On the Inside looking out

I watched. I watched through thin panes of glass as life blossomed around me like a beautiful spring flower while I sank deeper into self-destruction: a root failing to germinate. I took everything in and bottled it up. I was okay on the outside, but I locked away my emotions. I watched my life crumble before my eyes and I could do nothing but sit back and observe through this window. Loved ones died through this window, friends dropped like flies through this window, the power of addiction overcame the power of love and family through this window. All I could do was observe. Like a prisoner on visitation day, I was so close to freedom but its key remained hidden behind a glass window.

Depression, defined by the Merriam-Webster English dictionary, is a state of feeling sad or a serious medical condition in which a person feels sad, hopeless and unimportant, often unable to live in a normal way. Studies show that eleven percent of adolescents develop depressive disorder by age eighteen. Depression is blind to age, sex, religion and race. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was around thirteen/fourteen years old, but I suffered from it long before the diagnosis. Thoughts or expressions of suicide and self-destructive behaviors are a major symptom of adolescent depression; the third leading cause of death among children aged fifteen to nineteen.  According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, in 2012, 40,600 suicides were reported, making suicide the tenth leading cause of death for Americans. I would have been a part of that statistic if it wasn’t for First Hospital in Kingston, Pennsylvania.

I arrived on a cold December morning, two weeks shy of my fifteenth birthday. After a long night of blood work and other medical attention to fight off the painkillers I had put in my system, I entered the doors around six in the morning. Though my depression story didn’t start here, this is where it evolved. I’ll never forget the disgusting hospital smell as I trudged down the hall to a rust-orange colored door with a sign above it that read “Adolescent Psychiatric Wing.” Like the window I so frequently refer to, my first few nights at the hospital were experienced behind my emotional barriers. And then something clicked. My window that had been locked and sealed for so long started to crack open.

   It wasn’t the hospital that helped me; it was the patients I had met there. People who felt the same things I felt, who went through the same things I went through and who did the same things I did. Though my time there was brief, I managed to meet a loving group of teens. One person’s story, in particular, stands out to me: a boy I met at the hospital named Joey. 

“After First hospital, I continued on my sleep aid, but it made me severely suicidal. I ended up being transported two hours away from home to another hospital where I spent a week. The kids there were literal hell, and I thought of it as jail, rather than a mental health hospital. I spent that whole week reading, which became a coping skill for me. I stayed on my drugs and in counseling for a few months after,” Joey said over an email interview. He told me how he was in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, a cognitive behavioral treatment developed to treat chronically suicidal individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. He had learned various coping skills to deal with his anxiety. “On June 14, 2013, I stopped hurting myself and started a really long journey to loving myself. I entered college in the fall of 2013, and spent that whole year growing and learning about self-care. I started going to the gym, I stopped smoking, and I tried more things like yoga and meditation. Around the summer of 2014, I realized I was out of my depression, and although I have really hard days, I still manage to get outta bed and kick ass!” Joey’s positive attitude and new-found love for life is just one example of how some people, plagued with this disorder, refuse to let it get the best of them.

  Though depression, experienced by all ages, is a hard obstacle to tackle, there is always hope. According to Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, or SAVE, eighty percent of people that seek treatment for depression are treated successfully; research has shown medications and therapy to be effective suicide prevention, which also can be prevented through education and public awareness. Every day has its obstacles, but there is always someone out there who can help, even if it’s just someone to talk to. A trusted family member or friend, a teacher, or a professional, there is always someone who will listen.

  My first step towards recovery was learning to accept myself. If I can accept myself as the person I am, I can learn to accept the things around me. I learned to admire and appreciate the person I blew out the birthday candles with every year. I learned to accept my disorders as a part of me, and not a wall that would hinder my growth, I learned how to cope with certain aspects of it, like anxiety attacks or mood swings, and most importantly, I learned from my mistakes. I accept mistakes as part of recovery, not a failure.

Life has been a beautiful experience for me since I decided to open the window that had kept me prisoner for so many years. I started to come out of my shell more and learn to love the person I am. I’m now able to let people in without fearing judgment or insecurities getting the best of me. I’ve gone to places I would have never been able to go if my life had ended that night. I’ve met new people, explored new places all throughout the country, built stronger relationships with my family and learned new things about life once I was opened to see and understand.

After I accepted myself and my mind, I found I could control my surroundings better. I chose friends who were good to me and wanted what was in my best interest, I chose how messy or clean I wanted my environment to be, and I chose where I was and what I was doing at all times. I feel free now, even on days I take a few steps back to sadness, but I now know how to move past it and get on with my life. I have clear goals for everything I do and I now understand how exciting and beautiful life can be, even with a mental disorder. I am hopeful and ambitious even when I feel like the world is against me. Doctors and medicines didn’t do this for me, I did this for me. I am powerful and an intelligent young woman and I can overcome anything. Anyone can if they learn to love themselves and their faults.  I guarantee you that someone out there cares for you and wants you to be the best person you can be, and if you feel like you don’t have that one person, here’s some help:

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, open twenty four hours, seven days a week. Offers both English and Spanish. 1(800) 273-8255
• Crisis Text Line, support for teens 24/7. Text “START”  to 741-741
• Safe Alternatives for Cutting/Self Harm. 1 (800) 366-8288
• Disaster Distress Helpline. 1 (800) 985-5990,  Text “TalkWithUs” to 66746, TTY for Deaf/Hearing Impaired: 1-800-846-8517
• Boys Town Nation Hotline for children and families. 1-800-448-3000 (available twenty four hours, seven days a week with Spanish and English options.)