I had planned on writing this morning some of my normal kind of inane drivel an ramblings but @Blu ‘s blog got me thinking about depression. Now I am not a shrink, I have not gone to school for anything, these are my thoughts as someone who beat depression.
I began to suffer through depression somewhere around the age of 15, a lot of people put it down as being just a hormonal teenager, I knew different. I am about to explain why and outside of maybe, maybe 20 people I don’t speak about this, but even now at the age of 30 I think putting this down, and out where others can read it will help.
From the age of 9 to the age of 11 I was sexually molested by my older cousin Ryan. I have forgiven him, it took nearly 15 year to come about and I could only do so because I had talked to his sister and was informed of the mental issues he has (not mine to divulge on here). I will never excuse what he did, I can forgive him, we are not close, and never will be but our family can be whole again.
Ok back to the point at hand, around age 15 the combination of hormones and finally relizing what had been done to me put me in a deep state of depression. I had a hard time dealing with people in general, when I was alone my thoughts were violent and dealt a lot with death (my own) and pain. I relize now that as awkward and rough school was that after high school graduation it got worse. Once I graduated and wasn’t forced to be around other people the depression deepened and my thoughts turned even more towards suicide and I began to cut myself. These were never for attention, no one knew about the self-infliction of damage. No one knew until recently about the nights I sat with my hand gun arguing with myself trying to find a reason not to do it.
Back then I was fairly hard on people, not my family but on three females in particular. The first was a girl I went to school with named Nikki. We had been friends for years and after graduation I spent a lot of time at her house. At the time I believed I was in love with her, and was angry she didn’t feel the same way. The end result of this is we have not spoken in 10 years.
The second was Christa, a girl I had met online, the first girl/woman I outright told that I loved. She reciprocated the feelings but due to my at the time fucked up mind I did everything in my power to push her away, I don’t know why I did. Maybe it was fear or something but it worked. I still talk to her but I will always regret how I treated her, and hurt her.
The third was Christa’s roommate Amanda. I had been talking with her nearly as long as I had been with Christa, and was never as much of a dick to her but I still wasn’t always nice. After Christa finally stepped away from me, I still spoke to Amanda and over the years we talked more and more. For some reason I will never understand through all the bullshit and shit she never gave up on me. In September of 2007 we finally met in person. I moved across country to be with her a month later. Now 7 years later we have been married just under 3 years, and have a beautiful 2 year old little girl.
I would love to say it was Amanda that helped my finally beat my depression, and she did play a role. The main thing that helped me beat it was one of my coworkers who took me out drinking and that night had me smoke pot for the first time. I began to smoke with him on a regular basis and I realized around 2 years later something had changed. I was no longer suicidal, I was no longer cutting, and I felt happier. I don’t know if the pot helped normalize something in my brain or what but even now after having not gotten high in 7 years (Amanda doesn’t care for it) I have not slipped back into my depression. At times when shit has gotten back I have felt it sitting back there, just waiting, watching, and plotting. Thanks though to the love of my wife I have never slipped and fallen back into it.
I will never tell someone suffering through depression it is easy, or to just smoke pot and it will go away. I don’t even know for sure if it was the pot. Depression is a horrible, horrible thing to suffer through, and anyone who has beaten it or can control it is one of the strongest people in the world.
AJ.
