My first bout of depression started when I was in elementary school. Undiagnosed, and kind of unbeknownst to me at that time. I moved around a lot as a kid, not because I was bad but because of other extenuating circumstances. I went to one elementary school (the one right behind my house, actually) for kindergarten through half of grade 2, and then my stay-at-home-mom wanted to work outside of the house so I went to the same elementary school as my cousins. My grandmother was their caregiver, and she lived about 2 blocks away from us, so she would take me with her and we'd all go to school together. For grade 3, my dad's work transferred him to a town about 4 hours north of where we were currently living, so I went to school there for one year until he was transferred back to where we had just come from. Yay.
It was at this new school that I went to where all the issues started.
I don't know if it was because these kids had been together for the last 4 years, or if it was just a snotty east-side kid thing (we joke that there's a big divide between north-end kids, east-side kids, and west-side kids), but whatever it was this was when I first got teased for being a bigger kid. Which is ridiculous because most kids still have some baby fat on them at the age of 9. But whatever.
This teasing went on for the rest of my elementary education, and even into high school. By the same people, of course. Why these people (typically the guys) felt the desire to make fun of someone's physique is beyond me, but that's kids for you. I guess I should have found solace that the guys made fun of me to my face whereas some of the girls would say things behind my back, but whatever.
High school is, of course, a tumultous time for anyone regardless of how they feel about themselves. Add in several hundred more students that are the same age as you (as opposed to the, say, 50 you knew from elementary school) and things get dicey. The teasing did not relent, if anything it got more pointed and viscous.
I was 14 the first time I thought about ending my life. I was miserable. Yes, I had friends, but in my warped mind I thought that they were faking it. Things got progressively worse the older I got, as I didn't have a single "boyfriend" until grade 12. My other girl friends had gone through a couple boyfriends by then, so I felt like there must be something wrong with me that I didn't have one. The first boyfriend I had was not a great guy, but I was so desperate to be liked (loved?) that I just went along with it. Thankfully I came to my senses and ended the relationship. Unfortunately, the next great adventure in my life was getting raped at 17 by a guy that ... well, if I'm being honest, I think we were possibly dating? But who can actually know this at 17. Regardless, I was not 100% on board with losing my virginity, but this guy didn't care. I ended things with him pretty much immediately after that, and told no one about what went on. I wasn't depressed or sad about that, I was mad. I was so angry that he took that from me and that I didn't have the choice. I'm still mad about it.
After these guys, I finally met someone who was legitimately a nice guy. Sure, he was older than me (oh wait, so were the other two; 18 and 21 respectively) at the age of 19, and had his own place and didn't have a job and was a huge stoner. BUT... he didn't seem to care that I was still a little more hefty than most of the girls I was in school with. The first time we hung out, all we did was drive around talking for about 4 hours. And it was really nice. He was totally fine with watching movies and wearing sweatpants, just super chill. However, this relationship came with a price. My high school best friend made note that I wasn't hanging out with her at all since i started dating this guy, and everyone knows it's uteruses before duderuses (thank you Parks & Rec/Leslie Knope for that rhyme). So much to my extreme dismay, I broke up with this guy. And the night I did that, I legitimately tried to kill myself.
I didn't get help in high school, but I feel like I should have. Actually, I KNOW that I should have. Maybe my parents should have pushed for it, maybe I should have admitted I needed help... Whatever it was, something should have been done.
I got moderately better after I graduated, but I had a majorly skewed mentality about myself. My self worth was in the toilet, and i had no self-esteem. And what usually happens with that sort of combination? One tries to use physical affection as a way to create self-worth. Between graduating high school and meeting/starting to date my husband (3 years) I had one boyfriend that we actually labelled ourselves as boyfriend/girlfriend... and more where we didn't. This boyfriend and I were not meant to be, and our relationship was dicey at the best of times. I was more invested in it, more willing to give of myself than he was, and he was just not a nice person to me. I didn't see it at the time because I was just so relieved that there was someone legitimately interested in me, but looking back I just wonder why we even dated in the first place.
Husband and I met when I was 20, and that's all she wrote on that remark. There were moments between then and before getting pregnant with my daughter where I was bummed out or sad, but I was able to snap out of those funks easily enough.
Pregnancy with my daughter was a dream. Very easy, no complaints. Even though I had to have a c-section after being induced and in labour for 20 hours, it was fine. My recovery, while lengthy, was fine. I didn't develop any baby blues or anything like that, the only issue I had was a compulsion to pull out specific hairs (I'm blond, and for some reason I have these random black coarse weirdly wavy hairs in my head that I feel the need to pull out and examine). But I knew that wasn't a good thing to do, so I would force my hands to do other things - such as crochet - so that I wouldn't do it. End of story.
2.5 years later, I'm pregnant with our second child. This pregnancy was different in that I was incredibly nauseated in the first trimester to the point of requiring prescription anti-nausea drugs, that I ended up taking all throughout the pregnancy. With a toddler to take care of, I was more tired and more sore and yadda yadda. Our son was a stubborn kid, hiding for all ultrasounds and doppler readings for heart rate, and remained heads up in my ribs until the day he was born via scheduled c-section (we also tied my tubes that day - so done with kids!). My recovery from this surgery was so much better. I was up and moving sooner, feeling better. I did, however, get an infection in my incision at 5 days post-partum and required anti-biotics AND managed to get some sort of stomach issue at only 2 days post-partum where I didn't eat anything for about 2 weeks. I had to change a lot of my mentality because of these two issues, in that I didn't breastfeed like I was going to (was outputting more calories than I was taking in, plus I desperately needed to sleep off whatever infections I was fighting). I told my husband that if anything gave me post-partum depression, that would be it.
Lo and behold, 4 weeks after that and I'm noticing little things about myself. I notice that I'm compulsively cleaning my house, but only specific rooms/areas. I can't just leave things alone or else I get really anxious. I'm snapping at my husband if I ask him to help out and he doesn't do it RIGHT THAT SECOND. I had one instance where my newborn son was crying and wouldn't stop and I was legitimately yelling at him, telling him to be quiet.
It was then that I knew I needed help.
I started this blog to help me get out all the things I was feeling, in hopes that I can work through them without feeling the judgement from a face-to-face confession. Fingers crossed for me that it works.
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