I’m that girl that everybody knows. You talk to me on campus
or see me on Facebook or Twitter and think “she’s one of the happiest, most carefree
(possibly even most annoying) people I know.” I smile, and I laugh, and I talk
too much too fast and I encourage others, and sometimes I don’t even have to
lie to myself to do it. But it’s the times you don’t see me that would scare
you. By nature, I’m an introvert. I draw my energy from time alone with my
thoughts or a book or a canvas. But almost always, that alone time I crave is my
worst enemy. I’m 20-years-old, and I suffer from Major Depressive Disorder,
ADHD and active suicidal ideation. I used to hate the term “suffer from
depression” because it made me feel weak. It made me feel like I couldn’t
control it. Like it owned me. Like I was, in fact, mentally ill. I spent most
of my adolescent life convinced that if I admitted to myself or anyone else I
was depressed, that somehow everything I’ve worked for and everything I have
amounted to would suddenly vanish—or at least somehow mean less.
Mental illness and suffering have never been strangers to
me. To those of you whom have known me most of my life, it isn’t much of a
secret anymore that my mother is mentally ill and hasn’t ever really been a
constant in my life outside of a catalyst for turmoil. She is diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, and I am 100% certain
that to this day, I have no idea who she is. Those who know me a little better
know that every action I take is an inverse reaction to the decisions she has made.
But those few who know me the most know that no matter how far I detach myself
from what she is, I am my mother’s daughter and I do suffer from mental illness.
I’ve battled with depression for six years. But this Not
Suicide Letter was created from the darkest part of my life, which started on January
1st, 2014 when my passive suicidal thoughts turned into a calculated
decision to end my life and continues to this very moment as I type. I’ll spare
the internet the details, but I would like to give those who don’t understand the
suicidal impulse a glimpse into a mind that spends almost every second of every
day attacking itself. If a friend were to describe me in five words, the words
would probably be passionate, honest, confident, strong and conversational. I
don’t think I’ve ever gone a year without some sort of leadership role, and I
don’t give up on relationships because I invest myself wholly in everything I
do. I work too hard, I put too much pressure on myself, but I do it because it’s
what I love to do. Nothing fulfills me more than living up to my responsibilities
and changing the world. So how could someone with so much talent, so much potential
and so many unimaginably strong relationships think it’s okay to just give up?
Because although I am fully aware of and grateful for my blessings, all of what I just described is irrelevant. In life, you can spend your
time giving to others and caring about others as I have done and will continue to do, but it took me nineteen years to
realize that what matters most is myself. The purpose of 80-100 years on this
earth is to live, and a part of really living is being happy. And if your brain
is telling you every day that you can’t achieve that, then what is the point of
existing? What’s the point of struggling to get out of bed every day for the
next 60 years?
Now, before my friends show up at my door and my family
starts saying their rosaries and never letting me out of their sight, keep
reading.
I’ve spent my whole life being told to keep things like my
depression or my mother’s bipolar disorder or anything that might not be
considered “normal” to myself. To tiptoe around people because they’ll look
down on me and ultimately because I’m not labeled the way they want me to be. I’m
writing today to say that’s stupid. It’s bullshit, and I’m not doing it
anymore. We’re so scared of being labeled “not normal” because we live in a
world that is so afraid of losing control, so afraid of the unknown, that we
extinguish any difference at first sight. Society is always going to compartmentalize
people that are by nature so inexplicably different from one another. The world
is so rejecting of difference solely because we keep it that way.
I am that happy, carefree girl who talks too much and doesn’t
care what other people think of her. Or at least I was at one point, and I think
she’s still in there somewhere. I’ve been trying for six years to find her.
Some days she pokes her head out and reminds me of all the good I’ve done in
the world and all the good I know I can do in the future just long enough for me to make it to tomorrow. I want every person
who suffers from depression and every person who doesn't to know that it sucks. You feel so completely
alone even when you aren’t. Sometimes it takes you two hours to get out of bed
for work or for class or even to hang out with friends, and most of the time
the darkness wins and you just stay in bed. It takes you hostage for weeks or
months or years at a time and tells you that it’s never letting go. It tells
you over and over that you aren’t strong enough. That happiness is a figment of
your imagination and that living in misery is no better or worse than dying in
it. It squeezes out everything that makes you you until you don't even know who that person is anymore. It weighs on you so heavy and surrounds you entirely, telling you
things that make sense to you that the rest of the world couldn’t possibly believe. Your friends, your parents, your aunts and uncles, your teachers—they
tell you that it’s all in your head. That happiness starts from within, and
that everything will be okay "in time." They tell you to just get over it, or they try to
be supportive in the only way they know how by telling you that you’re not
alone.
But the truth is you are alone. One in ten
Americans suffers from depression, and no matter what support groups,
therapists, family or friends you are surrounded by, you are utterly and
completely alone because that’s what depression does, and that’s all it wants
to do. It sucks. And no one outside of the disease gets it. You can’t just be happy, even if
you spend every second of eternity willing yourself to be.
So from now on, I say no. No to pretending like it doesn’t
exist. No to allowing the fear of rejection to keep people suffering alone in the dark.
Because mental health is too important of an issue to ignore any longer.
Because the brain is so amazingly capable and it’s okay to admit that it kinda
hates you a little bit. It’s okay to seek help. It’s okay to tell people, and I
actually encourage it. It’s not until people are no longer afraid to talk about
something that any truth or hope can be found in it. After January 1st,
2014, I finally decided that I can’t do this on my own, and that I want to be
myself again, whoever that person is. For anyone who feels that asking for help or admitting you’re depressed
is weakness or for anyone who is afraid of the way your peers will look at you,
fear is not worth it. Life is actually really beautiful, and if you don’t trust
the people who don’t understand what depression is like, trust me.
I want to be able to give you a success story, but my story
is still in progress. Mental illness isn’t something that ever really goes
away, and it takes the strongest kind of person to live an actual life with it.
I want to be able to tell you it gets better. I want to be able to tell you how
to get through it. I want to be able to tell you that there is some specific
hill you cross over to get out of the darkness forever. I want to be able to
tell you all these things because I want to be able to tell them to myself. But
after six years, I’ve learned that there isn’t. I’ve learned that the clichés
don’t ever really work and that hope only lasts for so long. What I will tell
you is that I’m admitting all of this for all of the internet to see because I’m
relying on you to support me. I’m holding myself accountable to every person
reading this letter because being alone in the dark does nothing but make me feel
weak and small and and a danger to myself. I can’t do this on my own, and I don’t want you to either. Depression isn’t something people should be shoving under the bed because no one suffering
from it should ever have to feel more alone than they already do.
You are not sick. You are not crazy. You are not messed up. You are not worth
less than your friends that can just
be happy. You are gifted. Grief is too beautiful of a human characteristic to
take for granted. We wouldn’t be capable of accepting and understanding life
without it. Hurting makes us human. Rather than going through the days numb to
the unimaginable wonders of the world, the ability and depth to which we hurt
allows us to see more clearly the beauty that is humanity. Pain makes life
worth it, not the other way around. To those less skilled in the art of
suffering, pain is weakness. But to those who fight every day to find the
will to live, your strength opens wider the opportunity to truly get the most out of life. And why
give up on something you’re being specially trained for?
