Depression: MY Jar of Dirt. Not Yours. Mine. MINE.

*Yes that is a reference to Pirates of the Caribbean. No I am not sorry.*

Those closest to me know that I was fairly recently diagnosed with clinical depression and General Anxiety Disorder. Now those of you not closest to me know too. I mean, that's if it wasn't obvious to you, and I know it sort of has been.

I'm not really here to talk about the self-hatred or the lack of interest or the feeling of drowning in a thick blackness of every horrible thing you've ever done or the way getting out of bed is impossible because it's like you're dragging a huge boulder with you wherever you go. And I'm not particularly interested in discussing the pros and cons of therapy and medication, either. The symptoms and the treatment are things you can learn about elsewhere from people with degrees who have more knowledge and better words.

Basically, I'm ranting, because this is my blog and I'm allowed to do whatever I want, thank-you-very-much.

When I had sunk so low that I was solely using Spark Notes for English class, voluntarily watching ABC Family dramas, and wearing the same clothes four days in row (and I'm not saying there aren't still times when I do all those things-- I have nowhere near recovered), I had essentially lost all hope. I felt like nothing would ever be okay again.

The problem with depression is, it isn't logical. You may be in a terrible situation, when depression is somehow "justified" (ew ew ew), or you may be surrounded by a loving family in a nice upper-middle class house with a steady income and regular access to pizza. Either way, the feelings of hopelessness, of drowning, are so incredibly oppressive that at times you can barely move. And since my depression felt so incredibly illogical, I spent half my time hating myself for feeling "unjustly depressed" and half my time trying to think up a reason as to why I was feeling this way, thinking if I could just get rid of it, maybe it would magically disappear.

Except there was no reason. And I tried talking to friends about it, but that just made things worse.

There are two phrases I am positively ill with hearing.

The first is "It's just your age. Everyone feels like that when they're a teenager. You'll grow out of it." I will vomit all over the next person to say that to me. Do you. Have any. Actual idea. How. Much. Worse. That. Makes. Me. Feel.

Given how popular this attitude is, and the fact that my parents haven't helped me find a "grown-up doctor" yet now that I'm eighteen, I'm surprised anyone diagnosed me and took me seriously at all. It makes me so frustrated when people say that somehow, my age is responsible for my depression.

Depression isn't some sort of sick rite of passage that every teenager goes through like puberty and prom night. It is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It's serious. And treating it like it's not just because a kid is experiencing it shows how much ageism has taken over our society. How can look at a fellow human being who is literally drowning in their own anguish, and because of they are younger just shake your head and mutter "Kids today"? If I was having a depressive episode at thirty, or fifty, would I be melodramatic then?

The second phrase I will absolutely die if I ever have to hear again is this:

"You have no reason to be sad."

I have heard this from a caring nurse, two close relatives, several good friends, and a complete stranger on the Internet.

To anyone who plans on saying this to me in the future:

I KNOW. I AM COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY AWARE THAT I HAVE NO REASON TO BE SAD. I AM CLOTHED AND OVER-FED AND WHITE AND HAVE A JOB THAT PAYS REASONABLY WELL AND MY PARENTS ARE STILL MARRIED AND I HAVE CENTRAL HEAT AND FREE WIFI AND LAUNDRY SERVICES AND A BOYFRIEND AND LOTS OF PEOPLE WHO LOVE ME AND EVEN THOUGH I'M BEHIND IN A COUPLE CLASSES I AM STILL MANAGING A'S AND B'S. I HAVE NO REASON TO BE SAD. I GET IT.

SO WHY AM I STILL SAD??????????????

*panting*

Unless you have a degree in Feelings, or are God, or Dumbledore or something, don't try to explain my feelings to me. If I can't understand them, what makes you think you can? Worry about your own feelings. Give me hugs, not an analysis. U feel me?

On Driving

I recently passed the ever-fearsome Driver's Test. It was a lot like slaying a dragon, except that instead of a sword I had car keys, and instead of a cool wizard mentor I had a test administrator that spoke in a monotone, and there was no dragon and I kind of wished there was because then I wouldn't have had to take the test. While I was thinking in run-on sentence metaphors, I managed to pass by one Very Important Point. So woo-hoo.

If you've known me for any significant length of time, then you probably know that I have an extreme (and pathological) fear of driving. This phobia took root after my first driving class, which consisted of a multiple-choice packet that went over traffic laws and a lot of YouTube videos of very, very bad car crashes. 

It's been about a week-ish since I passed the test, so I think I can be considered something of a driving expert now. And I discovered a lot of lies that my driving instructors told me in that class. 

For example, parallel parking. This is one that I'm pretty sure everyone's aware of. Parallel parking reminds me of parabolas. Both of them are things that you are required to know about, but you will encounter them pretty rarely in your life unless you are in very specific situations. In the case of parabolas, those situations involve Angry Birds and/or being a super smart mathematical genius. With parallel parking, it involves the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity you will have in your mid-thirties to take your 2.5 children to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and stand too far away to actually see anything, freezing your butt off in New York's autumnal chill. Suffice it to say that I know people who have been alive since television was in black and white who have never used parallel parking once in their entire careers on the road. 

Another thing I was told was that essentially every time I passed an entrance to a gas station or a grocery store, people were going to zoom out in front of me and cut me off. That has not happened. I know that it can happen. I'm very, very aware of the insane people on the road in Oklahoma. But for the most part, everyone on the road has been very polite and waited for me to go by. I'll admit that I'm still pleasantly surprised every time I go through an intersection or a four-way stop and discover that no one has suddenly made the decision to ram into my car for no reason. 

Also, signaling. Nobody signals except for me and that one old lady who left her signal on for twelve blocks and drove eight miles an hour under the speed limit in front of me on the way to school last Thursday. What is up with that? I mean, come on. Those fancy buttons are part of the reason you paid so much money for that car. What was the point of that if you don't use them? 

One thing I wished I'd been warned about is how easy it is to get lost when you first start out driving. Maybe it's just me, but I've already had to call my parents to bail me out of wrong turns and streets-too-far at least four times. And before anyone tells me to use my GPS, I'll have you know that I got lost because of mine, and yes I put the address in correctly, I think I am perfectly capable of holding up the human end of the bargain when it comes to a GPS, so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it Boy Scouts of America. 

Well, I haven't died yet. So there's that.