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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Survival / Success
- Subject: Death / Heartbreak / Loss
- Published: 09/02/2014
A Battle That No One Can See
Born 1995, M, from Scranton, United StatesA Battle That No One Can See
By: Michael Joyce
Dedicated to my friends who have helped me through some of the darkest nights that I have ever known. Without them odds are that this story would never have been written and I would not be here today.
 
My name is Mike, and believe me I am no one special, I was not captain of the football team or valedictorian of my class. I’m just a kid who has been lost, confused, and scared for what seems like ages to me. The reason for this fear is that every day I fight a battle in a war that no one else but me can see. This isn’t a war like you may think of, no one in these battles are ever hurt except for me. This is a war against depression. Every day is a constant battle for control over my thoughts and emotions. Now most people do not understand depression and some people who have never experienced it think people can just get over it. Now I am not trying to change people’s opinions on the issue, all I want to do is to tell my story about my secret battle with this mental disease in the hopes that if someone reads this one day who is dealing with the same thing, they will at least know they are not alone.
My story begins in my junior year of high school at Lansdale Catholic. It began just as any other, I was taking two advanced placement (AP) courses as well as many other honors courses, so I guess you could say I had a difficult course load, but hey that had never bothered me before. For a while it seemed like everything was going to go as it always did, straight A’s and my dad seeing this as satisfactory. However, I never seemed able to please him. Around January that year everything around me seemed to collapse in terms of academics. All of a sudden, my normal strategies for passing tests and other assignments began to fail, and I saw my grades plummet as a result. I panicked and attempted to try harder than ever, but this simply resulted in just burning me out, and I went two whole weeks without passing a test or quiz in any of my classes. I was in a complete downward spiral academically, which led to the beginning of my doubting my ability to succeed.
That same year, I also developed feelings for a very close friend. Hannah became a close friend of mine during our freshman year. Therefore, when I asked her to the junior prom she smiled and said yes without hesitation. I anticipated prom to be one of the best nights of the year, and everything transpired wonderfully; until I decided to ask the question that I had wanted to ask for the longest time. During one of the songs, I looked at her and asked, “Hannah, will you go out with me?” Needless to say, the response I received was not what I had hoped for. When your first crush says no, it comes as a large blow to anyone’s self-esteem, and it turned out no differently for me. After this experience, I truly began to doubt myself, and depression truly set in, but I did nothing to attempt to stop it. Instead, I let it into my life and it slowly started taking over. My world soon turned into a black hole of despair.
Not even two days after the rejection by my friend at prom, I became involved in the largest argument with my dad, to that point in my life. I truly cannot remember why the argument started, but what I do remember are the stinging words that my own father said to me. Whatever we had been arguing about ended with him saying, “you are a disappointment and useless.” My dad had not known what had occurred only two nights before, but it truly did not matter to me and I wondered who would say something like that to his own child. This turned into another emotional blow, and for this reason I refused to trust my parents. I decided that night not to tell them that depression had entered my life, and that I was having tremendous difficulty coping with it.
My junior year of high school ended in June that year, and I believed that with the start of summer I would see my depression leave and happiness return to my life. I have never been so wrong. Only two weeks into the summer, my depression became worse than ever. I had developed a strategy to try and cope, which involved going for a long walk while listening to music, whenever I started to feel upset or down on myself. Because of my strategy, I did a great deal of walking those first two weeks of summer. One night, my parents and my brother went out shopping, but I decided to stay home. Almost immediately after they left, I became upset, so I put my coping method into place like I had done so many times before, but for some reason this time it did not work. As I walked around my neighborhood, the negative thoughts flooded into my head like a waterfall, and I began asking myself, “Is this life really worth it?” By the time I returned home, I was on the “edge of the cliff” as some might put it. I had come to the conclusion that my life was not worth it, and it would be better off to end it. I climbed the steps to my parent’s room and pulled out my dad’s 9mm handgun, which I had learned how to use when I turned ten. At that moment the gun looked like my best friend. I took the safety off the gun and held it to my head, and was ready to pull the trigger, as I looked out the window and saw a beautiful orange sunset. To me this seemed like the perfect way to end it, a beautiful night and no one around to hear the shot. Before I pulled the trigger however, I heard a voice in my head. This voice said to me, and I remember this so vividly, “Mike, put down the gun. You are meant to be so much more than this and it’s not your time yet. Things may be hard now, but they will get better, you just need to have faith.” I do not know whose voice this was, but all I know is that it saved my life. I trusted this voice that I heard and I put the gun down. After the suicide attempt, I walked in a daze back into my room and collapsed on the bed wondering how I had allowed my depression to get this far. I cried for what felt like hours but in reality was probably only minutes, and as soon as my parents returned I made it seem like nothing had happened.
