DePreSSion: My Side Of Story – PART II

Continuation from Part I

It must be a little piece of heavenly pity to keep me alive. With the routine of locking myself in the room, doing a lot of things without having heart and mind involved, I felt like a walking corpse. Sometimes I just cried so pathetically. I FORGOT about the word “blessing” or “grace” or anything that are positive. I forgot what are my real treasure. When nothing was left, maybe I still have my parents to thank because I could be having so many wars inside my head, but I COULD NOT LOSE values that my parents taught me. Maybe it was the only thing that was still working in me. My Good Sense. It delayed my stupid plan another day, to another day, to another day, UNTIL I SAW THE LIGHT

Waiting the days for my graduation, I enrolled a course at an international college, doing a course totally different from university, and I gave it shot. Since it was funded by the government, I was just using the chance. I finally came out of my shell and MEET PEOPLE again. I was a little awkward at first. I found out that I was really outdated in many things but something happened. I GOT UP FROM SLEEP. In the course, I was AGAIN, the brightest student. From the first day, our lecturer really spared special kind of treatment for me, unlike how he treated others. Maybe it was my slightly better English, or my talkativeness that made him not want to mess so much with me. Or maybe it was my determination to learn. I used the course to brush up my brains. All the students there were among the Diploma and Degree holders, some of them took Accountancy to Business Study. I remember that I used the computer lab session to chat on IRC, just like some other friends, but he directly scolded them but just let me do my thing. I remember writing some wrong answers in the quizzes, but he simply put the correct mark, because if he didn’t, I had to do the correction and submit it back to him. I think that he didn’t want that to happen. He wanted to put my case to rest and let the rest do the correction. I even told my friends, Hey, I got this wrong but he still put correct!!! I had a full mark in every evaluation. I didn’t know why he did that, but just put it this way. I remember talking session with him and he said, "You are very qualified to get any job you want, especially teacher/lecturer. Use your skills and knowledge to help more students at school." After I had a session of heart to heart with my friends there, they shared their first impression about me. I remember one guy said that he was terrified on first day because "That girl is really smart." even during the ice-breaking session. *LOLS. I mean, after what happened to me, it helps when people say something good so you remember that you are NOT that unfortunate. 

God has taken something from me in a strange way, he sure has a strange way of giving it back to me too. Don’t agree? :) Surprisingly, the course helped me gain back my self-esteem. I was slowly becoming The Girl who I was once proud to be. I picked up the pieces from there, entertained less and less stupid thoughts and the next thing I know, I WANTED TO LIVE. The journey ahead of me was starting to look interesting again. Now the question is, how are you going to end your ordeal? A bad ending or a good ending like mine??

I did a lot of THINKING when I was alone. Let say, if that season never took place in my life, can I be in this position of writing this to all of you? Could I understand your pain? Could I even deserve to have my word? NO, right? I’ve been listening to people’s problems since schooldays. The pains of the people are increasing with age. I could not stay with the glory of my schooldays and expect to help people who are with increasing emotional troubles in their heart. There would be more cases of more mature things that people might share with me and of course, DEPRESSION itself. How could I even give view if I never been through it? If God pitied on me and cut my sorrow into half, would it be enough for me to understand the suffering? It was planned, since I was small, so that when I grew up I could face major setback and have a very challenging time with my senses.

WHAT CAUSES YOUR DEPRESSION?

There MUST BE a cause to your depression. Don’t come to me and tell me IT JUST HAPPENS. It could be that you feel upset, ashamed, rejected, lonely and insecure. Don’t hide behind “I’M HAPPY” cos when you are depressed, that means YOU ARE NOT HAPPY and something is bothering you. YOU MUST KNOW the cause of your depression to be able to tackle it from the root. I’m not a psychologist, but I just speak from a human to another human. Maybe you can understand my language better. Forget about all the terms. Go Soul-Searching and find out the things that are lacking in your life. There’s something TOXIC that is lurking there and will remain there until you do something. If you are in an environment that makes you feel like “a mouse”, FIX IT. If you can change to a new one, do it. Be The Lion. There’s NO need to give in to all the negative elements in your life that are sucking your energy away.

You want my suggestion?

A) Find a reliable person to talk. IT WORKS. You are never too strong or too smart of your own, no matter how much money you have. You need a person who can listen and share your burden.

B) FIND YOUR STRENGTHS. You will see the glass as half empty when it’s also half full. Choose to look at the handsome/pretty you instead of the short or the fat you. You need to collect all the elements that feed to your self esteem and build yourself back. Nothing can be a better back up than having your own pride. Remember that it’s all about your own perception, YOU ARE YOUR OWN WEAPON towards making your own life the way you want it to be.

C) HAVE FAITH. When you don’t have faith in A Greater Power, then the greatest power is YOU? That means you think that no one is going to help you when you are helpless. Faith is for you to have HOPE that there’s something more powerful than you are, and everything else on this earth. It’s so much easier to tackle things when you have faith. It doesn’t matter what religion, Believe that something up there is in control. You are never alone. Open your heart and you will see His help. TRUST ME.

D) CHANGE AIR. Do new things. Meet new people. You will find more possibilities in life and maybe get rid of the “bad energy” that will keep you stuck. You need to have strength for a big move and it will pay off well in the end. DO IT.

E) COUNT BLESSING. You forgot that you have people who love you. You forgot that you are good in a few things and you never tap on them. IT’S TIME to start acknowledging these elements of joy and lucky in your life. Remember all the compliments that you kept getting. You are WORTHY of so many other things than just to lock yourself up and feel miserable. Start it now. NOW!!

Depression is ALL ABOUT THE MIND and we are tested this way to make us stronger and to live life better in the future. The only thing you need to do is to Survive it. One day you’ll understand, God gives you such experience because He knows you can handle it, and you must live to be the living proof that Depression is not that scary. Now when you have survived it, an attempt to make you feel depressed again will be in vain. 

I am here, standing strong, smiling, and I’m a survivor of Depression. Hope you can say the same too, help your friends to get over theirs and give bad news to Depression. It will not take over us.

Surprisingly, I want to thank Depression for making me not only stronger, but smarter. Join The League, Guys! Good Luck!!! :)))

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

The Seesaw of Life

I will now start talking snapshot from Facebook because some of the things I share there are useful and should be in this blog but I just could not have time for everything so now Share is a bigger word! Now my interesting Fb activities will go to my blog! *giggles.