Random Rambling Tidbits

( Blah Blah Acara's Emotional Issue )
Anyway, during my hiatus I was working on my original content. I was thinking of posting some things here for feedback, but with my parents going on about how I never share art with them, I'm feeling so guilty over posting things for people other them to see. But they've made it clear that they don't like the genre or themes I like to use in my writing, which is why I want to share it with others who do.

(warnings for mention of depression)

I was in the hospital yesterday thanks to kidney-stone-pain-that-wakes-me-up-at-four-in-the-morning. So we're going through the list of questions, and my mom is helping me because I'm pretty out of it due to the pain at the time. But when she says that I'm taking celexa for anxiety, I pipe in to add that it's for depression. When the nurse leaves, my mom then turns to me with this surprised look on her face and says "I though it was only for anxiety, but you can take it for depression as well?"

(I wish I knew how to put gifs in these entries as then I would put in that gif of Picard facepalming)

I've been on it for, I think two years now, and you never once picked that up. It wasn't like this was the first time I had to fill out medical paperwork and mention it; my mother was right there when I was filling out papers for entering the teaching program each semester. Not to mention that celexa's main use is as an anti-depressant, and it treating my anxiety is a nice side effect.

Though, if my mother and father though that my medication was only for anxiety, that does make sense of some things. Like, my aunts and uncles who take medication for depression are probably also taking it for anxiety and my parents just assume it was for one thing and not the other. Heck, that still perfectly explains why they have such a hard time accepting that depression can be something chemical in the brain if they didn't know that their siblings exactly what medication their siblings are taking.

(trigger warnings for mentions of depression, suicide, and self-harming)

Netbug, you made a wonderful post about Robin Williams and depression and I wanted to respond to it, but I ended up kind of rambling, so I'm making a DW entry out of it. But you get credit for inspiring this post :)

Anyway, I was thinking about what Netbug said and it took me back to my high school years, when I was severely depressed; I actually had a contract I made with myself that said I was going to kill myself when I turned 18 because I hated myself so much and just couldn't imagine carrying on with this pain into my adult life. I was suffering and I needed help.

And I told my parents two times during this time. Technically three, as the first time I told them I was suicidal was in 8th grade when my brother caught me with an arm red with bite marks. And they did nothing.

Oh sure, they made sure to keep an extra eye on me, always asking how I'm feeling and if I was having 'those thoughts' again and about how they would pray for me. But after a while they think everything was fine with me, that I had managed to 'snap out of it' and let the status quo resume...until I broke down again. This happen my sophomore year (when I confessed to cutting myself) and my senior year (when I broke down crying during lunch). And each time it was the same 'we'll pray and keep an eye on you' solution. It wasn't until Mother's Day of 2012, when I lashed out at one of my cousins, that they finally took me to my aunt's therapist. And said therapist was the one who finally told my parents to take me a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with clinical depression and gave me anti-depressants. But the pills alone weren't enough, as it took one more breakdown for me to finally see a therapist regularly.

My brother once asked me why I needed other people to walk me through these things (my university's counselors were the ones who helped me find an affordable therapist) and the answer is that was how I grew up. After all, if I really needed professional help, surely my parents would have given it to me after I confessed to being suicidal three times?

But my parents didn't understand. Sure, my aunts and uncles may struggle with it because my grandparents were abusive, but me? Their happy-go-lucky, bubbly daughter? I don't think they understood that depression is more than just a mood that results for trauma. Heck, they still don't understand it. Last week, with my sister starting high school, my own four years were brought up and I didn't sugar-coat it that just how I felt during that time. And they get so offended by it, asking me if they 'were really such bad parents that I lead such a miserable life'.

I love my parents and they are wonderful, but they don't get that depression can be chemical, an imbalance in the brain they have no control over. Our family has a history of mental illnesses and I happened to win the genetic lottery that dictates my brain to be that way. The way I felt beneath my false smiles, the way I can still feel, had absolutely nothing to do with them.

The only thing they are responsible for is how they responded it to it.

So, yes, if you are suffering, please, speak up and don't continue to hurt. But everyone else has a responsibility as well, one to listen to the voice, to understand and not silence them. Because after a while, we will see that our words grant us no relief, so we will just quit talking.