The summer continued and for the rest of it I kept my mouth shut about what had happened. I kept it all locked up inside for the longest time until one night in August when I could no longer keep it inside of me. I opened up that night to one of my best friends, Reena. I told her everything and I was so shocked and grateful about how understanding she was. Reena helped me get through the rest of the summer and back into school for my senior year, but still no one, except her, knew how close I had come to never walking through those halls again. One night soon after senior year had begun my best and oldest friend, John, finally found out what I had almost done. The two of us had known each other for as long as we could remember. I finally told him what had occurred one night, as we drove home from a party that we had attended. His reaction left a lasting impression on me which will never be forgotten. In the fifteen years I had known John, I had never seen him cry until that night. This reaction showed me how much my life meant to my friends, and I realized then what I had almost given up.
For a few months after this, everything seemed to be going well. I felt confident in myself and I foolishly thought I had defeated depression, but what I did not know was how strong this disease truly was. When it returned it came back in full force and stronger than before. I became afraid, not knowing if that feeling of wanting to end my life would come back or not. Slowly I began to battle once again and tried to get through it once again without letting anyone know what was going on in my head. This time it was impossible however, and slowly I reached out to my two friends whom I knew I could trust. Once again the two of them were able to get me through it and helped me to keep a level head for the most part. I also gained a new friend during this time that I soon trusted enough to tell what had happened. Kristen became one of my closest friends in a short period of time and eventually I told her everything, and her reaction was one of understanding as well, which I was grateful for.
In April of my senior year I decided I would attend a religious retreat offered by my school, called Kairos. I thought to myself 'hey it can’t hurt right?' Well this landed up being one of my favorite parts of senior year. During this retreat I regained my faith and hope which I had not had in almost a year. Unfortunately it would not last very long. About two weeks after returning from that amazing retreat I finally came down off of what we at Lansdale Catholic liked to refer to as the Kai-High. Once I did everything went back to normal, but for me this was okay because I felt in control. This was good considering prom was coming up in two weeks and I was going with Kristen. By the time prom finally came I was excited and the dance was great, even though the fire alarm did go off, but we did not care. After prom we went over to a friend’s house for a post-prom party. It was a fun time and I do not think I need to explain what all of us did at that party. Everything seemed to be going great and the next day was my cousin’s communion party. The only down side I saw to this going into it was that I was completely hung-over from the night before. Well I was wrong, that party changed a lot.
The party was fun during the day but everything seemed to go south as the night went on. By one that morning everyone was drunk including my dad. My best friend, John, and I were reminiscing about the post prom party the night before in the kitchen and having a good time. We were not drinking at the communion party and for that reason I had been given the keys to my dad’s car. Soon I saw my dad come into the kitchen and I could tell he was drunk. He walked right up to me and demanded that I hand over the keys to the car, but I stood my ground and refused to hand them over. Once I did that he became angry and I was quickly backed into a corner with nowhere to go. My mind started racing, I panicked and did not know what to do. He demanded once again that I hand over the keys, but once again I refused. At this point he became enraged and I thought he would try to forcefully take them so I prepared myself mentally to fight my own father. The fight never came; instead what came next was much worst. Once again his words cut like daggers through my heart and head. As he left the room he looked at me and said, “You think you’re tough? You are nothing and you are worthless. Compared to me, you will never amount to anything.” Of course there were other words he used, but I do not believe them to be necessary as I am sure anyone can guess what type of words they were.
