Oh boy, this was one hell of a moment for me recently. Throwaway account, and a bit of a vent. I don't cry a lot. I don't like to, but I was so vulnerable after a point, I couldn't help it.
For the entire second half of 2016, I entered an extremely severe episode of depression. I recovered a lot of locked away memories from my childhood, tried being a person (manipulative and partially emotionless) I wasn't, and isolated myself for almost two months over the summer. After that, I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't know what to do with myself, what I could or should be doing. The only time I left was to go work or get gas. I played a lot of games to occupy my time, but eventually fell out of that, not even motivated enough to do that.
By the end of the summer, I had felt like I'd recovered a bit of myself, and felt really good. Then I got into my first relationship, and while it in itself wasn't bad, I lost my sense of independence and self afterward. I felt worthless afterward.
After that, I spent nearly all of my time alone. I went to school, put on a smile, went home and did nothing. I began escaping into daydreams a lot, because I could make everything work out in them, things weren't bad, and I made myself a person I wanted to be. At least, someone that made an impact, or was productive in some way. I obsessed over these daydreams, and couldn't help myself but think about them.
As the end of the year crept closer, I began realizing more and more that I may end up failing a class for the first time, yet I did not move. The anxiety, stress, and self-loathing simply continued to build up inside of me. During this entire time, I didn't tell anyone what was going on with me, and my father had no idea I was failing. I made little attempts to catch up, but I felt like I wasn't capable of finishing, and quit altogether.
Every relationship I got into, and a few of my friendships over the course of the past six months were extremely rough. I'm not sure why it all happened, but it did. I was lied to a lot in the following relationships I had after the first one, and a friend betrayed my trust (vented to him about how another friend was thinking about having sex with my ex, how it bothered me because of the previous connection I'd once had, and that friend I'd vented to went and had sex with her). By December, I felt like everything was falling apart, and I wanted my life to come to an end before I had to face the consequences of my incompetence. I just didn't feel like I could do it.
The thing that made it worse for me toward the end, was that no one was asking if I was alright. I'd backed out of all social gatherings, stopped showing up to the class I was failing in (I kept getting called up to the front of the class so the teacher could inform me that I was failing; didn't want my failure being rubbed in my face). I never had someone tell me that everything would be alright. I felt alone. I wasn't even with myself at that point, because I didn't know who I was.
Wrap around to the end of December, just a week before the end of the semester. I get called into the counselors office to talk about my grades. My counselor was the first person, in six months, that I explained, even just partially, what was going on. I was very vague about it, because I didn't want to talk anymore. She called my father and informed him.
My father works over three thousand miles away from home. He rides a plane out, works for two weeks, and then returns for two weeks. At the time, he wasn't home, so he called me. He told me the counselor had told him what was going on, and he asked me why I was depressed. I didn't know. I didn't know myself, I didn't know my problems. All I knew were my failures at that point.
He started talking about me failing my class, that it was going to affect my college, that it was going to be hard if I failed. I immediately started balling. I felt so, ridiculously low, so irreversibly pathetic, worthless, gutless, lifeless. I didn't talk to him over the phone for awhile, and just eventually hung up.
All of that, because of the accumulation of years of hardships, all crumbling down on me, when I finally knew no longer how to cope with it, and fix it. In all of that time, I never had an adult to really guide me through it. I've been almost completely on my own over that time. My friends were the best sense of guidance I had that wasn't myself.
All of that, that made me cry, happened over a month ago now. Since then, I've gotten a slightly better handle on things. I did end up failing. I had the option of catching up over the next three weeks I had, but decided against it, in order to figure myself out a little bit.
What I can say, is there is a brighter side to things, but it's really hard uncovering that, once you've shrouded yourself in the darkness. I'm still struggling now to keep moving forward. There are times when I want to stop everything, but I can't do that anymore.
One thing that has really helped, is clarity. I found out why I was depressed. I didn't know why for a really long time, and when I knew, I was able to finally start the recovery process. I've also started realizing recently that I may have OCD. I haven't been diagnosed, so I don't truly know, but when I think about all of these daydreams, bad memories, and overtly aggressive thoughts and desires that I've obsessed uncontrollably over, I'm seeing that as a possibility. If I do, that gives me something more for me to know, that I can now attack.
I have a moment envisioned, for when I finally get myself back on my feet, and I'm hoping I can get myself there soon. I look forward to that moment.