Coming to Terms with My Dark Clouds

Last year I wrote an Op-Ed titled "The Dark Clouds Above," which you can read here. This is going to be kind of similar to that piece, so bare with me.

When I was 14, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I was taken to an out-patient rehab center after an incident happened that caused me to go to the hospital. There, a psychiatrist sat me down and told me that what I was feeling was very common, just a few dark clouds, and threw some Zoloft my way. I took one pill a day for a month and didn't feel anything change- still mundane and unhappy. I wasn't expecting the medication to change me forever, but just help me with the days that were too much to bare on my own, which it didn't. So, long story short, I stopped taking it after that month per my mothers orders (she didn't believe in medication as a scapegoat from real life were her words). 

I've been flirting with mental illness ever since I was a young teen, and sometimes it's disheartening to think that I'm 21 years old and still have the same crippling clouds that I had years before.

Below, you'll see a list of things that make me anxious:

1. Everything

I get nervous showing up to events that I am supposed to feel welcomed, but don't. I get nervous when I walk up to a group of people and they stop talking- they were definitely talking about me, right? I overanalyze every single interaction I have, thinking about something I could've said differently. 

Here's the thing. People don't understand how to be friends with someone who has mental illness unless they have taken a dip in the depression pool themselves. Some of my friends think they know how to handle me when I can't pull myself together long enough to be out that night, or when I say I'm going to something and I don't show, or even when I ostracize myself from people I am close to. The unfortunate truth is that they don't. This isn't their faults, some people have never had to run from the rain that the dark clouds bring. 

About four or five weeks ago, I dealt with something that I never had before. After extensive research and self-diagnosis courtesy of Google, I chalked up my sensations to derealization. I had been feeling generally out of it, and the best way to describe said sensation is when you're too high to even form complete sentences, you're paranoid, waiting to come down and live your life normally again. Unfortunately for me- I was not high, I could not just "come down" like I wanted to and it was the most terrifying experience I have ever dealt with.

This went on for two weeks straight. I texted some of my friends that I thought could relate with me, and they did. Two people in particular (you know who you are) helped me more than I could ever thank them for. They never gave up on me when I would endlessly text them with questions and feelings of disdain, and they held the umbrella over my head when it was pouring.

The day after I started feeling hazy, I mustered up every single ounce of courage I had and headed to my universities counseling center. I saw a graduate student, as every person during walk-in hours does, and explained my feelings. We went through the whole formality questions- yes, I have been diagnosed with mental illness. Yes, I had dealt with divorced parents. Yes, I had suicidal thoughts at one point in my life but no, not in the past few years. You get the gist. I tried to explain what I was feeling all while dealing with the feelings at that very moment, which was very challenging. I told him what I thought was going on and he said, "Yep, you're pretty much right." That was sort of comforting, I guess. At least I knew what was wrong with my clouded brain. 

What happened next still has my blood boiling. I don't even want to get into the specifics of it, so I won't. Basically, I saw a psychiatrist through my school and after telling him about my whole upbringing and rehashing memories I truly did not want to, he told me that what I was feeling wasn't actually what myself and the graduate student thought it was, and that it was due to me smoking. Don't worry, he still put me on medication! I believe his exact words were, "I don't think you're really that anxious, so I'm going to start you on 2.5 mg of Lexapro and go up to 5 mg after a week." Not only did this "professional" completely invalidate my feelings, but he made sure that he kicked me while I was down too - telling me that everything I've went through since I was younger was simply not traumatic enough for me to experience derealization, so that must not be it. 

This leads me to a very important point I need you, the reader, to understand. Your feelings are valid. You know yourself better than anyone else does. No one should have the power of making you feel like you're making up your clouds. Whether it be a relationship, a friendship, or any other type of ship- no one can tell you that they didn't hurt your feelings.

I have lost friends over my mental health. I have lost partners over my mental health. I have lost grades, accomplishments and personal growth over my mental health. Don't get me wrong, some days are great. Some weeks, I can wake up every day with a smile on my face and continue on with my days. Those weeks I can build my relationships back up to where I want and need them to be. Then there's the periods of time where I can't bare to wash my hair for a week straight, or I am too anxious to walk on campus. But, something I've learned from dealing with my clouds is this: Your true friends will always shine through when you need them to. Your value in people's lives will be very clear. Hold on to those people as tightly as you can, because they will be the ones to hold an umbrella over your head when it rains. 

I am still learning how to practice self-love and self-care. When things get cloudy, I am the first one to admit that I hide under my own bed until it stops thundering. But lately, I've embraced the rain. I am growing, learning and accepting. I am learning to look on the bright side of things, because even though it's raining, there's always going to be sun. 

Love always,

A