DePreSSioN: My Side Of Story - PART I

This Life is tricky. It’s not always a bed of roses. Sometimes it is in the form of the worst nightmare, but you notice that you ain’t dreaming. Familiar with that?

I realize that I have not really disclosed my real story of Depression to really be giving something for my readers to read and relate to their lives. Maybe it’s time to do so. I saw that a lot of people in my surroundings suffer from this. Oh man. Is it that hard? I look at you guys from where I stand, I could only say, “I’ve been there, done that.” But wait, was I really saying the truth or was I only pretending to understand when the fact is that I was totally clueless about what’s going on in your head?

If you think that I am a cheerful person, a positive person – some of you might think that “Ah, she’s just lucky. Life must never been harsh on her as much as it is on me.” WRONG. I even labeled my ordeal as “2 Years Of Bad Luck”. How long have you been having this tough situation in your life? One month? 2 months? 6 months? How hard is it so far? Suffocating enough? I had it for 2 FREAKING YEARS. So don’t think I don’t know what you guys are going through.

I summarize how it all started. I’ve been a bright kid at school. The best scorer for both Maths and English. I gained respect from teachers and friends despite not coming from a rich and influential family. My parents were always strict. They have high expectation on us and they did everything they could for our education. They were quite happy with our performance at primary school. My parents became the talkabout in the village, for having children who all excelled at school. The expectation was getting higher. Our every moves was judged by our relatives, and some unhappy people might even wait for our downfall. It wasn’t easy to keep “the throne”. For being the straight As achiever, I was offered a place in an elite school; a school for all the selected kids. I got culture shock because of the freedom not having to listen to my parents and did everything under their supervision. I realized that 13 years old was too young to handle my own life. Peer pressure, puppy love - distracted my attention away from books. I started to lose my invincibility. I was not unbeatable. I skipped reading, my mark dropped without pity. From the best Maths student in my class, I finally saw myself getting the lowest mark in my class. I was slowly losing my reputation. I was gradually seen as “average” and to some, I was one of the “nobodies” there. Life was tough throughout secondary school. Boy, it was tough.

I was given a new chance to turn a new leaf after secondary school. So when I finally entered university, I started off well. I vowed to set a good record and make up for my failures. It wasn’t easy at all. After I struggled with revisions, libraries and burning the midnite oil, NOTHING WORKED. I hardly achieved 2.5 for the first semester. It was nothing until I reached my second year, where I LOST INTEREST in my course. It was the most challenging thing for me because I found a new passion which I grew very much to like and I spent so much time doing self-learning the new skill. I started to lose the relevance of doing my course but I thought it was too late to pull back so I continued. I paid a hell of a price for my newly founded passion. I started to fail my papers. It was still under control when I got short semester to retake the exam. Unfortunately, it was so unlucky for me when my class lecturer, a prof, did not mention to me that I need to retake 2 papers instead of 1. So I thought I was going to graduate on the same year until I found out about the other paper that I should retake. It was a shock to me when A silly mistake from our prof cost me my timely graduation. I WAS SO MAD at my prof that time. I wrote him an e-mail of disappointment, thinking that he would do something to make up for it. It was an embarrassment to my whole education life to end up like that. From a bright student, to a failure, and when I was trying to get up, I kept slipping. It was BAD. It was soo BAD. And because of someone’s mistake, I delayed my graduation. IT WAS UNTHINKABLE. My life was so screwed up when I had to take a long semester to redo my 1 paper and I paid for the fee as if I HAD TO BEG to get a certificate. I felt like I was a reject student who paid under the table to graduate. IMAGINE. IMAGINE what this did to my self esteem. I thought I LOST EVERYTHING I HAD.

What do you think my parents would say? I got the “hardest slap” from them, actually. Not only that I have disappointed them, I crushed the pieces of hope left they had of me. I was already moving home when I was doing my extra semester. IT WAS HELL. I LOST direction. I thought of giving up. The pressure was too much for me. I heard my parents talked every morning, like it was the loudest voice in my ears. I was used to living away from them and followed my own mind so I again faced difficulties trying to readjust myself to listen to my parents once again. My stressful mind was so bad that I refused to pick up the phone. I closed all contacts from THE WORLD. I was having grudges to EVERYONE in my life that time. I could not tolerate or cope with anyone anymore. I LOST IT. I TOTALLY LOST IT. When you saw me that time, I bet you won’t recognize me because I was not myself. I TRIED to FIGHT. I used my “rebellious half” to do the fighting. I wanted to go out from home and apply to stay at the hostel but my parents didn’t let me. I was stuck at home where I thought was almost A HELL for me that time. I tried to apply for partime work so I could escape from that cage but AGAIN, NOTHING WORKED. None of my applications were answered. NOTHING AT ALL. My Prof was making my life harder too because he kept bringing up about my mistakes and made me feel like a joke everytime I had to meet him. Imagine that. Every hour was lived with vengeance in my heart. I thought I HATED EVERYONE. If my parents spoke any word that I didn’t like, I just fired back using the harsh language. No more the soft and cheerful me. It was as pathetic as can be.

I have stopped praying. I even blamed God. I thought that He had something to do with my miserable life. I WAS SO MAD AT GOD. Whenever I could not hold it anymore, I just spoke to God out loud WHY He let it all happen to me. I felt like tearing “A Letter To God” that I have written in my first year in university, because it didn’t matter what I wrote there. I felt like He gave me back all my Thank You in the form of bad luck!! I had nothing left. I stopped going to church and my faith had disappeared. I couldn’t believe that with the existence of GOD and what people claimed Him to be, my days were only getting worse. I remember crying so hard and asked God, Whyyyyy, whyyy did you do this to me????

You know what was in my mind that time? I felt like RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME. My deepest thought screamed that I wanted to go out the house, I wanted to vanish so people would start to appreciate me instead of making me feel like a rubbish. What was it that stopped me? Since I did not have enough courage to run away, then it led me to this. SUICIDAL thoughts. That time, I didn’t know that I was having DEPRESSION. I didn’t know what to call it. What I knew was, everytime I wrote something (as you know, I’ve always been writing my mind out) , it was ALWAYS about committing suicide. I wrote a fiction story, and it was how a girl committed suicide and how the rest in her life grieving for her lost. I didn’t realize I was doing this. It was always about SUIC IDAL. Of course I thought of how to end my life in the most tragic way, without having to suffer or bleed. I even thought of where to get certain poison that could make myself get killed instantly. I thought of cutting my wrist, hell, I thought of everything I could think of. I MUST BE CRAZY. Imagine that.

To Be Continued in Part II