Dillon Camp – Staff Writer

“If you are chronically down, it is a lifelong fight to keep from sinking ”

― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

The walls were beige and this was not helpful. They seemed uncomfortably professional and sad- the kind of vacant, sanitized atmosphere where character is replaced by a poster thoroughly depicting the proper way of washing hands. The paper rippled and rubbed against the bright red plastic bench I was seated on as my nurse spit out question after question, every so often pushing her thick-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose with her exceptionally pudgy index finger.

“Do you find yourself anxious or stressed?” she asked.

Every question was affirmed with a hesitant yes as I tapped my fingers against the plastic and cracked my knuckles. Stressed, anxious, irritable, exhausted, depressed– yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. The adjectives completely occupied the niches inside my mind where earlier I lacked the correct words to fill them and justified the unsettling feelings inside my mind.

The realization that my behavior was not normal started to formulate a few years ago. I was sleeping my Saturdays away and generally feeling incredibly isolated. I looked around and saw people who sincerely enjoyed their lives. And I knew that I genuinely did not enjoy mine.

“Have you ever considered suicide?” the nurse asked, nonchalantly unwrapping a granola bar as she steadied her finger on the computer mouse, ready to confirm the inquiry.

I had to hesitate. I knew the answer. It was something I would meditate on when I was at my worst. Although I didn’t think this was specific to me. Didn’t most people think about it? I figured I wasn’t alone. It seemed like a Plathian, romanticised concept. It was a normal thought to me, one both tossed around jokingly (perhaps as a call for attention on the subject) and (at my worst) seriously. Depression became truly insidious in my life, like gunk that compounds in a pipe daily, so much that you can’t see through to the other side.

I felt defective.

“Yes,” I said hesitantly.

“Pain could be killed. Sadness could not, but the drugs did shut its mouth for a time.”

― Colson Whitehead, Zone One

The clouds began to part within the first month of taking antidepressants. I was cognizant of this. The days became bearable to get through. Simple things– getting out of bed in the morning, being responsive to communication and not having an anxiety attack at the most trivial of problems came with normal ease.

Asking for help was one of the best things I’ve done for myself. Getting the proper medication to combat my clinical depression has altered my life completely: socially, academically and mentally.

But it was clear to me and the people I surrounded myself with when I skipped a day or two of medication. I would constantly be badgered with “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Without antidepressants my mind would go, my moods were polar and I would fall into a deeper and darker hole. With them, I was a functioning person.

“While they like to talk everything through, to analyze and hypothesize, what I really need, what I’m really looking for, is not something I can articulate.”

― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

Communication continues to prove a difficult maneuver to accomplish, especially in relation to my personal life and my depression. I’m always attempting to dodge the tough questions that seem impossible to answer.

Constantly I’m asked “Why do you feel this way? Why are you depressed?” The answer is never rational, always a stuttered and fragmented explanation of my magnified insecurities or fears. When I see people who seem to have real problems I don’t see why I– middle-class, an A and B student, and overall privileged in nearly every aspect of my life– am depressed. However, I don’t feel the need to justify my depression because there is no situational occurrence that triggers it. Depression is a clinical illness, a chemical imbalance rather than a character flaw.