Saying Thanks to the Past

Something broke down in my body. Something won’t work anymore. It’s kinda like a wound… it sometimes opens up with blood pouring out. Kinda like a fracture too, maybe… heals over time, maybe not. Maybe like a cancer? A deep growth building up in my body waiting to launch an attack from the inside out. Well, actually, I don’t know if I would compare it to something as drastic as cancer. It’s not like I was bedridden in a hospital bed, battling death in a countdown of days before my body would fail me. In a way, I was already dead. Rather than Death hunting me down, He had already forgotten about my existence.

I don’t know what to tell you, honestly. Something abnormal resided in my body but I don’t know what to call it. It wasn’t as morbid as cancer, physically limiting my every move. But I did feel Death. It wasn’t like a cast for a broken bone, calling for attention or labeling me unwell. Not many could tell I was hurting.

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Back in my wonderful elementary school days, I was that kid. Maybe you knew me back then. You know, the lil’ chubby nerdy kid that always gets picked on. You probably saw me shooting my hand in the air when a teacher asked a question. You also probably saw me lower my hand when the teacher asked if anyone else besides me could answer the question. Yeah… that kid. Maybe you saw me sitting on the bench reading a book all by myself, and maybe you considered saying a word to me, but you didn’t. It’s okay. I don’t blame you. Magic Tree House was bomb af back then anyway. I was perfectly content with a book in hand. But maybe you saw me at some lesser points of those days. Maybe you saw me trying to swat away the bullies like mosquitoes, their words squeezing down my throat, making their way past the thin skin of a typical elementary kid and into my heart where I began to question my self-esteem. Maybe you saw me just standing there, stewing in my own anger and humiliation. Maybe you considered doing something about it. It’s okay if you didn’t do anything. I don’t know that I would have either. It happened almost everyday. Like the sun rising, bullying was part of my daily routine. No one questions the rising sun; it just happens.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. I heard that a lot growing up. And, well... I guess I should feel lucky. They never threw me in a trash can or left me all banged up with bruises. None of that. But the words always felt like stones. Words hit me like stones. Words scratched me like sticks. Words pelted me like a hurricane of sticks and stones and trees and mountains and elephants and tsunamis. Words were worse than stones; they penetrated me like daggers to my heart in ways that stones could never. Words were sharp; stones were dull. Words got to my head; stones could, at best, graze my skin. Words slept in my head; bruises faded. It’s like someone pushing you down everyday reminding you that you weren’t worthy of standing on your own two feet, that you deserved to be put into the ground. My day may have gone great, but just one comment, one insult, one flick would throw the whole day off, and my day was ruined. One day I aced my math test, but this one kid crumpled up my test and called me a nerd. On that day the teacher complimented me, and on that day I talked to my crush, and on that day it was my birthday. But on that night, all I could think about was that one kid crumpling up my test and calling me a nerd. It was so simple. A minor incident amid an amazing day--yet my mind dwelled on those words like a moth on fluorescent white light.

I always took it--absorbed all the hurt, bottled up the emotions. I never fought back. And with each passing day, anger would build up waiting to explode. Yes, of course I had to hide it. I didn’t let it out. I couldn’t let it out. I had all this anger pent up inside and I had to hide it.

So I hid it.

No one would see how I truly felt. At school I’d wear a mask. It was tiring, but it worked for me. In fact, it was more like holding a mask in front of my face. Imagine lifting your arms as if you were holding something and keeping it there for the entire day. It’s kinda like that: having to constantly, every hour, every minute, every second of the day, keep the truth hidden behind a facade, making sure to never get caught. At school, I “seemed” totally fine. You’d never guess how dead I was on the inside. The second I got home, I felt exhausted from constructing a facade to hide behind for a whole day. After all, I was a man. Emotions don’t exist in my conscience. Emotions don’t exist in my genes. Emotions don’t exist in my soul. Isn’t that what all men are like?

***********

My parents divorced in August at the beginning of my junior year in high school; I saw it coming and I was ready for it. In that moment it was okay. Everything was okay because I was ready for the divorce because everything was okay. Everything was okay.

