Starting from the beginning is usually helpful, right?
I can vividly see earlier days when everything just seemed a little brighter and easier. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment things changed but I have a sense of the general time.
I was 20 and living in my very first apartment. I lived on campus in a very small, dingy studio apartment but I brightened the place up with lots of yellow and cute décor. I’d never lived away from my parents before and of course it sounded fun. A girl I knew lived across the hall and my boyfriend lived down the street. I planned for us to hang out frequently and for them to buy me alcohol since they were 21 (every underage college student's dream).
I had it in my head that this would be the high point of my social life, college should be fun, right?. I also planned to focus on my classes and was on track to graduate early.
Reality: I only went to class for a few weeks before I started over sleeping and staying home. I had such low energy and no motivation to participate in life.
Instead of socializing on the weekends like I planned, I went home. My boyfriend apparently didn’t like the social scene and always wanted to go back home for home cooked food and rural hobbies; so I followed. I felt more and more unfulfilled, so I decided to go shopping as a form of therapy. I used my credit card to “buy myself happiness”. I’d get pedicures and facials, eat out every night and I’d buy my boyfriend gifts to earn his attention.
It helped a little but eventually the bills came…
So not only did I get myself in debt, but I also got myself put on academic probation!
I received the letter and somehow was shocked even though I hadn’t gone to class. So, of course, my parents made me move back home.
This was a nightmare for my depression. I was independent (and miserable) one minute and the next I was back home and even more miserable.
In parallel, my boyfriend and I started to have problems. Or rather, the years worth of existing problems rose to the surface. As you could tell from above we didn’t have a very good relationship and honestly didn’t have much in common. In truth, we’d been together for so long, starting at such a young age these we grew up together and simply just kept dating out of convenience.
So after 6 years together we ended up breaking up.
The worst part was that, as lonely as I’d felt over the last year in my apartment and dealing with my depression, I didn’t feel any more lonely when I was actually "alone". That realization was interesting.
So that’s where the story begins. When I was 20 years old I first really experienced depression and didn’t really make any healthy attempt to handle it.
I didn’t know that I was depressed, I just knew that I wasn’t happy and looked for any way to fill that void.
Looking back, things would have been a lot different if I’d known more.
Luckily I got a little bit smarter. 😉
