Fighting the Darkness: My Personal Story with Depression

Whenever I look at my baby pictures, I think: that's one stinking happy baby. There's hardly a picture of me where I wasn't laughing or grinning from ear to ear. Even the pictures of me bawling my eyes out (it involves a traumatic experience with Santa, don't ask), I guess I inherently knew at that age that I was safe and I would be ok.

Something changed as I got older. The pictures start to reflect a little girl whose smile seemed increasingly false, as if the only reason to smile is because that's what you were supposed to do in pictures. There was a perpetual sadness invading my psyche, and I was too young to understand that it was only the beginning of dark times to come.

I remember being tired all the time and not knowing why. Being insecure in who I was and having people attribute it to growing pains. Having dark and evil thoughts about harming others, and being too scared to tell anyone what was in my mind. Feelings of loneliness, of sadness, of despair.

And yet I functioned. I went to school every day and got good grades. Tried to fit in, but didn't succeed. Sounds like typical teenage angst, right?

Wrong. Everything came to a head when my parents divorced my senior year of high school. While I truly believe it was the best decision for all of us, this major life change threw me into a tailspin.

I had always gotten good grades to earn my dad's approval. Now that he wasn't around, whom exactly did I have to please? I was my grandmother's chief caretaker. Now that she wasn't around, what did I have to do with my time? Nothing. Nothing except dwell on the thoughts that had haunted me all my life. Thoughts of being unworthy, incapable, not good enough to do anything on my own. Thoughts of feeling completely, utterly alone.

Sleep became my friend. My best friend. Sleep meant I didn't have to get up and face the world, my crumbling grades, or the issues with my parents. School and family members recommended therapy, which I highly resented. Not because I didn't think I needed it, but because I was the only one in my family required to do it. I was made to feel like the problem, that everything that was happening was my fault. Everyone just wanted to fix me, instead of taking the time to understand me. Not exactly conducive to building a path to recovery, is it.

Senior year of high school is supposed to be one of the greatest years of your life. For me it was the absolute worst.

I found refuge in watching stand up comedy, which pulled me from the edge of darkness and made me laugh until I cried. I found revenge in working as a waitress, because it horrified my family. And I found redemption in the company of some unlikely friends.

Two of my mom's employees took me under their wing, without judgment, without condemnation. I became their assistant, did some work for them to keep me functioning. I didn't have to talk to them; I could just do my job and not say a word. They became my mentors, and slowly, their sense of normalcy helped bring me back to sanity.

Through them I found the courage to fight the darkness. To survive and come out the other side. I've lost touch with these two fine men, and I wonder if they'll ever know what those quiet moments at the office meant to me. I will be forever grateful to them for helping me find my footing on some pretty shaky ground.

I know now that this episode was my first major encounter with what has been a lifelong battle with depression. That ugly year of my life prompted me to make some sweeping life changes that saw me try to rid myself of the past. I moved to the other side of the world, lived with my grandmother in the Philippines, came back to finish college, moved to Las Vegas. Each of these events were my own decisions, attempts to find myself and prove that I could conquer the thoughts running rampant in my head.

I'm much better nowadays. Oh, I still have periods where I wail like a banshee, sleep like the dead, and fight the bone-numbing sadness that accompanies the ugly thoughts. But I've worked hard at learning to recognize the signs of depression so that I can avoid another episode like that of my senior year. I've been on and off medication, but I found it only partially helps. The key for me is to find a therapist you trust and to build friendships that bring you lots of laughter and joy. I'm lucky enough to have both.

And so the battle ranges on. My life is filled with a lot of happy blessings, yet the darkness hangs perpetually overhead, like a looming thundercloud on a sunny day. Will depression rain on my parade again? Perhaps. But I know that I have the tools now to fight the darkness. And I will win.