The Depression Discussion Part 1

FEATURED STORY THIS WEEK:

A look at depression... from a teen's eyes

I am growing up in a home where my parents don’t seem to care about what I do from one minute to the next. When they do seem to show some sort of interest in what I am doing, my parents are almost always critical and looking for the negative aspects. I feel as though nothing I do is ever good enough by their standards. If it is, it is never shown. What I went through (and still go through) with them is constant negativity with a lack of support for anything I do.

I felt like an outsider in my own home with my parents sticking together and my two other brothers, who shared a bedroom, had each other for company. I was always in my own room, by myself, curtains closed, curled up watching TV. I felt like doing nothing and going no where and that’s exactly where my life was headed. When I came home from school, I went directly into my bedroom. I ate every meal by myself, sitting on my bed. My bedroom was my only comfort zone and I wanted to shelter myself from the rest of the world.

When I had school projects to work on, my mom and dad just seemed to continue on with whatever they were doing. When they did pay attention to me it was usually negative feedback I got about everything. There was a time when I wanted to be a teacher so that I could educate tomorrow’s generation, but my parents told me that I wasn’t a good enough role model. That was ironic coming from them, now that I think about it. In fact, I ended up quitting and not finishing high school because I soon became too depressed that I never wanted to leave my bedroom.

I began writing things like poems and short stories and I always got great feedback from extended family members (aunts, uncles, cousins and even grandparents). There was always encouragement to “keep up the good work” and “this is excellent… you should have it published” from those people, but never the ones who I wanted to take notice. You know, the people I lived with every day. It always seemed that my work fell short of grabbing my immediate family’s attention. But I’m the kind of person who thinks that I’m just going to carry on doing what I do as long as it makes me happy, and let nothing stand in my way of achieving my goals. It became a challenge to keep a smile on my face when I accomplished things because I knew that whatever I would do, the task would be critiqued, criticized and ripped apart by my parents. One of my short stories was published in a book of local authors and my parents didn’t even read the piece. Instead they flipped to the page, read my name at the top, and than scanned it as if to see how much air time I got in the book.

Soon the true emotions I was feeling were too tough to handle and I started to become physically sick over the fear of getting in trouble and not being supported by my parents. It was that time, two years ago, when my panic attacks started and I ended up in the hospital emergency room three times. I was shaking uncontrollably, getting chills and almost feeling like I was having some sort of heart attack or seizure. My parents knew nothing about what was happening because I would call one of my friends (she also previously suffered with anxiety/depression) to take me to the hospital.

I was fearing coming home with my school report card. I had a C in science. I’d never had anything lower than a C+ before. Why was I worried about a C? One of my brothers failed English two years in a row and the other was forever staying after school in detention. For some reason my parents never got on [my brother’s butts] for being poor performers. On a side note- my older brothers haven’t been all that successful in life. One of them has a few kids and is unmarried (which my parents frown upon of someone else did that it) and the other dropped out of university after a few months. But there I was, going to high school every day, getting good grades and having real ambition in life, but that didn’t seem to be good enough for my parents.

The worry soon came to me that I was letting my parents down by not being a ‘perfect’ kid. There were some nights when I would lay in bed and tremble because I was wondering what I would get in trouble for the next day. It was after the third panic attack that I decided to visit my family doctor and talk to him about what I was going through.

Then the day came when I was faced with the challenge of telling my parents that I was depressed. “If they are upset with everything I do, how would they take this?” I asked myself. I was certain the whole thing would be turned around on me and that I would be blamed.

My doctor had prescribed anti-depressants for me which caused me to have strange side-effects. The first drug I was on made me wake up like a shot at 5 a.m. and I was energized for the whole day. Actually, when night rolled around I could barely sleep because I seemed to be permanently hyper. That feeling didn’t wear off so we decided to try another one. That drug was OK, but I gained a lot of weight even though I had no appetite. Again, two of the side-effects from the drug.

When one of my prescriptions ran out I needed to get more from the drug store. Anytime I leave the house it is always a million questions fired at me from my mom who almost comes across as a police officer/prosecuting lawyer. I lied and told her that I needed to get medication for insomnia and she told me I didn’t need them and that “drugs are addictive and no good for you.” Now would be a good time to point out that both of my parents smoke, are constantly coming down with colds that won’t end and have a medicine cabinet that has more stock than most pharmacies. Again, ironic coming from my mom. I came down with mono in January and was prescribed strong painkillers and I didn’t even use them, but my mom took them and when I went into the medicine cabinet a few weeks later all of the pills for me were gone.

One night as I was laying in bed I figured that it was time to tell my parents about my problem. I was feeling nauseous as it was so after much consideration I decided to emerge from my room and tell them. I told me parents I was depressed and had an anxiety problem because of things that happened at my previous job and the response was somewhat ignorant (in the fact they weren’t educated about depression) and told me not to worry about things. I guess they didn’t realize that if you tell yourself not to think about something, you are thinking about it by doing that. Again, my mom played [TV lawyer] “Matlock” and asked a million questions about me going to the doctor, and what the doctor said, and what the doctor did, and what the doctor prescribed. She was quick to criticize everything the doctor (who, may I add, is a certified medical professional) had done. Dr. Mom, however, told me it was all in my head and that there was no problem with me.