When
I was twelve I started losing interest in things that used to interest me. Also
about that time I started to gain weight. I turned to food to combat my
feelings of sadness.
My
battle with depression began when I was when I was eighteen, but, I feel that
it actually begun sooner. It was a long road to recovery. Some say my
depression was hidden within me. They say I was showing signs when I worked for
the Somerset Kmart. The longer I worked there the angrier I became.
Feelings of anger and sadness really
enveloped me in July 2001. I’ve been at my new job at Stop and Shop for about
seven months, when I made a comment to a co-worker that I needed a psychiatrist,
which in turn upset the customer I was taking care of at the time. So, the
customer complained to the manager at the time, who happened to be Jay. Jay in
turn helped me find a psychiatrist.
Thus at twenty-four years old I
began to see a therapist and psychiatrist at 189 New Street, in my hometown of
New Brunswick, NJ. I was put on Zyprexa
and Zoloft at the time. The exact dosage I don’t remember now. But a change had
begun when I started to study the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2003.
Before that I was suicidal and
threatened to kill myself on several occasions. I was so desperate that one day
I grabbed a knife and threaten to use on myself. However, my mom and brother
stopped me. I remember that I kept screaming I don’t want to live and you don’t
want me to live either. If it wasn’t for their intervention and the help of the
therapist and psychiatrist I would be dead now.
The real question is did I really
want to die? At that particular time in my life I did want to die. I sought
death and darkness. So I sat down wrote poems that express how I felt at the
time. One such poem is called My Sorrow. In short My Sorrow is about this deep
sorrow within me.
My real help came from above in the
form of my friend Ginger who is a Jehovah’s Witness. Because I started asking
Ginger about her religion in 2003, I live today. True the medicine and psychiatric
help helped me too. But once I learned what Jehovah can do I started to change
my ways.
True I may be single but I know
Jehovah has someone out there for me. One other thing helped me coped the
comfort of my cat Becky whom I’ve had since 1999 but she was born in 1998. Oh
my writing has helped me cope as well. Whenever I feel down I sit down and
write.
I now take Abilify, Zoloft, and
Trazodone. However, I only take 5 mg of Abilify, 50 mg of Zoloft, and 150 mg of
Trazodone. Trazodone is only one that wasn’t lowered. I used to take 10 mg of
Abilify, and 100 mg of Zoloft. I started taking the Trazodone because I was
having trouble sleeping.
Even though I’m still on medicine I
feel like I’ve won the battle on my depression. I feel like I’ve won my battle
with depression because I am a lot happier now. True I still have my down days
but they are few and far between now.
In my early days of my depression I
had so many ups and downs that I felt like I was on a roller coaster, and I’ve
never been on a roller coaster to my knowledge.
The Compact Oxford English
Dictionary defines depression as: 1. severe unhappiness and dejection. 2. A
medical condition in which a person experiences severe feelings of hopelessness
and inadequacy. 3. A long severe recession in economy or market. 4. The action
of lowering or depressing something. 5. A sunken place or hollow. 6. An area of low atmospheric pressure which may
bring rain.
Of course I fall in the area of one
and two. And because of that I needed medical help right away. My definition of
depression is one of many ups and downs. Fortunately right now I’m on high
instead of a low.
From what I remember from an old
Zoloft I believe is that depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain.
Depression is a serious illness that can be treated with medicine. You can find
all kinds of information on different websites. One such site is National
Institute of Mental Health.
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