Personal Piece

The following is an autobiographical essay I wrote during my fall 2014 semester in English. It's probably the first personal piece I have written since middle school. In this paper, I discussed how depression has affected my adolescent life up to now. 

“A universe without purpose should neither depress us nor suggest that our lives are purposeless. Through an awe-inspiring cosmic history we find ourselves on this remote planet in a remote corner of the universe, endowed with intelligence and self-awareness. We should not despair, but should humbly rejoice in making the most of these gifts, and celebrate our brief moment in the sun.”

Lawrence Krauss

Introduction

When I heard this quotation while watching a documentary titled The Unbelievers, I was inspired to write this version of my autobiography. This optimistic outlook on the world is one that I hold near and dear to my heart. However, if somebody who knew me heard that I described myself as "optimistic," he or she would most likely laugh. I have a dry sense of humor, like to complain, and frequently experience states of hopelessness.

Although I am, for the most part, optimistic about the world that surrounds me, there is reason to believe that I am not. First of all, I am highly introverted. Most people do not hear about all the hopes and dreams I have. Therefore, I have decided to write about my struggles throughout life that paint me in a pessimistic picture. And at the end, I will explain why, after all of this, I am still optimistic about life.

 “You need to grow a backbone.”

Some of my earliest memories of despair and struggling to deal with reality were always followed by this phrase. My father did not allow me to whine about unfair treatment from my siblings when I was young. Later on, if I had a complaint about a teacher, he said the same thing. And during recent years, he has yet to veer from this phrase.

While my dad was tough on me while I was growing up, it was through his stubbornness and intolerance that I learned to finally grow that backbone that he was talking about. Also, when I was old enough to form my own opinions about religion, social issues, and educational pursuits, I was not afraid to tell him. But, I always had to expect his retort with a rash opposing view. If I wanted to speak up about my beliefs, I had to be prepared to defend them. Yet, over time this ‘backbone’ turned more into a shell when I became exhausted with having to explain myself. I became intensely introverted in high school because I felt I did not fit in and, being a non-confrontational person, it was easier just to stay quiet.

Wandering

Although I consider my father one of the most influential people in my life, I went through four years with him hardly in my life. When my parents separated, my mom moved my two siblings and me to a two-bedroom apartment. Thus began the six-year-couch-sleeping phase of my life. From this first apartment, we moved to a three-bedroom, then I moved to my aunt’s, then back to my dad’s, then to my mom’s new place, then to my grandma’s, then to college, then back to my mom’s, then to my dad’s, and now I am at my mom’s. I have not had my own bedroom in six years, and the only bed I have been able to call my own was my dorm bed.

This sense of detachment has caused me to never be attached to anything in my life. During high school, I never found a certain subject or a certain activity to which I was attached. I took all sorts of classes and loved all of them. I volunteered with over forty different volunteer organizations, and I loved all of them. However, I never found my place.

First Hint of Hope

If I had not met my best friend Sean at the time that I did, I would be a completely different person today. I did not have any self worth, direction, nor desire for life when I met him. We explored cities, tried new foods, discussed world events, volunteered for non-profit organizations, and introduced each other to new music, films, art, science, math, literature, and ideas. We challenged each other, studied, planned, applied for colleges, and experienced being turned down and being accepted together. Sean was the absolute only person I could be my true self around. He witnessed my struggles, weaknesses, panic attacks, social anxiety, insecurities, pain, and failures, yet he always encouraged me to keep going, improve, and love myself. Although our friendship ultimately led to our separation when he moved to Chicago for school, he will always hold a giant space in my heart. He has always listened to me, dealt with me, and loved me. Before I met him, I was not even beginning to consider college or life after high school. But, here I am today constantly working to become a better version of myself, and I owe it all to his friendship.

Peak of my Potential

After graduating high school, I started my freshman year of college at Transylvania University. Upon arrival on this beautiful college campus flowers in full bloom, brick buildings, and friendly faces surrounded me. 

 Time to start my life. I am at the peak of my potential.

 Feeling extremely optimistic, I thought this was going to be a huge turning point where I would have all the opportunities to do everything I wanted in life—travel, learn, write, and explore. After four years of only having one friend in high school, I was ready to open up and let go.

I found the challenge of my courses refreshing. Being surrounded by fellow students who had a strong desire to learn and discuss confounding issues was all new and exciting for me.

The only setback I felt I was facing was the requirement to participate in class discussion. Each time I walked into the classroom, I felt my throat tighten, and I was constantly aware of that feeling throughout each class as my thoughts were consumed with how am I supposed to participate when all I can think about is my constricted throat. Of course, when called upon, I was able to talk, but my face was bright red, more due to the built up anxiety steaming out my ears than to embarrassment for what I was saying. I just felt that I was missing opportunities to communicate my true thoughts and ideas.

After August term, a month of transitioning into this new life, I signed up for poetry, environmental science, a seminar about Siddhartha, and tested into French III. All of these classes were interesting, and I had motivation to do well and expand my knowledge on these subjects. I was especially enthralled by my poetry and seminar course because, as an English major, being introduced to new literature and having the opportunity to write made me feel right at home. Also, environmental science was a new subject to me that I found entirely applicable to my life and values. French was overwhelming to say the least, but I was not performing as poorly as I expected I would.

