Hello Everyone,
Happy Friday! I hope that everyone has had a good week. Today’s post is coming a little bit later than normal. Anyways so today’s chapter that I picked is Mental Health: My Struggles with Depression. Some of you already know that I have depression because I talk about it on my blog. I talk more about it from my personal experience. Also I want to give everyone a bit of a ***TRIGGER WARNING *** if you are really struggling with your mental health maybe skip reading this for now. Please reach out to someone you know if they are struggling with their mental health. Just let them know that you are there for them and that they are worthy. I want to take this moment to thank you all that have already purchased my memoir. It means the world to me to be able to share my story with all of you. One thing I need you all to do is please rate and review my book. Reviews are so important to authors because the more reviews we get the more people will want to read and purchase the book.
Mental Health: My Struggles with Depression
For the longest time, I’ve had a challenging time talking about my mental health. I felt ashamed and not worthy enough. Back in late 2019, Matthew and I were invited to attend a conference hosted by one of our dear friends, Kim Samuel. It took place in Toronto, Ontario. The conference was called The 2019 Global Symposium Reimagining Community in the 21st Century hosted by The Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness. This symposium not only opened my eyes, but it had changed my life. One speaker had gone through a similar situation with her mental health. I was so moved by her talk. Later that day, I went up to her and thanked her for sharing her story. It made me want to open up more and share about the struggles that I have gone through. At that moment, seeing the impact that she had made on me meant something. It made me realize I needed to share my story with others. So let me tell you, it hasn’t always been a comfortable ride, but what I can tell you is that it has made me stronger. Growing up, I had lots of unique challenges. First off, being a person with an intellectual disability hasn’t been easy. My disability is one you would not see until you got to know me better. The only thing that people might see are my two hearing aids. I never liked the fact that I was different. It was also hard for me because both of my brothers were more than capable of doing things that were challenging. I used to get made fun of at school by other kids who didn’t know me at all. I was always grateful to have great friends that had always supported me. My battle with depression didn’t start right away. It just built up slowly over the years. I started seeing a counsellor when I was ten or eleven years old. I learned new ways to cope with why I was feeling angry and frustrated. When I was in high school, my depression got worse. I hid more by just being in my bedroom and avoiding my family all together. I just felt like I was a ghost on the inside. It just kept getting worse and worse. What else could I do, other than continue seeing my counsellor for help? That was the only safe place where I was being heard. There were so many days that I was so frustrated. I had also felt so defeated. What choice did I have? Nothing. There were no other options. I can also remember telling my parents at one point I didn’t want to go to school anymore. I just had to keep going. Even though I was in so much pain. My mom and I got into a lot of arguments all the time. We started to grow apart. She and I were not on good terms for a while. It wasn’t until January 2010 of my final year of high school. When I finally started to give up and feeling like why am I even here. I am not worthy, no one seems to care about me or even what I have to say. It felt like I was invisible to everyone else around me. Nobody really cared what I was doing. To me it also felt like no matter how hard I tried or whatever I did nothing seemed to matter. The best way I can put it was being like a dust bunny shoved in the corner that no one ever seems to care about. Here is another example, that I had used a lot to my counsellor and eventually told my parents. I felt like I was in a room with lots of doors and nothing else. They were all locked and had chains on them. I tried my best to try and open them one by one, but I couldn’t because they were all locked. I had also tried to break the chains on the doors and even tried to kick the doors. Nothing seemed to work. The only thing that I felt like I could do was scream or cry for help. No one could hear me no matter how hard I had tried. I had felt so hopeless. Then finally I got tired of trying and would just give up. All that was left for me was sitting in this room on the floor in the dark just waiting for someone to help me. At this time, I felt like I had hit rock bottom. I was in a dark hole with a dark black cloud over my head. Then finally I had enough, and I didn’t even want to be here anymore. I had started to cut myself and I had even tried to commit suicide. At the time I didn’t know what else to do. I had hit my lowest point and felt completely dead inside. Feeling completely empty and numb. I was a ghost with nothing else. It was so bad enough that barely had anything that was giving me any joy or happiness. I had gotten good at faking it. By putting a smile on my face when I needed to, so that it seemed like I was okay. Then finally I just couldn’t handle it anymore. It wasn’t even a week later when my mom and I had gotten into a huge fight. I can still remember being in the garage and saying to her. “That’s it I’m done I don’t want to be here anymore” I ‘d rather be dead. In tears crying. That’s when she had seen me at my lowest point. After that point I ran back into the house and went straight to my bedroom. I had shut the door and started crying. I can still remember that day like it was yesterday. We were both upset. We had talked with each other and then talking to my counsellor over the phone. Then also going to see him person. After that we went to see my doctor. She had given me a prescription for anti-depressant medication. I just remember at the end of the day, how mentally drained I was. It was so hard to see my two brothers who love me so much being upset with what I was going through. As much as it hurt my family knowing that I was struggling. I knew at that point I didn’t have to hide it from them anymore. The other person that I had a tough time telling was Matt, we had only been dating for about a year. I can remember how upset he was when I told him. Going back to school the next day was horrible; I had to talk to one of the school counsellors. To me it didn’t make any sense why when I had already talked to my own counsellor the day before. I just felt like I was being forced into doing something. Yet I really didn’t want to do again. I was so angry and felt I had no choice. At the time I really wanted to get the teacher fired because they made me so upset to the point where I had wanted to take my own life. All I wanted was for that teacher to feel my pain that they had caused. I really wanted karma to go after them for a change. Anyway, I did what I had to do and sat down to talk with the school counsellor. The rest of grade twelve sure had its difficulties but I was able to manage them better. My mom and I were starting to get back on better terms. Once I had finally graduated from high school, I needed a break not only from school but in my life in general. It had felt so good knowing that I had finally been able to close that chapter of my life. It also meant that I never had to see or be around those people ever again. I took an online photography course that had different modules. Thinking about pursuing photography as a career. I really enjoyed taking the course because it was online, and I could do it at my pace. Even though I had a year to complete the courses. I had also found that being able to create a few different stories that I wrote for just myself also helped me get through that tough time. Being able to just sit down and let my mind flow with many ideas. I could sit down for hours at a time on my computer in the zone just writing. This has always been my safe place, but it also helped me to express myself. A lot of that stuff that I wrote was just for myself, but it was also just an escape for me when I needed it. Being able to do my creative writing and taking that photography course had helped me not only heal again from the negative experiences with school. It had also helped me try to figure out what I should do next. I needed to find some joy and happiness again.
~Crystal~
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