First off I want to warn you that this is probably not going to be like great for some people, it might even be triggering, which I do not want, I just feel the need to share, so yeah, don't read if it might damage you, That would do no one any good.
I guess I feel the need to write this because I am getting depressed again, which is weird, because for a long time it seemed to have gone away, or at least to have not been to bad, but these last few years have been hell, quite literally hell, lots of ups, but way more downs, really really bad downs. I should probably also preface this with the fact that I am manic depressive, so up and downs are pretty normal for me, but up until a couple years ago I had been mostly enjoying the ups, the downs were few and far between and not very long lasting, it was nice, then last years it reversed, and I have been struggling ever since...
Since this is about memories, I will head back, the first time I can actively remember being depressed was my freshman year of high school. I did not understand what was happening, I just tried really hard to hide it because I did not want to upset my mom, she had enough going on with my dad, I did not need to add to it. Only a couple of people ever caught it, Joe, he was able to see right through me, and Steven who I let in, I needed someone to talk to, then he betrayed me, not really, but it I was what it felt like at the time, he talked to a counselor who then talked to me which was exactly what he should have done, not his fault it didn't help matters, only made them worse because the I felt as though I had no one to turn to. I was just so sad, and I felt as though no one got me, which was mostly true back then, I have always been a strikingly unique individual and at that age I did not know how to turn it down, now to fit in as necessary, so it made things hard. Anyways, I just wanted to die, not by my own hand, but if the world had collapsed in on me, I would not have actively tried to save myself. That is a hard thing to admit, but it is the truth...
Before high school I think I was showing warning signs maybe? Let's just say I wrote very morbid poetry lots of stuff about death, but I had also just lost like half of my close family in a two or three year time frame, so I think most people blamed it on that.
Yeah so by the end of my freshman year, the guy I totally crushed on for years, Steven, had betrayed me, and I was actively hoping for a meteor to crash into me, and I started to cut, I was never very obvious about it, I cut the bottom of my feet, it took them forever to heal, and walking on them reminded me everyday that I could still feel, even if all I felt at that time was pain both inside and out. I sent a lot of time trying to find God during this time as well, needless to say that never really helped. Then one day, it went away, and I was back to my normal happy go lucky self, a little more happy probably then was preferred by most people, but that was normal, right?
This cycle went on all through high school, and really I am still not sure of anyone ever noticed how extreme it was, hell, I didn't even notice it really. I opened up about it to very few people, and never all of it. Like NO ONE knew I cut. Eventually I stopped cutting, but that was after I found drugs. I spent a couple of years smoking as much pot as I could get my hands on, so no not really any heavy drugs, I only ever did pot, and once, just once I tried acid, it was graduation night for the class of 2000, and it was pretty fantastic, but it wasn't my thing. I wanted to be numb, and pot did that for me, it was blissfully awesome how numb I was about everything during that time. It caused me to do some stupid things, hurt people who I cared about, but I didn't really care enough back then to get that. It also screwed my memory a bit, I went from having an awesome photographic memory, to having only a sorta awesome one. Which I could explain in more detail but I won't. Lol, what it did do was allow me to forget, about feeling, about life, I just sorta floated through that time and it was awesome in its own way.
Then one day my best friend and the love of my life said that enough was enou and we made a pact, he would quit smoking cigarettes if I would quit smoking pot, so I did, and then soon after I got pregnant, and that sealed it for me, no more drugs, not even the low key ones, I would not do that to my kid. It might have been better of I did though...
After my son was born, my depression came back, not post partem either, just my own brand of hell. It would come and go, the manic times were great, I could go and do so much with him, it was a blast, but it could not last, eventually the sadness would hit, and I just wanted, no needed to be left alone, and how do you explain that to a little kid, especially when I went from having endless patience one day to none the next and I didn't even know how to explain it to myself. It effected him, the way I would shut down, now could it not, one day he went from being this amazing kid to this mopey sad thing, to a person I no longer recognized, and the sad part is that it seemed like one day to me but it wasn't, it was happening over months and I was so lost in myself that I didn't even notice it until it was too late, I ruined my son, well not exactly, I still have the most awesome kid ever, it's just that he isn't what he was, even now, years later I killed something in him, I made him grow up faster than he should off all because of depression. That is something I will live with for the rest of my life, and it is something I have worked hard to try and fix, and while I know it is not really fixable, I also think that he is somewhere in the middle now, I will never know what he was going to be, but I am so proud of what and who he is. I also have tried exceptionally hard to not let a similar thing happen to my youngest son, and so far I have manged that nicely, I will always regret though that my oldest lost something in him because of me and my issues.
Back to the story, my depression got worse after my husband left to go overseas and I did some drastic things, things I am notyet ready to talk about to find myself again, I had been so lost, and while I will always be thankful to my mom for stepping in a taking care of my son when I couldn't properly, for helping me to see what I had missed, I also wish that she had been able to see me as the flawed human I am and not whatever image it is that she has in her mind. I also really love my Mil, but she made it so much harder than it needed to be, I know that she was trying to help, at least I think she was, but just pointing out people's faults is not necessarily the best thing for them. Needless to say there was a time where I was really fucked up, in a lot of ways, but it got through it and am a better person for all of those things that happened then. I learned to accept myself and my flaws and my issues, and I learned how to work with them and not succumb to them. And most importantly I learned how to talk about them to the people I care most about, because then I can be honest and not try and hide it to protect them, it works better now.
After my youngest son was born I rode the most amazing high, my husband and I manged to work our issues which is again a story for another day, and I ran mostly manic, with only a day or two of depression every couple of months... Then sometime last year, I want to say Mayish, a really bad down spell hit me, I seriously was depressed for months, I did not want to do anything, I just wanted to be left alone. I worked though it, I had obligations, but it took everything in me to do that, and some times I snapped, everyone does. It didn't fully fade until January of this year, yes there were good days in there, normal days, and days where I could not sit still because there was so much in me trying to get out, but mostly it was dark. I hated it, but if got through it, but now, months later I can feel that darkness descending on me again, and I really don't want to fall. I enjoy the manic, it lets me do everything that I have to, endless supplies of energy is awesome, sometimes the spontaneousness is not so great, but my husband is good at keeping me grounded for the most part at least. But he is helpless in the darkness, I loose myself in my mind for days at a time just functioning on autopilot but never really being all there and it sucks so much energy from not only me but from those around me, that it really just sucks.
And I feel it coming back, but this has helped some, so maybe I can hold it at bay a while longer. Anyways, thanks for reading, I hope that I did not bring you down, I just really felt the need to share...
Goodnight
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