Having the power to be strong

It was on my 16th birthday when I was diagnosed with depression, two of my friends were already taking pills for it, and I honestly didn’t really understand what I was feeling. But my tests came back and the doctor put me on anti-depressants. She was also a counsellor so we talked about my history.

My parents were split since I was 2, and both had married new partners. My step dad abused me since I was 8 and my step mum ran off with dad's money. My best friend changed schools. (We were like peas in a pod). I felt so lonely at times I would cry to sleep. I said I was over it and that it didn’t bother me, man was I ever so wrong!

Before I was diagnosed with depression my best friend and I used to smoke dope and drink fairly regularly. It was on a friend of mines birthday that we as a group of friends wanted to try LSD, all of us girls had never touched the stuff, but some of the guys suggested we try it. In the end there was 20 of us all taking LSD at the same time and for most of us it was the first time. We had 2 each.

We took it too far, for the rest of the month every weekend we were taking LSD. Then I started to have bad experiences like if I smoked dope with it I started to trip out HARD, I felt insane. I couldn’t hear properly, and time it self seemed distorted. I remember my friend asking what was wrong but her image kept getting smaller and smaller and I couldn’t hear her, I ran away from our group and had a panic attack on the street, I looked like a loony (talking to myself, and not realising it, and just freaking out!). All I wanted to do was sleep cause I new it would get rid of the feeling and the voices. That was the last trip I ever had.

It was about a week or so after that I could feel myself losing my sanity, I felt like there was an evil person inside of me trying to take control, that’s when I saw a doctor about how I was feeling. She put me on the anti depressants and I slowly started to feel normal again, but not completely.

Those drugs screwed my brain for life, and I vowed to stay away from hard stuff like that for the rest of my life and surprisingly enough I have. Many of my friends still take these sorts of drugs at parties and stuff but that doesn’t mean I have to. I’ve learnt that in order to find true happiness you have to be proud of who you are and for good reasons. I can have fun & be happy with out drugs. I know that the experience taught me a lesson.

I was depressed before I started taking drugs I just didn’t see that, hence trying to subconsciously block it out with my drinking & smoking. (I only see that now after having beaten it!) It’s sad that I had to learn the hard way, but I fear most teens will.

It doesn’t matter how you get depression, it’s how you get out of it, having perspective and changing the way you think is the ultimate solution.
You can create a bad experience into a lesson for tomorrow instead of something to regret, depression is about how you let your thinking affect your life, why not change that. What affects your life should change your thinking!

My dad never liked the fact that the doctor just 'put me on more drugs, to get better!”'

So he bought me this book called: Life Strategies for Teens, by Steven McGraw (Dr Phil’s son).

I hated the idea and didn’t touch it for 2 months, but as I often did, I had trouble sleeping one night and started to read it. At first I thought it was stupid, a book telling me how to run my life, please! But after a few days of reading I could really start to understand this guys perspective, he was right! This book was my Bible for a whole year and I was always reading parts of it over and over, to try and make myself a better person. I passed this book on to a friend when she was having trouble with her boyfriend, it relates to ALL situations possible.

Even to this day I’m still fighting depression (circumstantial) and I understand it a lot better, but taking drugs and partying all the time didn’t relieve my pain, it deepened it. Depression is always in disguise, but once you figure out its disguise, you can find it and tackle it allot better. I had to be patient with myself, the more pressure I placed on myself to change the more mistakes I made.

I have learnt something very valuable from all my experiences. I have got the power to be stronger than I really think or seem, fighting and beating depression is a great feeling, but don’t kid yourself it takes a long time to heal broken wounds.