Since I was 14, I have been fighting a war within myself. Constantly barraged on both sides from not only OCD (which i probably have had since i was about 5 years old), but from depression as well. The dark sometimes debilitating mental disease that sends me into the darkest corners of my mind; where all is lost and hopeless and seems to hold no meaning whatsoever.
I was on heavy medication for two years, both Prozac and Zoloft, both dosages so high that it made me mentally and emotionally dull. The stump on your front lawn had more emotion and personality that I ever did for those two years.
Here is a good portion of my story:
When i was in middle school, I was a pretty normal pre-teen girl. Just blossoming and starting to move from "Eww boy cooties" to "wow he's cute". I had a best friend who I had been in classes with since third grade, and she and i have ALWAYS been mistaken for sisters. Life at home was good for the most part. . . then things changed.
My parents started fighting more and more. Long loud arguments that had my youngest sister and i hiding in our room, pretending that we couldn't hear them screaming, or mommy crying when daddy left, the door slamming behind him so hard the whole apartment shuddered. There was one day that I remember vividly. My parents had been fighting, badly, and i sat on my computer, doing something or other, probably playing The Sims, and tears just rolled down my cheeks. My father came in to say goodbye... and saw me crying and telling me that everything was okay.
I remember saying through my tears, "No, nothings alright, its not okay." I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I didn't want to be another statistic, I wanted and LIKED the fact that my parents were still together, and that we lived in the same apartment as a family unit. But with the way the fighting was intensifying, and with how bad it was becoming at home, i just knew that it would happen.
Things started getting harder for me to do at school, grades would slip, effort on projects would wane, and I would stop wanting to help out or do things for my mother or my father. My mother became concerned and took me to see a therapist, who was a counselor at Coconut Creek Middle at the time (i THINK, not too sure). Fast forward to going to a psychologist, who recommended that I go on meds to up my serotonin levels.
I was on high dosages of both Prozac and Zoloft, both of which made me less of a person, and i has less quirks and personality than the computer that you are one while reading this. People think I'm exaggerating when i say things like that, but then they hear from my mother and she backs up my story.
As I was being weaned off the second set of meds, I got frustrated/upset one day and actually started crying. My mother made the decision then and there that I wasn't going to go on any other medications, because i finally cried. She was glad that i was crying, but not in a sadistic way, just glad that after two years of being on meds that i finally showed some form of emotion.
I was free of meds, and for a few years i was free of any medication except for the vitamins i occasionally took. Then i got into my car accident and it all came roaring back to me, with a new friend... PTSD. Such was my fear of being on medication again that i refused to get treatment for six months after my accident, swearing that i could push through the feelings, no problem. That i could handle it, that i was fine.
Until I finally had a breakdown one day and called my father and told him that i needed to see someone, that i couldn't handle the constant anxiety attacks and the fear running through my mind over and over again.
There were times when i was with my then BF either at school or at his apartment and have to walk away from all the happiness and the light. I would walk into his room at the apartment and crawl into his bed and hold a pillow close and toss the sheets over my head to try to drown everything out. He'd come into the room and hold me as i cried and raged and ranted.
At school i'd sit on his lap curled into him holding my head in tears because my thoughts were spinning around in my head. I couldn't control them, no matter how hard i tried to stop them, to calm down. If i didn't hold my head i was afraid that my head would explode in 50 million different directions. And yet through all of it he held on and kept helping me through.
I started seeing a psychologist, and she prescribed me some meds, Effexor XR. Thankfully, it did the trick, the dosage going up to where i need it to be, for now. its lessened the anxiety attacks to nothing save for the three i had while dealing with my psycho ex BF... I no longer deal with racing thoughts, though with stress the compulsive picking has upped a bit.
I started seeing a therapist again after my father abandoned my family and after my boyfriend from college broke up with me a few months later. She has helped me through a lot of stuff, as well as having the most amazing support from my friends and family.
I am one of the lucky ones. Some people aren't.
Please, visit http://www.twloha.com/index.php for more information on depression, suicide, addiction, and self-injury, and ways/resources to help your loved ones with this disease.
We can't do it alone.
We need your help.
We need to know we're still loved.
We need to know that you care.
Because sometimes,
We're just not strong enough to pick ourselves up.
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