depression! it's in your head!

12/8/23 

Depression feels like a strange topic for me to talk about openly. I come from one of those families who don't believe depression exists. The first time I ever really asked for help with my depression, I was fourteen or fifteen, and I can still hear my father's voice when I told him I had thought about hurting myself; my stepmom got silent like she usually does when my mental health gets brought up like shes not sure what to say in case I break, my dad on the other hand pretty immediately told me if I didn't stop having those thoughts he was going to send me to a well known mental hospital in my state like punishing me for it would somehow cure it. I don't blame my dad for this reaction. I think it mostly came from a place of fear.. I mean how else are you supposed to react when your teenage daughter tells you she thinks about killing herself? I don't think they covered that in parenting books, me and him never really spoke about it after that. I went to therapy for a while, and it helped to have a place to vent, but eventually, I just quit going.
while I'm no longer in therapy, that doesn't mean that the dark cloud in my brain is gone; truthfully, some days, I'm convinced it's never going to go away. i live with family right now, and I've tried talking to them about my struggle, not because I want sympathy or anything, but rather that I'm delusional and, for some reason, thought that maybe it would help them understand me better. Newsflash... it didnt, now i just get comments like "Get up and do something and then tell me if your depressed." or "You wouldn't be depressed if you didn't sleep so much." which is annoying because i would love to be the type of person who wakes up and accomplishes things, but that's the thing with depression it can sometimes be debilitating. i just ignore the remarks, i know they dont mean them in a harmful way or to make them worse so there's no point in arguing with them. i mean dont get me wrong i love my family but they don't get it and that's probably a good thing i wouldn't want them to feel about themselves how i feel about me.