Immersed in this new learning atmosphere, I felt I was having the best time of my life. But that initial anxiety was never ameliorated. Instead, it harvested itself deep within my thoughts and feelings. After three months, as a suggestion from a counselor, I began to see a psychologist. 

I spent twenty minutes telling her how I was succeeding in my classes but still suffering from an overwhelming amount of anxiety. She told me I sounded depressed. "No, no, no,” I told her, "This is all anxiety. I am happy to be here. Of course I feel sad sometimes, but that is due to feeling that I am being held back by my anxiety. I am not depressed.” That word just left a bad taste in my mouth. 

Yet, in trying to convince her, I began to hear my own voice and realized just how unconvincing I was to somebody who was actually listening to me. “You have no life in your voice”. That was it. She named the thought as it was forming in my head. She gave that bad taste in my mouth new meaning. All this time, I thought I was living a passionate life with direction. I had never considered depression being an aspect of my life as it had been easy to compare my stress and feelings to the students surrounding me who were facing their own stresses and issues. Before I knew it, I was skimming a survey on depression symptoms, and slowly realizing that all of these symptoms were describing how I was feeling.

Until then, I would tell people I was “feeling depressed”. As if it were a mood. But I dismissed those feelings once I was feeling better. Oh, I was just in one of those moods. I had never come to terms with myself having a disorder. With coming to terms with my disorder, I also realized that I was not a determined person, and the underlying motivations I held in my mind had always been masked by gloomy skies of my disorder. My introversion has caused me to be all thoughts, no actions.

 I thought I had been progressing on a new road, but in reality I had been sitting in my driveway, car running, wasting fuel; or perhaps I was cruising around the neighborhood of my comfort zone. I never jumped on to the interstate of meaningfulness, self-discovery, and progressive action. Everything I had done up until that point now felt meaningless. Where had I been going all that time? Perhaps I had been embarking on day trips to the city of high hopes, but returning that night to the common room of my own inaction and settlement. 

And from that point of realization, I could no longer see my school as "home." I always thought that because I had moved around so much, that all I wanted was to settle somewhere and call it my home. And that is exactly what I thought I had done. I packed my belongings from home and unpacked them onto shelves and into dressers in my dorm bedroom. I settled into a new comfort zone. When I discovered my depression, no longer were the walls of that school a comfort zone. Instead they were suffocating me. I began to miss “home," even though when I did get the chance to return, I had to sleep on peoples’ couches. 

In retrospect, coming to terms with my disorder was the climatic moment during my time at Transylvania University. The major decision to drop out was just a part of the falling resolution. However, it was not the resolution, it did not solve my problems, and I certainly did not feel I had reached my happy ending.

Valley of my Despair

During those nine months of not being in school, my depression worsened. Although I felt I had made the right decision, I could not help but feel hopeless. Also, I realized during that time that I had let go of a liberal arts education. I kept thinking about how I was at the peak of my potential and how I would never make up for the time lost.

In hopes of distracting myself from those feelings and saving money to travel or make up for time lost from progression, I got a job in customer service. This was my first job aside from babysitting, and while the daily work stress allowed me to put my focus onto something other than my hopeless life, the annoying routine of it all led me to believe that I was worth more than a minimum wage job. I had just discovered I was depressed months earlier, and I could not help but to imagine the irony of it all. In hopes of running away from my depression, I ran away from education—the one thing that makes me happy—to work a meaningless job where I was forced to put a smile on my face every minute.

Thus, I decided to enroll at Northern Kentucky University. Immediately after beginning my first semester, my mood improved drastically. My class schedule included intro courses in anthropology, mass communication, psychology, and American literature. I love general education requirements because they allow me to dip my toe in the waters of such a variety of education.

My favorite course was psychology. One aspect of this course that I think stuck with me was learning about depression. After having learned just a year earlier that depression was not a mood but a disorder, delving in more deeply into the science side of it all enlightened me further about what I was dealing with.

How Depression Made Me Happy

Depression is the captain in my brain that steers me away from action. Even though I have come to terms with my depression, I still consider myself a happy person. I experience extreme bouts of giddiness that surmount any phase of depression I go through. Catharsis from films and literature takes me to a realm beyond myself. Sometimes I feel that I am on top of the world. The warmth from the summer sun makes me feel like a whole person. I can recall so many happy moments from my life. Living with depression just means that most of my actions are stalled. Most of my ambitions are dampened. All of my dreams live inside of my head.

However, since now I know that depression is holding me back, I am holding on to what I know will help me take the wheel in my brain. Education is the only aspect of my life where I feel that my brain is growing and not stuck in idle. When the wheels are turning inside my head, depression has no power over me. When I am reflecting and analyzing my studies, I am the controller of my brain, and depression is melting on the back burner. It takes a lot of effort for me to divulge in my education due to constant setbacks by my own mind, but now I believe that education gives me power.