All-Natural Anti-Depressant: Part 1

DEDICATION

This series is dedicated to two individuals, My grandmother, who battled depression, battled mental illness, battled cancer, battled hip replacement surgery, and came out ahead. She healed herself mentally and although ultimately cancer took her, she survived cancer for 20+ years.
The second individual is myself, because I did this myself, I survived, and I'm where I want to be and it feels good!

INTRODUCTION found HERE

My All-Natural Anti-Depressant: Part 1 of 9


OUTLINE
1. Create Space
2. Persuade Yourself
3. Emotions
4. Broaden your Perspective: Situations
5. Broaden your Perspective: Truth
6. Be Individual
7. Be Constructive
8. Balance (+) (-)
9. Conclusion


ONE - CREATE SPACE

During my first real spout of depression, I was about eleven years old, living in Farmington, UT on the west side of Glover Ln before there were houses around there. My life was mostly peaceful and as I look at it from an adult perspective I really had nothing to complain about but depression has a way of skewing your mind. My depression started because I didn't know how to deal with other kids my age, no one taught me the necessary skills and I lacked the knowledge and understanding to keep my emotions in check.
I was in 5th grade and was constantly bullied by other kids in the 6th grade. I remember one incident gaining the victory over said bullies, but that was late into the year and they left elementary before any real outcome came from it. I can recall that my emotions were so strong that day that when he started picking on me I took a fist to his face and gave him a bloody nose. We were waiting for the bus to head home for the day and the teacher who was with us didn't see it--thankfully. When she asked him why his nose was bleeding he coped an answer, "I just get bloody noses sometimes." I got on the bus and that was the last time he bothered me.
Had I been confronted by the teacher, I think this victory might have resulted in a bust--I would have been more confused, more angry, and the bully would have continued bullying me. Regardless, the year ended and I never saw him again because my family moved during the last 3 months of my 6th grade and I never attended Jr. High in Farmington.
My sixth grade was worse, however, because instead of facing older kids, who in the mind of a child, older meant more deserving of respect and submission, I was pitted against people my own age--people who were once my best friends. In the 90s being gay was despicable --I wasn't gay, but that didn't stop my peers from bullying me and claiming I was. I believe the rumors started because of jealousy--that I had started to become more popular than they, that I had things a little better; but really, things aren't better if you go through life in fear that you will face a situation you can't handle, face a bully who might actually say something to you that you think is true, face yourself degrading yourself. To add to it, my best childhood friend moved from Farmington because of incidents beyond his control--his father took his own life and his mother died when he was a child. He had to move in with his Aunt, who lived in Orem. --I have had no contact with him since, even though I would like to so I can feel a little closure about his departure.

Moving at such a fragile time in life may have harmed me more than helped me. I finished 6th grade as a hero at a new school--a hero who others despised because I got so much attention. Imagine going to a new school where the teachers tell you: "School is over, don't bother learning because our curriculum is different and you're ahead in school because of it. You've already tested so we have no reason to try." and to the students they say "This is our new student, make friends with him because he has no friends"--people were curious, but I was cast among wolves!
I faced a huge shock from going from a no-body who was trying to survive, to being the most popular kid in school simply because everyone knew who I was--but no one knew me as an individual. I didn't know what I was doing and made friends with all the wrong people thereby upsetting everyone else and making enemies unbeknownst to me. When I entered Jr High, I was treated like everyone else--had no friends--but I was still under the shock of not knowing what to do and I was left to make friends with the wrong people, again. These friends were negative, picked on me because it made them seem superior and built their own self-worth. I was the butt of jokes because I was inept at making friends and didn't have control of my emotions so it was easy to get a rise out of me. I lacked communication skills so I often said things out of place, didn't speak when I should have, and was very socially awkward and lacked self-worth to do anything about it.
I turned inward, told myself it was all my fault for saying stupid things or being a certain way. I thought because I had no friends I was a nobody and worth nothing. I internalized every little thing and though I developed hard skin, my inside was soft and mushy.
My life was one conflict after another: conflict with friends at school, conflict with parents at home, conflict with my sister who lived at home at the time. Everywhere I went there was conflict and I had no where to deal with myself no peaceful place, nothing I could do that gave me enough peace to take care of this. I found the most alone time by turning to video games, turning to the internet, watching TV and avoiding others.
 I got to a point where I pretended every insult and every bad thing that happened to me didn't matter and that I was okay with it. I pretended I was strong but I was hurting inside. I got so depressed that I contemplated my suicide, and all of my "friends" were telling me to "go kill [myself]" anyway, so I thought that "maybe I would be ahead to give them what they want."
I discovered that my parents kept a revolver under the jet-tub cupboard, and my parents never really controlled pills in our household so I contemplated either. I thought about hanging myself in the tree in the back yard, or in the garage.
But one day I found just enough peace while browsing the net to realize that I needed to work on my self-worth. I stumbled into a few self-help books that talked about first building up yourself and then you can change the world around you. I wanted to be significant in the world, I wanted to "change the world" and so I needed to change myself.

