The Weight of the World is Not Mine to Carry
TW: This post contains discussions of depression and mentions of suicide. Please read at your own discretion. If you or someone you know is struggling please reach out for help. Below is a link with a short and non-exhaustive list of resources.
https://adelbkorkorfoundation.org/resources/
I have always felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility to be the steady constant. As an only child of a single parent, the only grandchild, and the only niece, I attempt to say this with as little ego as possible, I know I am the center of a lot of people's worlds. However, since high school, I have struggled with chronic depression. It took a year of feeling tidal wave after tidal wave of sadness to admit to myself I was depressed, and even after the internal reckoning, the obligation I felt to my family and my friends to “be okay” ran deep. Since I was still doing all the things I had always done — playing the sports, getting the grades, being a dependable pillar — no one questioned if there was anything going on beyond a passing comment about me being negative here and there. Although internally I was barely functioning, I liked that I was still good at making everyone else feel comfortable. If I couldn’t have normalcy for myself, I wanted to give it to others. I told myself that some people were naturally happy people and others were not and it was okay that I fell into the latter category.
It's difficult to explain just how dark of a place I was in without causing someone to reach for a phone and call for help. I think that’s what scared me and kept me silent for so long. Not because I didn’t know how bad it was bad, but because I knew just how intense the feelings ran. I knew that describing it to most people would cause panic and fear and they would think I was going to hurt myself. I think part of the reason I spent so long struggling with the idea that I was depressed was that for me I never contemplated suicide. Since I never got to the point of any physical harm, I felt it wasn’t worthwhile for anyone to be concerned about me. I was never going to hurt myself. So getting people worried felt futile. I continued to survive, not for myself, but for others. The only thing keeping me alive was the searing sense of responsibility branded into the fabric of my identity.
In college, I felt the same kinds of lows I did in high school, but they didn’t last as long, and my highs were higher so I was convinced this was better and could be maintained. I was comparing one tragedy to another without realizing I could live a life where tragedy was not at the center. There was a world where I didn’t have to make regulating my emotions a full-time job. However, until the summer of 2021, I continued through varying states of see-sawing emotions. My depression would pull me under with different degrees of intensity for another three years. I knew what seasons brought which feelings and which months I needed to take extra measures to maintain a baseline level of happiness. I counted my weeks by which ones I did or did not feel like a stranger in my own body.
After a period of roughly a year of consistently seeing a therapist, exercising, getting enough sleep, and eating three meals a day, I still felt at the mercy of my emotions. My good days were spent sitting in the anxiety of getting bad again. I was consumed by a fear that good feelings would fade. My therapist suggested seeing a psychologist to explore other options, specifically medication. Finally, I was at a point in my life where I saw this as a possibility.
Like many who struggle with mental health, I operated on the mindset that medication would make me dependent on something that was unsustainable. However, someone told me that when you have a broken bone or a physical injury you go to a doctor and you get the help you need, and sometimes that includes medication or some other form of aid. You do what you need to do to help you heal. Why couldn’t mental health be met with the same normalcy? In the summer of 2021, a little over a year ago, I began taking antidepressants.
I’m not saying medication has been a perfect fix, I have my days where it all still feels too much. I continue to try and navigate a world where I can learn how to be vulnerable and allow myself space to not have the weight of the world and expectations sit squarely on my shoulders. However, being on antidepressants has given me back my authentic self. Now, if I want to exercise, it’s because I feel like it, not because I know my day will be a struggle without the extra endorphins. My mom once said to me that although I may not be in a place where I was going to harm myself, there are a lot of difficult feelings that exist in the space between self-harm and full-fledged happiness too. These deserve to be met with the same attention and intensity too.
I thought medication would be a crutch and turn me into someone who was not their own person, but it had exactly the opposite effect. It has allowed me the time, space, and energy to be exactly who I am: someone who is still questioning it all and trying to figure it out. For that, I am forever grateful.
from my previous blog posted 08.04.22