Freshman year, about halfway through my first year of what is widely known as ''the best 4 years of your life'', the onset began. That quote didnt apply to my life and shouldve been re-worded to ''And so it begins''. I had just turned 16, so life wasnt throwing too many curve balls at me at the time. New truck, new stereo system, and an absolute beautiful 10/10 on my right hand side making my new whip look that much better. This is around the time that my brother was battling severe addiction to pain killers. Addiction hasn't necessarily ran in my family, but wherever it was present, it was heavy. My brother is my absolute best friend. Always will be, so if this seems like an excuse to blame, your intentions on what I mean by including this information has been crucially mislead. I will never blame him for any of my problems. It was essentially the choices I made that led to the start of my mental health issues. I was a very young user, which I truly do believe contributes to my current mental health. I started experimenting with drugs at a very early age. Me and my brother right before his admission into rehab used to mess around with pills and we would smoke very often. *NONE OF THIS IS TO SUGGEST HE HAD ANY PART OF MY ACTIONS*. Of course I was just ''experimenting'', completely oblivious to the fact that he had an actual problem. Once he left off to rehab, my oblivion was soon answered. The so called ''actual problem'' came upon myself. I was absolutely devastated. My best friend in the entire world just got loaded into a car and driven off to the middle of the woods 8 hours away where for 3 months I would probably speak to him a total of 6-7 times. Heart breaking. Although I was in an intense relationship with a very beautiful love, my ''real'' other half was taken from me. Its a day Ill never forget for as long as I live. I remember a family friend coming to pick me up from school one day, and we were on our way to ''JackAss 2.5'' when I was informed that we were going to stop by my mom and dad's car in the parking lot of the La-Z boy to say goodbye. Casual. Nobody informed me. There I was, on my way to see a comedy after I just hugged my bestfriend goodbye. I watched as my father, a medical doctor, who has seen the worst of the worst, curl up in the passenger seat bawling his eyes out. I didnt really understand. The days went by and I sat alone watching tv by myself days on end. This is when my mind started to finally pull the trigger on the mind games. I just want to put it out there that I love my brother with all of my heart and none of this was his fault. Depression runs rampant in my family, this is strictly just the first memory of my depression being triggered. As he was gone, I became in a sense obsessed with making myself sad. My normal CD's became infiltrated with sad music. I became in love with gloomy days, dark clothes, and sickening thoughts. I loved sad music, downtempo music that put this sickening grip on my mind. I started cutting friends off left and right, thinking it was due to my ongoing relationship with my girlfriend at the time. I was extremely wrong. She had nothing to do with it in fact. Now that I think back to it, I pushed everyone away except her, because she was the only one I felt that understood my problems and would be by my side through everything. Little did I know it was this sickness, pushing everything great away in my life, and balling all my happiness into a relationship with a girl that I would end up never speaking to again just a few years later. As the year came to a close, I started to notice problems in my relationship. I was living this ''double life'', just being a bad person behind everyones back, especially the person I cared about most deeply. I remember meeting up with my girlfriend in the middle of the cafeteria hallway in my highschool, and telling her that I had a problem with depression. This was the first day I mentioned anything to my mom, and it all started with a text saying ''I need help''. I was starting to have a feeling of worry and fear for absolutely nothing. A sense of hopeless-ness. My comedic attitude turned into a dark regiment of a sadistic lifestyle and bad choices. I was finally admitted to my first counselor. Then referred to my psychiatrist, who to this day will forever be one of the most important people in my entire life. I owe it all to a man named Gavin Brunsvold.
Im a 21 year old college student battling a Major Depressive and Major Anxiety Disorder. This is my story, and my personal battle with this crippling disease.