Well my dad decided to walk home once I refused to hand over the keys, and I did not know what to do. I was a wreck and I was too scared to go home to where he might be waiting for me. John, who had witnessed the whole thing, grabbed me, put me in his car, and took me back to his house to stay the night. I am eternally grateful to my best friend for that. The next day my mom came and picked me up after learning what had transpired the night before because she had fallen asleep. When I finally confronted my dad he apologized for what had happened, but in the end it did not matter. The words had been embedded into my heart and my head. Everything seemed to be wrong once again and I was lost and confused. I started to believe I would never be anything just like he said.
Just when I thought things could not possibly get any worst the unthinkable in my mind happened. Only two days after what had happened at the party, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Everything truly collapsed at this point in my head. Nothing seemed right and I was scared to death. My friends could not even pull me out of this pit fall, although they did their best to try. The worst part about it all was that I felt so guilty. The reason for this was I believed I was being selfish because I was depressed while my mom had cancer. I had no idea what to do so I just decided to not say anything once again because I felt my problems were something no one would understand, and I thought people would say I was just seeking attention. I went on like this for about three months constantly trying to figure out what to do.
In August, some friends and I decided to have one last get together before we all left to go our separate ways for college. For me this meant the University of Scranton. At this last party of ours I showed up extremely upset and scared, but of course no one could tell except maybe John. I had become a master of hiding my depression by this point. Well that night I decided I was going to drown my depression in alcohol. It was the worst decision of my life. I landed up taking eleven shots of vodka in under two hours. I became violently sick and most likely had alcohol poisoning that night. I thank God I did not die that night, because at some points it felt like I might. The next day I finally realized what I had done. I tried to drown my depression with alcohol and it almost killed me. This was the second time in the span of a little more than a year that my depression had almost killed me. Understandably I was more scared than ever going into college, knowing I would be missing two out of my three closest friends when it came to my support group. The only one I was not losing was Kristen, who decided to follow me to Scranton.
When I started my freshman year of college that August I was nervous, but then again who isn’t. I quickly found a group of friends that I was comfortable with, and we became extremely close very quickly. It was great and for a while it seemed like my depression left me, but it would soon return in October of that year. In mid-October for some reason it decided it was going to come back and screw with my head again. I did my best to fight it off, and slowly I explained to my new friends what was going on with me as they became more aware and concerned. The first one I told everything to was Julian. He has been supportive of me ever since. In late October, and by late I mean Halloween, I met Chris. We quickly became friends and within a few days of meeting her I decided to ask her out, and she said yes. It was a great time, but in the end I still could not hold back the empty feeling that depression brought with it. About two weeks after we started going out Chris and I broke up, but decided we were still going to be friends. Ever since then she has been the person at Scranton I have always been able to turn to when I needed help. She became my best friend and I thank God for that.
As winter break approached that year my mood plummeted more and more with every passing day. I was in a downward spiral and I did not know what to do. I had begun to have nightmares as well based on the suicide attempt from two years earlier as well as the night I was put into the corner by my dad at the communion party. About a week before we left for break Julian finally suggested that I go to counseling when we returned to school in February. I was reluctant and I wondered what people would think if they found out I was in counseling for depression. I decided to ask Chris what she thought about it, afraid that she might think less of me for some reason. Instead she said, “Mike, I will support your decision no matter what it may be. If this is what you think is right, then I’ll help you with it and I’ll walk down to the center with you if you want when we come back.” This was the reassurance that I felt I needed. I promised both Julian and Chris that as soon as we returned I would go to counseling. I just prayed nothing would happen during the month and a half that we were off. Once again my hopes were dashed.
For the most part the time at home during winter break was bearable. I still could not really hold a conversation with my dad without remembering what had transpired only a few months earlier, but I was managing. The depression was also controllable. Although I still felt down most of the time I knew I was safe and I would not do anything irrational. About a week before I was to go back to school I decided to visit Chris for the day so that we could hang out. It was a good day, but on my return trip home I landed up getting a flat tire about thirty minutes from home. I called my mom hoping she could come help me, but instead it was my dad that showed up. I knew things were not going to go well when he showed up and refused to say a word to me. By the time we got home he was enraged with anger and he let it all loose on me. Once again I was called worthless and useless, but this time he told me to basically get out. He stormed off to bed afterwards and I was wreck once again. How could this happen again I thought. My mom had landed up overhearing the whole thing and she found me in tears after he went to bed. She agreed to take me back to Scranton within the next three days so I could get away, which she did.
