I've been kicking this around for awhile, but Dooce's post today has prompted me to finally post it.
Dear 19-year-old self:
You will begin a period in which you have horrible insomnia, and yet can't stay awake for anything. AKJ will have to wake you up because you are snoring in class. You will miss many events and appointments because you take a nap and can't get up. You will be tested several times for mono.
After many months of this, you will go through a whole battery of medical tests, and the idea will be presented to you, however incompetently, that you might be experiencing depression. Before you dismiss this idea as a suggestion that you are crazy, or that all of this is in your head, stop and listen for a minute.
Although this idea is presented to you as if it actually means you are crazy, or are just wasting everyone's time, hold this diagnosis tight. Hold onto it so tightly that you refuse to listen to anything else and insist that you get help for it.
Even though you hate this idea, let someone who knows what it is explain it to you, explain what it's doing to you, and explain that they can help. Get medicated. Go to therapy and let some of those demons out for a walk. They're not so bad when you can see them in the daylight.
So take my advice and go get treated. This is a disease like anything else and you've been suffering long enough. You're desperate for a name for what is ailing you, and now you have one: dysthymia. You have depression.
Treat it now and you'll get 10 years of your life that I missed out on.
1 comment:
I'm glad you said something. I've been thinking I may possibly have depression myself for a couple of years now, but I haven't wanted to grab hold of a label. I've never been big on labels you know. I have refused to think that I could be depressed, I mean what reason do I have to be depressed anyway? Things have really been going farther down hill in the last year and a half though, I've been thinking more and more about asking my doctor about it.
I even started doing some research on it, but I just didn't know. I mean what are constant headaches, having no energy, not eating and still not being able to loose weight? It could be any number of things. I didn't used to cry as much as I have lately. Maybe I will ask my doctor about it. I guess it's easier to deal with a problem when you don't feel like yo are alone in dealing with it, you know?
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