Changing myself wasn't my first step, and changing myself is a daunting task that takes a lifetime; my first step was creating space. I needed to distance myself from negative influences. All of those influences that were harmful to my well being, I made the choice to distance myself from them. I stopped hanging around friends who picked on me. I avoided my parents when they were upset. I avoided my siblings when they were on the war path. If I thought it was making me feel worse, I got rid of it.
I started to stand up for myself a little more. When someone said something about me, whether joking or malicious, I told them not to make fun of me or call me names, "Don't call me that again, it's not funny!" --I probably came off very rude (to people who were rude to me), but I needed to do that in order to save myself. Sometimes, you may need to punch someone in the face in order for them to get the message that you're sick of their negative influence.

I'm not promoting the complete abandonment of other people. In time, you will be able to handle your depression and it won't matter who you are around, or what other people tell you. But until you are stronger, you need to get rid of all of those negative influences because they drag you down now. Creating space doesn't mean burning bridges, it means crossing bridges but leaving them in tact.

Around that time period I abandoned the Violin. According to my violin coach, I had reached a point where I needed to dive in fully if I were to advance in the field, I was performing solos, I was the lead in the orchestra, I guess you could say I was pretty good. But the violin was eating up too much of my time. It wasn't a choice I made on my own, to play violin, and so a part of me despised it and despised who I was becoming with it, so I quit. Because of Violin, I felt guilty when I didn't practice, I felt low when I wasn't getting compliments because I was using my violin to get attention and compliments and it had stopped working. It was superficial, I shouldn't have been so focused on getting attention but I put my energy into getting attention and recognition, not on the actual instrument, and when it didn't work it made me feel worse because it wasn't advancing my goal, so I got rid of it.

You also need to create some more personal physical space. People tell you that when you're depressed you should attempt to get out in the world and be active and among people--they rarely tell you to be alone. I think being active and out among people is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but I also think that you should make a conscious effort to be alone. When you're depressed people want to check up on you and cater to you and monitor you, and you want to check up on yourself and monitor yourself, and then you feel uncomfortable being alone as if something is wrong with you that you need someone to watch over you whenever you're alone. Being alone is a good thing, and isn't the goal to be happy always--even when you're alone? Making a conscious effort to be alone gives yourself permission to be okay or to practice being okay whenever you're alone.
In other words, tell those well-meaning people in your life, gently, that you are planning some alone time for an hour or a day, and that you don't want to be bothered. They likely want you to be happy as well, but them making a big deal out of your depression by trying to help you can actually make you feel worse as if you can't deal with this on your own and you aren't autonomous.
If people keep messing with your mind, you have to push them out. That includes people who guilt you into things, people who threaten bad things if you don't comply, even people who have good intentions but who hold too much power over you to feel comfortable in denying them. People are very intrusive. They live in such a competitive world that they forget to turn that competitive mode off when they are in peaceful environments, such as around you.

Space is an important part of everyone's life. Humans carve out territory so that they have room to survive, rejuvenate, and to grow in. If in your own territory you feel threatened, stressed, depressed, hurt, or otherwise, where will you go to rest? Sometimes we feel depressed because there is no safe place for us, whether physical or psychological, so our response is to shut down physically, mentally, and emotionally. The worst part about this is that we don't even realize that there are forces acting on us that trigger our depression--we simply think that we are tired, sad, or lonely and that we have no control over it.
Hop to it! Take some alone time and set correct boundaries for your personal territory.

Next: PART 2