With the start of the new semester I began counseling like I had promised Julian and Chris only two months before. My mood and thoughts were at an all-time low as I began. It did not take my counselor long to diagnose me as clinically depressed between the mood, the feelings of hopelessness, and the nightmares. I took this diagnosis pretty well since I assumed I would be told this from the beginning. By March I was on medication to help with the depression as well as medication to help me sleep at night and block out the nightmares. It still had its ups and downs but for the most part things seemed to be slowly getting better and I eventually even told my mom everything that had happened but still refused to tell my dad as he believed that anyone who is depressed or has tried to commit suicide is selfish and is an attention seeker and that the world is better without them.
Once again however just when I thought everything was getting better my mood plummeted for what seemed like no reason, and I decided I would go home one weekend to see if just spending some time with my mom might help, since my dad and brother were on a camping trip. Well the trip home landed up being a disaster. I did have a good time with my mom that weekend, but when my mom went to church on Saturday night I walked into my room, pulled out a knife from my drawer, and decided to cut myself for the first time. After I did it I felt ashamed of myself for doing it. The worst part was I had done it right on the palm of my hand so everyone could see the large bandage that was needed to cover my whole hand. When my mom and anyone else asked what had happened I lied and told them the knife had slipped when I was opening a box. I was completely ashamed and lost and I told that lie to everyone, even Chris, but Chris knew better than to believe me and confronted me that night about what really happened. I could not lie to her and I broke down and told her what had actually happened. She was scared for me and I was scared for myself as well. I could not explain why I had done such a thing and it did not make sense. I was scared to death about what might come next as I clearly was not in control.
Chris helped me to reach out to people, although I was extremely reluctant at first, and through it all she never gave up on me and I am so thankful for that. I started talking to more people and I told my counselor what had happened and together we worked through it all. Slowly things started to get better as the summer approached and it was time for us all to go our separate ways for a while. By the time summer came I was confident I could get through the summer without incident.
That summer I got a job working with Vector Marketing. In the beginning I loved my new job, but soon things started changing and I was being worked like an animal selling CUTCO Knives. My manager seemed to be a very understanding and caring person and one day I decided to open up to him and tell him about my depression and suicide attempt. He listened to me and it seemed like he cared about how I felt. I was so wrong though. About two weeks before I began my sophomore year the feelings of despair began to come back and I lost my appetite as well as ten pounds in ten days. I called my manager and told him that I would not be returning for the rest of the summer because I needed to get this under control, and I believed he would be supportive because of how he had reacted when I first told him. I was wrong. I was told to basically screw off and that I was no longer needed. I felt betrayed as I realized that my manager was just a manipulative jerk who used college kids and pretended to care about them, just like the rest of Vector Marketing. This hurt for a little while, but soon I realized I did not need this anymore. I did not need any of it and I was ready to head back to Scranton.
I returned to Scranton for my sophomore year ready to take on the world despite my depression. I just do my best to get through every day and not let it affect me to the best of my ability. Every night I will sit out by the statue of the angel next to my dorm and I will stare out over the horizon. This helps to remind me that even though I am still lost, confused, and scared that God has a plan for me and I have to keep going no matter how I feel. Even though I am still scared of what goes on in my head and what it might lead to I have one new weapon to wage this war with, and that is hope. It is the most powerful weapon in my everyday battles with myself. I am now doing my best to eliminate this disease from my life and never let it back.
Like I said earlier the point of this is not to change anyone’s mind about depression and whether it exists or not. The point is to show those of us that know it is real and deal with it to know that you are not alone in this battle that others may not be able to see. For people who know what it’s like and deal with it, I want to say do not be afraid to reach out to friends. All it takes is one person to talk you down off that ledge that you may be standing on. Just remember no one is truly ever alone.
