Hi everyone.
I'm 18 now and when I was 13 I was diagnosed with depression. They wanted to put me on medication but my dad didn't have the insurance at the time and we were too poor to buy the meds. We also couldn't afford counseling, which is what I really wanted.
I didn't want the pills because I don't think I need them. I don't believe I have the kind of depression that's meant to be medicated. I don't feel as though I have a chemical imbalance like others who may benefit from the pills. I just think my life is horrible and disgusting, and believe that anyone who came from my background would feel as I do.
Before I was diagnosed at age 13, my mom died when I was 12. This is when all my "depression" issues started. I immediately began occupying my mind with other things and lived in a fantasy world. I don't know what you would call this, but it wasn't depression. I'd spend all day on the internet or all day watching TV, never letting my mind go blank. Because when it did all these horrible memories came rushing back, I'd see images of my mother in the grave. When this would happen I'd just go back to imagining something, anything. I lived in a fantasy world and to the most part I still do.
That sounds so weird...but it's not depression. I don't know what it is when someone asks. But I'm not sad because I've never TRULY mourned my mother's death. I never truly accepted it. This is what I wrote last year...just to get stuff off my chest...I plan on giving it to a psychiatrist if I ever see another one:
To my future mental health person:
I'm writing this because if I do ever see another mental health person, I know that I won't be able to put into words what is truly bothering me. I'll most likely come off as depressed and since that's what everyone is now, I'll be dismissed. But I do have real issues. I've spent a long time looking for the name of whatever it is that I have...but I can't find it. I've seen 1000 pamphlets on bipolar disorder but never anything on what I am feeling. Perhaps that is why I've hesitated in looking for help...I have a feeling that whatever is wrong with me is wrong with me alone.
Before my mother died I did have problems. So I really can't say that what I'm feeling now is a result of that alone. I was always the "fat kid" and since no one wanted to talk to me anyway, I found solace in books and writing. The teachers thought I was extra smart...the truth was that I could get so wrapped up in imagining being the lead character of a book that I would forget that no one was talking to me. It's just how I dealt.
When my mom was alive, she was at times mean to me. She would hit me and scream at me because I wouldn't do housework at 10 years old. I know she needed help and was trying to prepare me for the future but I was busy trying to be a kid. She would tell me everything about her past, what her dad did to her, all the terrible things she went through. When my mom got really sick I became her nurse. I knew how to cut up Ativans, I know what inhaler she needed when she needed it (I still remember Proventil at 11 at night). I remember me holding out my palms and she using me as a walker as I helped her to the bathroom. All this before I turned 13. We even slept in the same bed.
When she died something happened. Deep inside my mind, I left that little girl to die. This is where it gets hard to explain. I know I'm Beth, I know I'm the same person I've always been and will always be. But I stopped being what I was before. Not just metaphorically, but literally. That is why I never really mourned or cried for my mother. I simply became detached and she was like a stranger. All the memories, love, heartbreak, pain-I left all that with old Beth. I became the person that I am the person who talks about this mother like I've never met her. I'm now the person who has never mourned, because there's been NO NEED. The only thing that survived after my mother died was my habits and my likes. The memories of her and everything involving her went far away somewhere. That's why I feel like I am two people sometimes. I know literally I'm not and I could tell you at any time who I am. But there is no denying some split happened and that's the only way I've been able to cope.
Sometimes I feel the old Beth...sometimes I'll hear a song or see something and all the memories will come RUSHING back and I all I can do is fight to the death to keep them back. I cry but then I turn on the TV, or (as I'll later talk about) go into my fantasy world, I've even scratched my thigh until it bled once and as I did that I felt old Beth going away and myself coming back to this reality.
Okay the fantasy world...is where I reside. I have everything I need there and nothing in this world can compare to what I can create in my mind. This world was dormant while my mother was alive but she went I opened the door to it and have never left. This is another one of those things that are hard to explain. I used to live in the fantasy world a lot more than I do now so I'll describe to you what it was like then. I'd wake up and go to school. While at school the few times I did talk to other kids I felt as though it was an out of body experience. The rest of the time I'd be daydreaming. I used to have about 3 specific daydream characters I would dream about them. So I'd think about them all day at school and when I got home I'd turn on my music as loud as I could and...you know how they have music montages in movies? I'd do that while walking back and forth from my bedroom to the bathroom window where I could see if my dad's car was back yet (he was usually gone all day). I must have done it 1000 times at once before. Then when he came home I'd just get on the internet and watch TV which I saw as the ultimate way of dulling my mind. But the fantasy world never rests. You know what? It still doesn't.
People got worried because I spent so much time alone. I guess to the outsider it does look bad but only if people knew how I felt. I LOVED and STILL LOVE being alone. It's the greatest high there's ever been. When I'm alone I can be in my fantasy world and that world is 1000 times better than my current one.
People would come up to me trying to get me to go out and do things when the truth was that's the last thing I wanted to do. People just didn't get me but my fantasy world gave me anything I wanted. Still does! I pushed away my whole damn family. I'd rather hit myself than answer the phone.
People talked to me about how I would be depressed. I can be depressed about the things going on but nobody understands that I DO NOT and NEVER DID mourn my mother. But I can just tell them I became a new person who has no memories of her and that I currently live in a fantasy world.
My desire is to destroy old Beth so that there's no chance she'll ever come back to haunt me. Let her and the memories of my mother die so that I could just be the motherless person I am today. The one who never knew a mother and who can't mourn for one. I think that if I hadn't...whatever I did to make me like this...that when my mother died I would have killed myself. But the blessing was that I went from being completely attached to her to being completely detached to her and the only price I paid was what I've been talking about. It's been well worth it and if there was a way of getting rid of old Beth permantly I would because I'm so afraid if she ever comes to light I'll simply curl up and die from the pain.
My fantasy is to be alone, completely alone, in my mind. I've heard in prison that you get to spend 23 hours a day by yourself. If only I could get a TV and internet in with that deal than I would beg to be incarcerated. No one realizes my savior has been this split and the fantasy world I've created and since I have created it for myself I guess that I am my own saviour. Other people just mess that up because they dont understand.
So if there's any mental health disorder that can be assigned to what I just told you, I'd love to know. If there was a way to bring who I was into who I am, without dying from the pain, I'd be all for it. Old Beth is 5 years behind though. New Beth don't think she could ever love someone she doesn't know. Can that be intergrated? And once again, I know that I am only person. I never turn into these people I talk about but giving them names has been the only I can explain it.
Sometimes I want my fantasy world gone so I know what it feels like to be a normal person. But it's such a good thing...my only way to have cope. Some people do coke but I have this and it's not hurting nobody. The fear is that my fantasy world replaces the real and I say it's over 90 percent there. The 100 percent may be when I don't get out of bed. I'll have everything I need.
I do feel a change happening. I used to not care about how I look and that even extended into personal hygeine. I'd go weeks without a bath, I'd never brush my hair. Now I wash regularly and am wearing makeup. I used to have no contact with people other than my father but now I actually go into places I could have never imagined going in before. I make small talk and like every other person alive which is stupid, but damn I couldn't do it 3 years ago.
So New Beth is blossoming and coming out of her "depression".
Since I found out my dad has terminal lung cancer, diagnosed at the same hospital my mom died in nonetheless, I automatically knew what to do. I started preparing my dream world and getting ready for the worst. He can be forgotten too.
So, that's it in a nutshell. Thanks for reading.
