Come seventh and eighth grade, I started to feel this overwhelming
bout of what I can only really just describe as.--just this overwhelming
darkness. This sadness that I could not explain.
I was going further and further within
myself and I was becoming more and more numb.
I couldn't feel highs.
I couldn't feel lows.
And now I know that it was definitely my first depressive episode.
Right.
But when it was happening, it just was kind of just more frustration
with myself and with my situation because I would look around and--and straight up
like, I had classmates who had lost loved ones.
I had classmates in trying financial situations.
And for me, to draw that comparison, to look around and be like, "Dang,
these people have a legit reason to be sad and to feel the way that they feel."
"What do I have?" And so I almost--I felt, like,
ashamed of my depression, basically, because I was like,
"How could I possibly speak up or ask for help or talk to anybody about feeling
depressed when these people have legit reasons to--to feel the way that they feel?"
You know, I was captain of the soccer team.
I was also in a band, although at that point our band name was Bereavement.
So you can probably imagine how jolly of a group we were.
It was like an indie pop-punk band, basically, and I was the lead singer.
And so, you know, so I was doing these things.
And I mention this because, growing up,
I wasn't told that these things were really, really good for my mental health.
It helped me.
I didn't realize how big of a part they played.
And that's actually really important because when things started to pop off
for me or I started to kind of like go down this negative spiral,
I quit all of these things. Right.
I bounced it.
And--and my situation got so much worse, so much faster because of it.
So I was doing hard drugs by sophomore year and by like junior year,
I quit a lot of the things that I was doing.
I had a whole new set of friends that were just trying to have a good time.
They didn't really care much about themselves, much less about me.
And I just went down a really dark path.