A Battle That No One Can See(Michael Joyce)
A Battle That No One Can See
By: Michael Joyce
Dedicated to my friends who have helped me through some of the darkest nights that I have ever known. Without them odds are that this story would never have been written and I would not be here today.
 
My name is Mike, and believe me I am no one special, I was not captain of the football team or valedictorian of my class. I’m just a kid who has been lost, confused, and scared for what seems like ages to me. The reason for this fear is that every day I fight a battle in a war that no one else but me can see. This isn’t a war like you may think of, no one in these battles are ever hurt except for me. This is a war against depression. Every day is a constant battle for control over my thoughts and emotions. Now most people do not understand depression and some people who have never experienced it think people can just get over it. Now I am not trying to change people’s opinions on the issue, all I want to do is to tell my story about my secret battle with this mental disease in the hopes that if someone reads this one day who is dealing with the same thing, they will at least know they are not alone.
My story begins in my junior year of high school at Lansdale Catholic. It began just as any other, I was taking two advanced placement (AP) courses as well as many other honors courses, so I guess you could say I had a difficult course load, but hey that had never bothered me before. For a while it seemed like everything was going to go as it always did, straight A’s and my dad seeing this as satisfactory. However, I never seemed able to please him. Around January that year everything around me seemed to collapse in terms of academics. All of a sudden, my normal strategies for passing tests and other assignments began to fail, and I saw my grades plummet as a result. I panicked and attempted to try harder than ever, but this simply resulted in just burning me out, and I went two whole weeks without passing a test or quiz in any of my classes. I was in a complete downward spiral academically, which led to the beginning of my doubting my ability to succeed.
That same year, I also developed feelings for a very close friend. Hannah became a close friend of mine during our freshman year. Therefore, when I asked her to the junior prom she smiled and said yes without hesitation. I anticipated prom to be one of the best nights of the year, and everything transpired wonderfully; until I decided to ask the question that I had wanted to ask for the longest time. During one of the songs, I looked at her and asked, “Hannah, will you go out with me?” Needless to say, the response I received was not what I had hoped for. When your first crush says no, it comes as a large blow to anyone’s self-esteem, and it turned out no differently for me. After this experience, I truly began to doubt myself, and depression truly set in, but I did nothing to attempt to stop it. Instead, I let it into my life and it slowly started taking over. My world soon turned into a black hole of despair.
Not even two days after the rejection by my friend at prom, I became involved in the largest argument with my dad, to that point in my life. I truly cannot remember why the argument started, but what I do remember are the stinging words that my own father said to me. Whatever we had been arguing about ended with him saying, “you are a disappointment and useless.” My dad had not known what had occurred only two nights before, but it truly did not matter to me and I wondered who would say something like that to his own child. This turned into another emotional blow, and for this reason I refused to trust my parents. I decided that night not to tell them that depression had entered my life, and that I was having tremendous difficulty coping with it.
My junior year of high school ended in June that year, and I believed that with the start of summer I would see my depression leave and happiness return to my life. I have never been so wrong. Only two weeks into the summer, my depression became worse than ever. I had developed a strategy to try and cope, which involved going for a long walk while listening to music, whenever I started to feel upset or down on myself. Because of my strategy, I did a great deal of walking those first two weeks of summer. One night, my parents and my brother went out shopping, but I decided to stay home. Almost immediately after they left, I became upset, so I put my coping method into place like I had done so many times before, but for some reason this time it did not work. As I walked around my neighborhood, the negative thoughts flooded into my head like a waterfall, and I began asking myself, “Is this life really worth it?” By the time I returned home, I was on the “edge of the cliff” as some might put it. I had come to the conclusion that my life was not worth it, and it would be better off to end it. I climbed the steps to my parent’s room and pulled out my dad’s 9mm handgun, which I had learned how to use when I turned ten. At that moment the gun looked like my best friend. I took the safety off the gun and held it to my head, and was ready to pull the trigger, as I looked out the window and saw a beautiful orange sunset. To me this seemed like the perfect way to end it, a beautiful night and no one around to hear the shot. Before I pulled the trigger however, I heard a voice in my head. This voice said to me, and I remember this so vividly, “Mike, put down the gun. You are meant to be so much more than this and it’s not your time yet. Things may be hard now, but they will get better, you just need to have faith.” I do not know whose voice this was, but all I know is that it saved my life. I trusted this voice that I heard and I put the gun down. After the suicide attempt, I walked in a daze back into my room and collapsed on the bed wondering how I had allowed my depression to get this far. I cried for what felt like hours but in reality was probably only minutes, and as soon as my parents returned I made it seem like nothing had happened.
