part one: i'm broken but i'll try
Last week, I did something HISTORICAL. I went to Headspace - I made an appointment and I followed through and I for one am absolutely shocked. For those who've stuck around as my friend for a while, you might already know that over the last 6~ish years of diagnosed depression/anxiety, I have tried like........ very many times to start seeing a psychologist and only once made it to the stage of actually seeing a psychologist. I try really hard to be open about my mental illness and my experiences dealing with it, but I don't think I've ever really documented it beyond a vague post here or there. I was going to write this all up as one post but it's becoming way too long so I'm going to break it up into parts. This is part 1.
Part one~
My first attempt to see a psychologist was at the ripe old age of 17 - I was in grade twelve and after probably two years of being like "HEY you know maybe I DO have depression or something, but I'm probably just making it up" - I made the decision to talk to someone. My "support person" who I told absolutely everything during this period of my life was an online friend who shall remain unnamed. When I started to question whether I could have a mental illness, they were dismissive of my self diagnosing and googling of symptoms, and maybe that's why it took me two years to even consider talking to someone.
The someone I spoke to was my school guidance counsellor. He was a nice man and I am so grateful that I was able to speak to someone other than my friends and family. It was so nice to be validated by someone who was removed from the situation. He had no familial or friendship obligation to validate my feelings and I felt like for that reason I could trust him. He explained to me that it was normal to feel stressed and sad, especially when under such pressure to perform in your last year of school. One thing that I look back on fondly is that he didn't assume that I was just suffering from school stress - unlike my doctor and psychologist - and he offered to speak to my dad with me.
Despite my dad having clinical depression for as long as I can remember, I was terrified to speak to him about it. It felt like the hardest thing ever to even invite him to meet with the guidance counsellor. I didn't explain it to him and I think he knew something was wrong. I felt like a disappointment and I felt guilty that I couldn't deal with my own emotions. The meeting went fine. Afterwards, I felt afraid to speak to my parents about it, but my dad booked a doctors appointment for me and went with me. My parents were both worried about me and I remember my mum sitting me down to ask me about it, and her telling me for the very first time that she used to have panic attacks too. My memory of the events is pretty hazy, I can mostly remember just small moments and how I felt, but my body is reliving the dry mouth and tight chest of pursuing help while I sit here typing this.
I remember meeting with Dr Maxwell for my initial appointment. My dad came with me and acted as my support, but it was hard to talk in front of him. My entire life I've been afraid of disappointing people and not living up to expectations and I felt like I was hurting my parents by being sad. It all happened pretty quickly, and I was back for my second appointment within the week to get a mental health plan so that I could start speaking to a psychologist. This time, I met with the doctor alone. She asked me if there was anything else I wanted to say that I couldn't say in front of my dad, but I felt like she had already made up her mind that I was just another kid in grade twelve who was stressed because of exams and graduation. When asked about self-harm, I lied.
I feel like I wasn't ready to talk to someone about what was happening to me, but I felt awful for lying and like I didn't deserve the help. In 6-years-from-then retrospect, I can't tell you why I lied or why I continued to lie to my psychologist when I started seeing her. I attended four sessions and every session I told my psychologist that I felt better and I never disclosed how sad I was, how my stress wasn't waning, or how I was hurting myself. I guess it was a combination of fear and of feeling like I couldn't trust anyone to help me. My mental health plan chalked it all up to school stress. Of course I didn't want to talk about "the other stuff" after reading that. I felt like my pain wasn't real and it was all something that I made up.
After my four sessions of "school is good, I feel much better", I was definitely SO cured and I stopped seeing my psychologist. I felt like an imposter and because my diagnosis was school stress and I was cured, I felt weak because I still felt sad. I still felt alone. I still felt out of place. I knew inside of my own brain that I was depressed, but it wasn't something that I could articulate to anyone who would want to listen - and who wanted to listen, anyway? No one, that's who (Thanks brain) Instead of talking to people, I took to making posts on secret blogger accounts and reblogging sad posts on tumblr. Look at me now, writing about my depression on a real blog which people can read?! What the heck.
It was another twoish years until I made another attempt at fixing my broken brain, and I didn't even make it to SEEING a psychologist that time, but more on that next time.
So I guess attempt one was successful because I made it to the couch of the psychologist, but it was a failure in that I wasn't ready, and I didn't let anyone help me even though they all wanted to.
Thanks for reading, I hope this was easier to read than it was to type. It's time for me to retire, take my vitamins, and watch Saw VII in bed with J. Here's a pic of me in Hobart in May, where it was bright, the sun was warm, and all was full of love.
Love Sam
xoxo