But looking back, the divorce pushed me back into depression. During the summer from sophomore to junior year I was getting better, but the divorce just pushed me back down even deeper. I got worse and worse until I became scared of myself.

My inexplicable emptiness got to the point where I had to tell someone. I had to expel the negative emotions that I spent years of my life bottling up. I had to. Not that I wanted to, but I had to, I needed to. It felt like I was on the 50th floor with all the exits blocked off from fallen debris trapped inside a burning building, in need of someone to save me. I just had to take that leap, not out of desire anymore, but out of desperation, out of need, out of sanity. But even as the computer screen illuminated my face in my dark room, I hesitated. I hesitated to send that instant message to my best friend. I hesitated to reach out for help, hesitated to open myself up to her. hesitated to face this beast inside of me. hesitated. hesitate

I sent it. We talked for hours. I spilled everything. If my words were water, they didn’t come in raindrops or brooks, but in waves and floods. I was surprised by how much I had to say, but even more surprised at how she listened. It means a lot to have someone earnestly listen to you without judgment. It took a lot for her to just listen to me and for her to not express repulsion from my confession. That was my biggest fear, her rejecting me, her interpreting my cry for help as an indication of insanity. But she didn’t. And that put me on the road to recovery--not to say, though, that the road was freshly paved and lined with flowers and rainbows in the distance.

Couple of weeks later, I was on a steady prescription of pills with chemicals I still can’t to this day pronounce along with weekly visits to a therapist. Unfortunately, they weren’t magic happy pills. In fact, they only further complicated my mind. Eventually, I had to drop out of school in January of my junior year because the medicine was making me feel worse. January was a turning point in my life, but also one of the worst times of my life.

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I was solitary. Mindlessly clicking the remote, as if changing the channel would be more interesting. The drone of the TV: from news anchors, interviewers, Dora, judges, Spongebob. It had been two weeks for me sitting in my house. Nothing interested me anymore.

I should have felt something, anything, while lazing around the house. But I didn’t. For a lot of the time, I felt like I was underwater. You know when you put your head in the water, and you can’t really hear that well? You know people are talking, but you can’t make out the exact words. Maybe you pick up on a word or two, but you’re never really there. I was just underwater, hearing the world move on without me, feeling the weight and pressure from the world above me. It wasn’t sadness, not quite. It was flat apathy, emptiness. I felt nothing. I couldn’t even feel sadness. Looking outside of my house felt like waving goodbye to unknown ships sailing away as night drew a curtain around my window.

There was one day in particular. I’d been sitting in the house for a month, doing nothing while school went on, I could feel the moss growing on me like a century-old fallen branch in the deep undergrowth of a forgotten forest. At one point, I just wanted some attention. From anybody, really. I wanted to feel something. I couldn’t even explain as to why I couldn’t feel anything, why I felt that I had only existed and not lived.

My mom was home. I was sitting on the couch. Glass on the table. I threw it against the wall. I got up. I stared at the glass mess on the floor.

For most people, there would be a little voice in their head telling them not to throw a glass against the wall in order to get your mom’s attention. For me, that voice of reason didn’t exist. At that point, everything meant nothing to me. Breaking glass seemed like nothing. Of course, my mom came down to see if I was okay.

“Are you okay?”

“What do you mean?”

She just looked at me with shock, mixed in with fear. Fear of her own son. I definitely got her to notice me and acknowledge my existence. Though I could not feel for myself, at least I had a say in making other people feel. I didn’t know what to do, so I just walked back upstairs to my room.

I knew that the root of everything was from the bullying. Constantly, I would ask myself how I could be so affected by bullying. My rationale was that there were people out there who lost homes, lost families, lost friends. None of that happened to me. On paper, I technically had a good life. My family cared for me. I had friends. Because of that, I denied the bullying. I felt worthless. There were people who lost the entire family and could rebuild their life. Yet here I was. I was bullied a lot. My parents got a divorce, sure, but they still cared for me. I never blamed myself for it. No disaster ever happened. And yet I couldn’t even enjoy my life.