The summer continued and for the rest of it I kept my mouth shut about what had happened. I kept it all locked up inside for the longest time until one night in August when I could no longer keep it inside of me. I opened up that night to one of my best friends, Reena. I told her everything and I was so shocked and grateful about how understanding she was. Reena helped me get through the rest of the summer and back into school for my senior year, but still no one, except her, knew how close I had come to never walking through those halls again. One night soon after senior year had begun my best and oldest friend, John, finally found out what I had almost done. The two of us had known each other for as long as we could remember. I finally told him what had occurred one night, as we drove home from a party that we had attended. His reaction left a lasting impression on me which will never be forgotten. In the fifteen years I had known John, I had never seen him cry until that night. This reaction showed me how much my life meant to my friends, and I realized then what I had almost given up.
For a few months after this, everything seemed to be going well. I felt confident in myself and I foolishly thought I had defeated depression, but what I did not know was how strong this disease truly was. When it returned it came back in full force and stronger than before. I became afraid, not knowing if that feeling of wanting to end my life would come back or not. Slowly I began to battle once again and tried to get through it once again without letting anyone know what was going on in my head. This time it was impossible however, and slowly I reached out to my two friends whom I knew I could trust. Once again the two of them were able to get me through it and helped me to keep a level head for the most part. I also gained a new friend during this time that I soon trusted enough to tell what had happened. Kristen became one of my closest friends in a short period of time and eventually I told her everything, and her reaction was one of understanding as well, which I was grateful for.
In April of my senior year I decided I would attend a religious retreat offered by my school, called Kairos. I thought to myself 'hey it can’t hurt right?' Well this landed up being one of my favorite parts of senior year. During this retreat I regained my faith and hope which I had not had in almost a year. Unfortunately it would not last very long. About two weeks after returning from that amazing retreat I finally came down off of what we at Lansdale Catholic liked to refer to as the Kai-High. Once I did everything went back to normal, but for me this was okay because I felt in control. This was good considering prom was coming up in two weeks and I was going with Kristen. By the time prom finally came I was excited and the dance was great, even though the fire alarm did go off, but we did not care. After prom we went over to a friend’s house for a post-prom party. It was a fun time and I do not think I need to explain what all of us did at that party. Everything seemed to be going great and the next day was my cousin’s communion party. The only down side I saw to this going into it was that I was completely hung-over from the night before. Well I was wrong, that party changed a lot.
The party was fun during the day but everything seemed to go south as the night went on. By one that morning everyone was drunk including my dad. My best friend, John, and I were reminiscing about the post prom party the night before in the kitchen and having a good time. We were not drinking at the communion party and for that reason I had been given the keys to my dad’s car. Soon I saw my dad come into the kitchen and I could tell he was drunk. He walked right up to me and demanded that I hand over the keys to the car, but I stood my ground and refused to hand them over. Once I did that he became angry and I was quickly backed into a corner with nowhere to go. My mind started racing, I panicked and did not know what to do. He demanded once again that I hand over the keys, but once again I refused. At this point he became enraged and I thought he would try to forcefully take them so I prepared myself mentally to fight my own father. The fight never came; instead what came next was much worst. Once again his words cut like daggers through my heart and head. As he left the room he looked at me and said, “You think you’re tough? You are nothing and you are worthless. Compared to me, you will never amount to anything.” Of course there were other words he used, but I do not believe them to be necessary as I am sure anyone can guess what type of words they were.
