Hey!

I just wanted to kind of share my teenage story with you all, it’s long, and admittedly, I am also leaving out quite a lot, I had an eating disorder and other things happening, but I really tried to keep it short, but if people want to hear more about this I’ll share further!

So I’ve had depression for years. I’m 20 now, and I’ve been depressed since I first started getting acne all over my body in grade 4... and it’s still there now. Anyway, I remember a time when I was in grade 8, so 13 years old, when I hid in my closet and was tying a belt around around my neck to see if that would kill me. I never really thought much of it or thought I should seek any help for it. Now there were reasons why I felt that way, but none seemed “severe” enough to justify why I was feeling so depressed and why I wanted to die. It wasn’t until I was in grade 9 talking with one of my friends that I just started getting... memories? Disturbing memories of having been molested as a child. My mother taught music and one of her students, while his brother had a lesson, would leave the music studio and molest me. I must have been 3 or 4 at the time and just blocked that out. But in grade 9 I started remembering these things and, well, I felt more depressed. I never told my parents, but I did ask my mother about those students but she doesn’t remember who they were or anything about them.

In grade 10 I suffered from multiple physical injuries and illnesses that stemmed from figure skating, and I spent most of the year not in school, falling behind in my studies, losing friends, feeling alone, unable to move, not able to eat or drink. Thankfully, I had recovered enough leading up to grade 11, that I still passed grade 10, by grace of my teachers dismissing me from exams since I was a student of good standing, and was able to return to school in the fall and continue. It was in grade 11 that I met a guy who quickly became my boyfriend. He was severely depressed, and often manipulated me and mentally abused me. He would say things like “if you really loved me you’d do this for me”. When I tried breaking up with him in grade 12, he threatened to commit suicide, so I stayed with him for another year. I was an A grade student, I got accepted into a recognizable school, and, well, I believe he is still in grade 12 to this date (that’s 3 years trying to pass grade 12) He always skipped school and never cared for it. When we did break up in April after my first year at university, he stalked me and harassed me. He showed up at my residence in another city begging for a second chance. When I blocked him everywhere he resorted to emailing me on throwaway accounts. This was when my anxiety began. I became incredible paranoid of seeing him out in public out of fear that I might be forced back in a relationship with him (any sort of abuse, physical or mental, is messy). I ended up working at a summer camp to escape him and be somewhere he couldn’t find me.

Now camp, was a great escape for me at the start, but as the summer went on things were not feeling right. Two thirds of the way through camp I started feeling suicidal. My anxiety was up, I was crying a lot, and I felt stuck at this place. I felt like I was bound by contract to be here and that it’ll never end. When I told the nurses about my thoughts they had me see a doctor in town, and decided I should go home, focus on me, and also not be around kids in case I had ideas to hurt others which I never did. Back at home I was improving a little, I didn’t see any doctors just yet because I was waiting to start up school where I could see someone there.

September comes around, I transferred programs so I’m technically back in first year again, and I was feeling so great. I was more confident than I had ever been, I started partying which I never did in first year, I asked out the HOTTEST guy I had seen in a while and he said yes (nothing became of it but I mean hey, I got a date) and I went on dates with two other guys too over the course of about a month. I got a tattoo, and dyed my hair rose gold. This second chance at first year was going spectacularly well and I felt fantastic.

But then after about two weeks of that my mood started to drop... and drop... and drop. By mid October I was feeling suicidal again. But this time was worse, I had never made a plan really, but this time I did. I remember sitting on my bed holding Advil and just saying “fuck it” and I took just one pill to start. Immediately after taking it though I was having second thoughts, I “snapped back to reality” and I went to my roommate in a panic attack trying to tell her what happened and she calmed me down, and together I made a plan to see my academic advisor in the morning.

After speaking with my academic advisor, and after telling my whole family what I almost did and how I’ve been feeling, I dropped out of school.

I was depressed when I came home, saw a doctor that prescribed me meds, but these meds just made things much worse. I have always been artistic, but I was going through phases of painting for 8 hours nonstop, and being irritated when people talked to me or told me to take a break. I forgot about eating, or using the bathroom, I was just consumed by this need to paint. Then after a month of taking meds, now December, I was just severely depressed all day every day. At this point my doctor began weaning me off my meds and then started wondering if I had bipolar disorder, because the meds I was on would have amplified those symptoms. Anyway i found this other treatment months later in March, called rTMS, that is medicine free, doesn’t matter if you’re bipolar or unipolar, and has a pretty low success rate it seems, but from what I can tell I’ve been a responder to it. It took a few different try’s at the correct settings to get the treatment done, but over the past month it’s been really helping me.

Now I’m just waiting for September to come back round! I got accepted into a new university program, closer to home, and I found a program that actually interests me! (Neither of my first two programs were a good fit for me)

I felt inspired to share my story because lately when I look in the mirror I feel beautiful, and that’s such a new idea to me, and it really does prove to me that I’m healing.

❤️