At that moment, I had a feeling of introspection. Real introspection. Not the ones like before where I would just beat myself up in my mental boxing matches. This time, I truly asked myself the tough questions I never wanted to answer. I asked myself why I couldn’t feel happiness like I used to, why I couldn’t be interested in sports like I used to, why I couldn’t enjoy life like I used to. I came to the conclusion that there was no reason or excuse to justify how I felt. My problems started with the constant bullying, but by junior year of high school, I was barely even picked on. I had friends who could support me. I never walked between classes with jeers and insults being hurled at me. None of that. But finally I realized: I’ve been living my life as if I was still being bullied. The bullying from years ago had followed me like a phantom, reminding me that I was worthless and weak.

In high school, I was never intentionally singled out and made fun of, but at times, there were jokes thrown in my direction. Sure, these were light-hearted jokes, but I could never take them as jokes because I was so used to being insulted throughout elementary school. Because I was so used to being bullied in elementary school, I took every minor tease and joke as a harsh insult. I lived my life the same way as I lived my elementary school days: scared, closed-off, indifferent, apathetic. I never moved on from that emptiness despite having great friends who supported me in high school.

I had to accept that I was bullied throughout elementary school. Convincing myself that it never happened did not heal the wounds; forgetting only swept the dust under the carpet. The root of my problems wasn’t as severe or disastrous as the roots of others’ problems, but the symptoms were the same. Life was like splattering black paint all over a painting. Life was like eating oatmeal for every meal of the day. Life was like hearing only white noise. I kept asking myself: Why me? Why? Why was I picked on? Honestly, I don’t know. I never will know. But I had to accept that I will never know. I could ask those bullies, but there isn’t really a point. Years have passed since then. If anything, their answer would probably be something like: “I picked on you because all of my other friends did and I guess you were nerdy too”. So I accepted it. I had to realize that I was no longer being bullied.

After this realization, I felt a resounding sense of self again. I felt my emotions were revitalized and restored. No, I didn’t magically wake up the next morning and feel like a million bucks; but gradually, life regained its colors. I didn’t dance out of the house with butterflies surrounding my body like a Disney princess, but I started to smile a little more. I felt there Even if only for a few times, I felt like I was actually in reality, rather than in my own little cave, carved out in the deep recesses of my mind. For once, I considered that maybe everything wasn’t hopeless bullshit.

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Depression. Technically, that’s what it’s called; however, that one word means so many things. Each person’s depression may vary greatly. For me, I was lucky enough to understand the root of my depression, and I was lucky enough to be able to diagnose my depression before it tore me apart. Some people never find the meaning behind the root of their depression. This isn’t a sob story. I don’t tell my story to people just so I can fish for free hugs and well-expressed sympathy. You shouldn’t be scared of me. You shouldn’t feel sorry for me. You shouldn’t pity me. You shouldn’t treat me any differently. If I were somehow given the chance to erase the bullying from my life, I wouldn’t have changed a thing about my past. I tell my story to inspire hope and to humanize depression. My story is different from others; even from my story, you still might not understand someone suffering from depression. If you know someone who has depression and when they open up to you about depression, remember that you should also be open-minded. You don’t have to understand depression. You just have to acknowledge that depression is a serious condition that needs treatment just like any physical condition.

Depression is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me. It has taken me to the darkest places, but I’ve grown so much from the adversities that I’ve faced. Learning from my depression has forged part of who I currently am. It’s what makes me, well… me. Just like a person living with diabetes, or a person with an amputated limb. Depression shouldn’t and doesn’t slap on a label on me, but rather, it’s a condition that I’ve lived with and is one of many factors that make me who I am.

Accept your emotions. Failed an exam? Cry about it. Yes. Cry about it. Let those tears flow. Yes. Scream about it. Punch a wall (ok maybe like find a soft wall or maybe just punch a pillow instead). Never bottle up your emotions. Emotions exist to be expressed. If you feel sad, then accept the sadness. Just take a moment to accept that sadness, then learn from it. Learn to accept the complex and raging emotions that we all experience. After all, having emotions are part of being human. Sadness is part of life as much as happiness is. Sadness is just as important as joy.

#facingmentalhealth