Well my dad decided to walk home once I refused to hand over the keys, and I did not know what to do. I was a wreck and I was too scared to go home to where he might be waiting for me. John, who had witnessed the whole thing, grabbed me, put me in his car, and took me back to his house to stay the night. I am eternally grateful to my best friend for that. The next day my mom came and picked me up after learning what had transpired the night before because she had fallen asleep. When I finally confronted my dad he apologized for what had happened, but in the end it did not matter. The words had been embedded into my heart and my head. Everything seemed to be wrong once again and I was lost and confused. I started to believe I would never be anything just like he said.
Just when I thought things could not possibly get any worst the unthinkable in my mind happened. Only two days after what had happened at the party, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Everything truly collapsed at this point in my head. Nothing seemed right and I was scared to death. My friends could not even pull me out of this pit fall, although they did their best to try. The worst part about it all was that I felt so guilty. The reason for this was I believed I was being selfish because I was depressed while my mom had cancer. I had no idea what to do so I just decided to not say anything once again because I felt my problems were something no one would understand, and I thought people would say I was just seeking attention. I went on like this for about three months constantly trying to figure out what to do.
In August, some friends and I decided to have one last get together before we all left to go our separate ways for college. For me this meant the University of Scranton. At this last party of ours I showed up extremely upset and scared, but of course no one could tell except maybe John. I had become a master of hiding my depression by this point. Well that night I decided I was going to drown my depression in alcohol. It was the worst decision of my life. I landed up taking eleven shots of vodka in under two hours. I became violently sick and most likely had alcohol poisoning that night. I thank God I did not die that night, because at some points it felt like I might. The next day I finally realized what I had done. I tried to drown my depression with alcohol and it almost killed me. This was the second time in the span of a little more than a year that my depression had almost killed me. Understandably I was more scared than ever going into college, knowing I would be missing two out of my three closest friends when it came to my support group. The only one I was not losing was Kristen, who decided to follow me to Scranton.
When I started my freshman year of college that August I was nervous, but then again who isn’t. I quickly found a group of friends that I was comfortable with, and we became extremely close very quickly. It was great and for a while it seemed like my depression left me, but it would soon return in October of that year. In mid-October for some reason it decided it was going to come back and screw with my head again. I did my best to fight it off, and slowly I explained to my new friends what was going on with me as they became more aware and concerned. The first one I told everything to was Julian. He has been supportive of me ever since. In late October, and by late I mean Halloween, I met Chris. We quickly became friends and within a few days of meeting her I decided to ask her out, and she said yes. It was a great time, but in the end I still could not hold back the empty feeling that depression brought with it. About two weeks after we started going out Chris and I broke up, but decided we were still going to be friends. Ever since then she has been the person at Scranton I have always been able to turn to when I needed help. She became my best friend and I thank God for that.
As winter break approached that year my mood plummeted more and more with every passing day. I was in a downward spiral and I did not know what to do. I had begun to have nightmares as well based on the suicide attempt from two years earlier as well as the night I was put into the corner by my dad at the communion party. About a week before we left for break Julian finally suggested that I go to counseling when we returned to school in February. I was reluctant and I wondered what people would think if they found out I was in counseling for depression. I decided to ask Chris what she thought about it, afraid that she might think less of me for some reason. Instead she said, “Mike, I will support your decision no matter what it may be. If this is what you think is right, then I’ll help you with it and I’ll walk down to the center with you if you want when we come back.” This was the reassurance that I felt I needed. I promised both Julian and Chris that as soon as we returned I would go to counseling. I just prayed nothing would happen during the month and a half that we were off. Once again my hopes were dashed.
For the most part the time at home during winter break was bearable. I still could not really hold a conversation with my dad without remembering what had transpired only a few months earlier, but I was managing. The depression was also controllable. Although I still felt down most of the time I knew I was safe and I would not do anything irrational. About a week before I was to go back to school I decided to visit Chris for the day so that we could hang out. It was a good day, but on my return trip home I landed up getting a flat tire about thirty minutes from home. I called my mom hoping she could come help me, but instead it was my dad that showed up. I knew things were not going to go well when he showed up and refused to say a word to me. By the time we got home he was enraged with anger and he let it all loose on me. Once again I was called worthless and useless, but this time he told me to basically get out. He stormed off to bed afterwards and I was wreck once again. How could this happen again I thought. My mom had landed up overhearing the whole thing and she found me in tears after he went to bed. She agreed to take me back to Scranton within the next three days so I could get away, which she did.
