We were put into groups of I-don't-remember-how-many classmates of the same gender who we would share a cabin with. When beds were chosen I carefully selected one far from everyone else in a half walled off area and laid awake at night listening to conversations I wasn't apart of or interested in. I barely spoke a word to anyone.
Every day we had periods of two or three hours of 'recess', during which we were not allowed to be inside our cabins. The entire time these took place, I would find myself a place in the snow to sit, and impatiently wait for recess to be over. I didn't have the motivation or the desire to even play by myself, I just sat there, alone and under the radar.
I used to be a really active kid before then. I was never popular by any means, but I did have friends in the past. All the other girls my age were far too interested in growing up too fast, and I was more interested in kid stuff. Being a funny kid with a bizarre sense of humour did you few favours if you were a girl, and being friends with dorky looking girl with giant glasses wasn't high on the agendas of many boys.
From that point on, I can't recall ever having a very high opinion of myself. I definitely grew apathetic about school at a young age, and thus I never put much effort into it at all and halfway through high school I just gave up completely. I had such bad anxiety through the last couple of years of highschool, I fought with my mom every day about not wanting to go, and on the days I did go, my stomach would start to go berserk as soon as the school was in sight. I'd spend all of my morning classes squirming and trying to get excused from class. I told my teachers that I had to throw up, but really I had epic diarrhea.
At the time I was thankful it, but through the entirety of 11th grade, I announced to my teachers that I had to throw up and not a one of them ever paid it any mind or showed concern. Kinda pisses me off to think about, now.
I luckily stayed away from cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs (I'm responsible, that crap didn't start until my twenties), made alot of bad decisions about boys, and dropped out of school after failing the 11th grade.
The years between then and now have been full of peaks and valleys. Years of hating myself, of being angry and miserable, of crying spells and self harm, of calling off work and sleeping all day. It took forever for me to understand what depression was, and even longer for me to do something about it. I had always just assumed that that's just how I was. That the self loathing was a deserved by-product of being so fundamentally flawed. It was NORMAL for me to feel that way, because I was so imperfect and unremarkable.
Cry-baby melodrama aside, I've no major complaints. Besides a lifetime of unnecessary bummed-outness, I haven't really had a rough go at it. That's another likely reason it took me so long to seek treatment for myself. Sad people should have a REASON to be sad. Kazillions of people have good reason to be sad, and either they are sad or they manage to optimistic and find happiness. I, had only myself to blame, which fuled the cycle of self loathing.
But now? Now I'm 26. I have a kid. I have bills to pay and a grown up job with health benefits and a 401k and errythang. Wallowing, and pity-partying is a luxury that I can't afford. So I got a therapist and a shrink. I got a lady that I talk to that knows all the right questions to ask me, and another lady that put me on an anti-depressant and ADD medication.
The ADD medication tripped me out, having never been diagnosed as a kid, I always just thought I was stupid and lazy, but I'll be damned if I'm not kicking ass both personally and professionally ever since.
Being medicated is like night and day. It's like that feeling you get when you first step after the shower after being really really filthy. Sure, maybe I'm slightly zombified, but it's not too bad. I don't get terribly excited about much, and my sex drive is nearly non-existent, and when I do get worked up, reaching climax is basically a pipe dream, but the difference in my overall quality of life is astronomical.
Far be it for me to tell another grown ass person what to do, but if you're dealing with depression to the part where it's noticeably effecting the way that you function, yet for whatever reason you carry some meelymouthed objection to therapy or the use of anti-depressants, I ask you -- would you forgo novacaine at the dentist? Crutches when your leg is broken? Your blood pressure medication? Your inhaler?
Because I gotta say, being able to make a mother fucking grilled cheese sandwich without the equivalent mental and physical strain of climbing Mt. Everest is a pretty bitchin way to live.
I ain't done, not even close. I'm barely just getting started.
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