The First Episode

My first major depressive episode happened when I was 14 years old. It was the summer after my freshman year of high school. I believe multiple factors helped bring the depression on. The first one was simply the fact that it was summer time and that meant no school, so there was very little to do. Both my parents worked so there were no opportunities to join things like summer camps or different activities, my brother and I were stuck at home during the day. The second factor was the news that two important people in my life were moving which was devastating news to me at the time. The third factor was the fact that I was living with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and struggling with a lot of pain due to that. The fourth thing that I believe brought it on was the environment I was living in. My parents were verbally attacking me at various times for various things and nothing I ever did was right. There were extremely high expectations and long to-do lists. The combination of these four things plus a genetic predisposition brought on my first depressive episode. I remember displaying all the classic symptoms. I would sleep late into the day and stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning. I lost my appetite and would eat maybe one meal a day. I holed myself up in my room for most of the day and only came out when I had to. I still communicated with my friends through text and Facebook and still went to church like usual but I was more standoffish than usual. I also had multiple crying spells and was very sensitive. I was sad most of the time. Many things began changing during the first few weeks of the summer.

When my friends began noticing all the changes that were occurring in me, they started mentioning depression to me. I denied it immediately saying there was no way. It took a couple weeks of them mentioning it before I finally began to admit that I actually was experiencing depression. From there, they were trying to figure out what they could do to help me. My parents were very much still in the dark about what was going on with and had not picked up on any of the signs or the fact that I was struggling in anyway and going to them was not an option. It was a difficult task and there really were no options out there for help without parental involvement. I was stuck in a horrible situation.

Not too long after, things came to a head. I started experiencing suicidal thoughts and posted something on Facebook about wanting to die. The youth pastor's wife saw it and messaged me asking if I was suicidal. I said yes. Next thing I knew, our doorbell was ringing and my dad was coming to get my mom and I out of our rooms and there were cops standing in the opening between the kitchen and living room of our house. They had me come down and asked me if I was suicidal. I said yes. They asked me if I had a plan. I said no. My mom began to freak out and cry. My dad then told the cops that my mom's mom had killed herself. The cops called back in to their headquarters about the situation and it was decided that a mental health tech would come to the house and evaluate me to determine if I was safe or if I needed further treatment. The evaluator came and he asked me a lot of questions and eventually decided that I was safe. At this point the cops left and it was just me, my parents and the mental health evaluator. The man told my parents that they needed to get me into counseling and told them some of the stressors in the environment that could be worked on, which my parents were close minded to. He left and things were very tense from then on.

Once my parents found out that it was the youth pastor and his wife who had called the cops, they immediately had a phone call with them where my dad yelled at them and demanded that they no longer communicate with me. My parents also contacted the lead pastor at the church to make a complaint against the youth pastor. It was an extremely difficult time for me because those people were really important to me.

As far as counseling went, my parents took me one time. The first part of it the therapist asked what everyone hoped to get out of it and my dad took that moment and ran with it as he used it to tell the therapist how horrible of a daughter I was. My mom tried to pacify him but it didn't do anything. My mom's response was more of a wanting to stop of the suicidal stuff. I didn't say much. Eventually the therapist sent my parents out of the room and that's when I was given the chance to talk and I talked to the therapist. The therapist even mentioned going on medication. When I mentioned that to my mom after the fact, she scoffed at the idea. I never went back to see the therapist.