With the start of the new semester I began counseling like I had promised Julian and Chris only two months before. My mood and thoughts were at an all-time low as I began. It did not take my counselor long to diagnose me as clinically depressed between the mood, the feelings of hopelessness, and the nightmares. I took this diagnosis pretty well since I assumed I would be told this from the beginning. By March I was on medication to help with the depression as well as medication to help me sleep at night and block out the nightmares. It still had its ups and downs but for the most part things seemed to be slowly getting better and I eventually even told my mom everything that had happened but still refused to tell my dad as he believed that anyone who is depressed or has tried to commit suicide is selfish and is an attention seeker and that the world is better without them.
Once again however just when I thought everything was getting better my mood plummeted for what seemed like no reason, and I decided I would go home one weekend to see if just spending some time with my mom might help, since my dad and brother were on a camping trip. Well the trip home landed up being a disaster. I did have a good time with my mom that weekend, but when my mom went to church on Saturday night I walked into my room, pulled out a knife from my drawer, and decided to cut myself for the first time. After I did it I felt ashamed of myself for doing it. The worst part was I had done it right on the palm of my hand so everyone could see the large bandage that was needed to cover my whole hand. When my mom and anyone else asked what had happened I lied and told them the knife had slipped when I was opening a box. I was completely ashamed and lost and I told that lie to everyone, even Chris, but Chris knew better than to believe me and confronted me that night about what really happened. I could not lie to her and I broke down and told her what had actually happened. She was scared for me and I was scared for myself as well. I could not explain why I had done such a thing and it did not make sense. I was scared to death about what might come next as I clearly was not in control.
Chris helped me to reach out to people, although I was extremely reluctant at first, and through it all she never gave up on me and I am so thankful for that. I started talking to more people and I told my counselor what had happened and together we worked through it all. Slowly things started to get better as the summer approached and it was time for us all to go our separate ways for a while. By the time summer came I was confident I could get through the summer without incident.
That summer I got a job working with Vector Marketing. In the beginning I loved my new job, but soon things started changing and I was being worked like an animal selling CUTCO Knives. My manager seemed to be a very understanding and caring person and one day I decided to open up to him and tell him about my depression and suicide attempt. He listened to me and it seemed like he cared about how I felt. I was so wrong though. About two weeks before I began my sophomore year the feelings of despair began to come back and I lost my appetite as well as ten pounds in ten days. I called my manager and told him that I would not be returning for the rest of the summer because I needed to get this under control, and I believed he would be supportive because of how he had reacted when I first told him. I was wrong. I was told to basically screw off and that I was no longer needed. I felt betrayed as I realized that my manager was just a manipulative jerk who used college kids and pretended to care about them, just like the rest of Vector Marketing. This hurt for a little while, but soon I realized I did not need this anymore. I did not need any of it and I was ready to head back to Scranton.
I returned to Scranton for my sophomore year ready to take on the world despite my depression. I just do my best to get through every day and not let it affect me to the best of my ability. Every night I will sit out by the statue of the angel next to my dorm and I will stare out over the horizon. This helps to remind me that even though I am still lost, confused, and scared that God has a plan for me and I have to keep going no matter how I feel. Even though I am still scared of what goes on in my head and what it might lead to I have one new weapon to wage this war with, and that is hope. It is the most powerful weapon in my everyday battles with myself. I am now doing my best to eliminate this disease from my life and never let it back.
Like I said earlier the point of this is not to change anyone’s mind about depression and whether it exists or not. The point is to show those of us that know it is real and deal with it to know that you are not alone in this battle that others may not be able to see. For people who know what it’s like and deal with it, I want to say do not be afraid to reach out to friends. All it takes is one person to talk you down off that ledge that you may be standing on. Just remember no one is truly ever alone.
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