�

I put the blade down and almost immediately told my boyfriend I was having suicidal thoughts. Depression is such that it clouds not only your emotional life but also your perspective on normality. When I shared with him that I was suicidal, I included the caveat that I didn�t think it was that �weird� for me to be having thoughts of my own death, that weren�t most people suicidal at some point in their lives? �No,� he said. �This is not normal. You need to talk to a doctor.� And as hard as it was for me to believe him in my state, I chose to anyway; that week, I saw a psychiatrist who prescribed me Lexapro.

In a still relatively sleepless fog, I started taking the medicine (which, at20mg a day, was a rather large dose; the largest a person can take is 40). At first I noticed nothing. Then I stopped being able to have orgasms, and I slowly realized I had stopped feeling things in general; sure, I didn�t necessarily want to kill myself anymore, and I didn't feel depressed anymore, but I also didn't feel things like happiness, excitement, and hope. I just coasted day in and day out, kind of numb to everything around me. But, and here�s the only thing that was good about the high dose: almost immediately, I started sleeping well again. Then, I started feeling a better in general.

Over time, I cut down my daily dose to 10 and then to 5 mg a day, which Istill take, now about nine months after this all started. That�s right: I�m on psych meds, and I�m not at all ashamed to share that they help me quite a bit. When I started seeing a therapist after my initial brush with darkness, she told me that while I wasn�t quite bi-polar, I did have signs and symptoms of being a person with significant emotional highs and lows, outside what might be considered normal. So, in my opinion, the low-dose happy pill that I take each day just keeps me a bit more mid-line than I am naturally; i.e., it helps me function more like a person with an average psychology. Which�after some internal battling about being a �writer who needs ups and downs� and all that bullshit�I am totally okay with. Because now I can get up in the morning and actually feel hopeful about the day ahead, feel that I have experiences to look forward to and that I�m a person who can contribute to society in some way, and also that I want all these things.

And here�s another thing: just because I�m on psych meds now doesn�t mean my depression is "gone." It doesn�t mean that I don�t have spells of difficulty sleeping, or feeling like I�m slipping down into that black hole again; it just means that I am more capable of battling the depressive cloud that, for better or worse, was assigned to me by my genetics when I was born. And I feel like many, many people would benefit from a little bit of chemical assistance when it comes to their happiness and well-being; I know I am still, ultimately, responsible for my own mental health; this is why I combine my medicine with a steady yoga regimen and eating fresh, healthy foods, among other methods that help me enjoy my life. To rely solely upon medicine is probably not a good path to take; but to shun it completely based on false stigmas, I would argue, is even worse.

Recently, I�ve become pretty obsessed with Sylvia Plath, the poet who suffered from depression much of her life and ended that sad life by putting her head in an oven. I recently read a story written by a feminist scholar who argued that Sylvia was a clinically depressed woman born in the wrong time period, and that had she been treated with the right medicine, she may still be living today, giving us more brilliant visions to contemplate. I think about Sylvia everyday when I pop my happy pill. I�m going to live another day, and maybe if I�m lucky, many more; and I�m going to do it, in part,because of this medicine and because of being able to face my illness head-on. I dedicate my choice to go on living to Sylvia, who never really had the opportunity to do so.

For each of us, there is absolutely a reason to stay alive. Depression makes it very hard to see that reason; medicine and therapy are two great aides to help cleanse the windows of our minds, so we can see ourselves better, see the world better, and see how the two can more beneficially interact. For me, the previously outlined methods have worked; for others, it might be a different combination. The point is to accept what�s happening to you, embrace the fact that you are not alone, and offer up a big �fuck you� to anyone who might judge or look down on you because of your illness. Then, when you're ready, you can charge forward into life, determined not to be beaten down. I can promise you: you will succeed.

With love, a depressed individual in remission,
Meghan