Working through the lows

None of it made any sense.

I was bullied quite a bit growing up. Nothing ever severe, but certainly enough to damage my self-esteem; see I was overweight and had long hair… Long hair before it was cool like it is these days. I was a pretty resilient kid though and none of that ever got to me and I was fine. I was even fine throughout my teenage years-for the most part. The depression didn’t really start until it made absolutely no sense. My life was heading in a great direction. I was fresh out of high school and on my way to college in the United States. I had a soccer scholarship and I was moving away from home. I don’t know how or why the depression sank in around that time. I was happy, or at least I thought I was…

Depression isn’t only sitting at home, in bed every single day just feeling sad.

I went to college, I was the star of the campus; everyone knew the Canadian soccer player turning heads. I got myself a beautiful girlfriend at the time. But that didn’t stop me from losing sleep at night and feeling hopeless. I laughed with my friends during the day; everyone liked me (for the most part at least). Ask anyone and I’m probably the first person they’d mention if you asked them who is the happiest person they know. I still felt empty and hopeless; in a constant state of worrying what will happen next- even though I had no reason to fear what might happen next in my life. Depression isn’t only sitting at home, in bed every single day just feeling sad.

Depression can be having great relationships with your friends, being successful in school and sport and still going to bed each night with a constant sorrow draped over you, weighing you down for absolutely no obvious reason. After two years at this college, I transferred to a different school, a Division One school across the country. I was in a very happy relationship and had the best friends anyone could ask for, but I still made the decision to leave hoping it would be better for my soccer career. During that first semester I broke up with my girlfriend; the distance was more than we could have imagined. I lost touch with all my best friends. I ended up leaving and going back home to Canada after that first semester because the coach lied about the scholarship he was going to give me.

The real lows seem to come and go in waves.

So, I end up back at home, where it all started; no girlfriend, no best friends nearby-I didn’t even have a damn degree to at least say it was all worth it. That’s when the suicidal thoughts kicked in. I’m a very self-aware person and even at my lowest point, in the past I never once considered suicide…but at this point I figured I wouldn’t mind taking my chances with what might be on the other side. I’m still sort of at that point now…but I’ve learned to cope with it. Developing new friendships and keeping myself distracted seems to be what works best…but who knows how long that’ll last. The real lows seem to come and go in waves without making much sense of why now or why not now. Some days I see the sun through my window and I get excited about getting out of bed-other days I see the sunlight and I want it to fuck off, and I don’t want to even open my eyes and I don’t want to feel anything.

It could be a lot worse for me; I work a decent job, even though I don’t have any job security, I don’t have too much financial stress…but there are still a lot of days where I want to drive my car in to oncoming traffic and escape from it all. It doesn’t make any sense…but then again none of it ever made any sense.