"I was happy, but the feeling was fleeting. When it left, I didn't leave my room"
I felt so alone and so hopeless that I would fantasize about slitting my wrists, letting the blood wash over all of campus, soaking the Green until its name no longer fit. I would never actually slit my wrists, but the thought itself somehow satisfied me. It provided comfort -- a curious sense of peace.
And it was the thought of suicide that I turned to whenever my mood grew so dark that I couldn't fathom another moment of existence. Melodramatic as it sounds, it was true. In fits of both rage and sadness, I would throw my sobbing body down upon a futon and hope that it all would just end, one way or another.
If you were a stranger, or even an acquaintance, you would have never have guessed how I felt. Sometimes in public, I was not only cheery, I was downright hyperactive. I had an energy that, at times, appeared boundless. I laughed, I smiled, I joked with friends. I seemed happy.
And, I was happy. But the feeling was fleeting, and when it left, and was replaced by despair, I didn't leave my room.
Close friends knew that there was something strange going on with me. Understandably so, they had absolutely no idea how to deal with it. When I grew irritable and took out my foul moods on them, they gave up even trying to deal with it. They began to avoid me instead.
That made things worse. Loneliness plagued me even more, and worsened what I had by then begun to call my depression. Of course, my friends didn't call it that, for they had seen me in my hyperactive state as well, and depressed people, as far as anyone knew, certainly did not behave that way. To them, I was just plain crazy.
I really, really didn't want to be classified as just plain crazy.
So I went to Dick's House, hoping they would put a name to whatever had stolen the qualities that had once made me a likeable person. I desperately wanted them to diagnose me with something, so I could shift the blame for the mess my life had become from myself to a legitimate illness.
Did Dick's House give me what I wanted? Well, sort of. A therapist spoke to me for an hour, and at the end of that hour, I asked him if he knew what I had. He said it was a bit early to make a diagnosis, but he suspected that I had something known as major depressive disorder. He also recommended that I consider taking medication. I said I would give it some thought.
Almost immediately after that first session, off to the Internet I went, eager to learn about the thing that was wrong with me - the thing that now had a name.
But what I read about major depressive disorder failed to explain much of my behavior. Sure, people with major depressive disorder thought about suicide, like I did, but they never had hyperactive episodes. As far as I could tell, my frequent and rapid mood swings were a big part of what was bringing such chaos and difficulty to my life. It could not go ignored.
With the help of my psych major friend and her textbooks, I found a disorder that appeared to better fit my symptoms: cyclothemia. Cyclothemia, I learned, was a mild form of manic depression in which the sufferer's moods could "suddenly shift from depression to ebullient states in a matter of moments."
Bingo.
At my next therapy session, I shared what I found with my therapist. His basic response? "Yeah, I think you might be right."
His seeming lack of expertise made me uneasy about the prospect of taking anything he may have prescribed to me, so I passed on the possibility of medication. Still, I did decide to continue my therapy sessions, feeling that, if anything, at least talking out my problems with someone trained to listen would help me in some respect.
So I went. And I talked. And talked. And talked. That was fine with me, because I loved talking, and, furthermore, as far as depressed people went, I was somewhat of an anomaly: I was open and candid about my illness. I wanted the world to know. If they knew, I hoped, maybe they would understand. Maybe they wouldn't run away from me. Little did I know that being so open only causes some to run further, and faster.
Yes, my therapist was a good listener. But his skill at posing questions left much to be desired. The subject of my childhood never came up, which I always found odd, because aren't many mental illnesses rooted in childhood trauma?
Did my therapist see any value in discussing my abusive mother, or that I had struggled with issues of low self-esteem since elementary school? Apparently not. He never asked.
I stopped seeing my therapist after four sessions. I felt it was useless.
Maybe I gave up too soon. Maybe not. I suppose I'll never know. To tell the truth, by now I don't really care. Somehow, I got better. My life changed, as it is bound to do with the ending of one term and the start of another, and the dark feelings passed. The moods swings became few and far between. The thought of suicide ceased to serve as the warm, alluring blanket in which I wrapped all my sadness and self-doubt.
I'm okay now. I hope I stay that way, but if I don't, I hope I can find a mental health professional willing and able to delve into the heart of my illness.
And I hope my friends don't run away.
Loneliness kills.
"I will have spent half my life starving"
They asked me why I was afraid of being fat. They couldn't understand why I starve myself, destroy my body, jeopardize my ability to have children, ruin my friendships and hurt my family, just to be thin.
But, wasn't it obvious? Maybe they didn't know what it was like to be fat. Maybe they had never been called a cow as I had been. Maybe they had never been criticized by their own families, picked on by their peers at school, or embarrassed because they couldn't fit into their own clothes. But hadn't they read the magazines? Hadn't they seen the billboards? Didn't they know you can't amount to anything in this world if you are fat and disgusting? I knew. And that's why I did what I did.
But, there is a limit to how long you can live on carrot sticks and water. I couldn't starve forever, and I couldn't continue to run 10 miles a day, every day, for the rest of my life. I couldn't spend my entire existence locked up alone in my room, pacing back and forth as I read my school books, trying to burn off every calorie I consumed.
My attempted suicide had been fruitless. Four different hospitalizations, countless therapy sessions and endless trips to the doctor had solved nothing. Yet, recovery seemed to be the only option. I would have to choose to be well.
But what I saw when I emerged from my safe world of routine starvation caused me to think I might never recover. I saw thin women everywhere. I saw women eating salads, trying to lose weight. I saw people running in the streets, their eyes gleaming with the insanity of obsession -- the same obsession from which I was trying to escape. And I saw the models on the covers of magazines.
Then there were my experiences as a "recovering" anorexic. Somehow I surrounded myself with the most insensitive, uncaring, and just plain stupid people out there. There was the guy who "felt me up" and then proceeded to tell the entire male population of my high school that there was absolutely nothing there. Sorry buddy, but starving yourself for a few years tends to eliminate all body fat. Next there was the "charming" guy who had a nasty remark for any woman who wasn't a size two. And then there was everyone else -- they wanted me to be thin and perfect. In other words, they wanted me to be anorexic.
When I was accepted to Dartmouth I hoped that things might be different. I thought I could focus on my future and my studies. I thought I could be successful and happy. But things weren't different. There were frat boys just like the guys from high school. There were stick figures in cute little clothes chatting over salad in Food Court. There was stress, competition, and the obsessive drive for perfection.
So I went to Dick's House for eating disorder support groups and more useless therapy, and eventually, I went back into hiding. I locked myself in my room and sat on my bed with my books, ignoring the incessant knocking at my door. I didn't want to see anyone. I was fat and disgusting -- not suitable to venture out into the cold, judgmental world.
So here I am back where I started when I developed anorexia eight years ago.
When I turn 22, two short years from now, I will have spent half my life starving, bingeing, purging, exercising compulsively, crying, screaming, hating myself, hating my body and hating my life. But what can I do? Marcia told us once in group that an eating disorder generally lasts about seven years. It's been eight for me.
"I now prefer to be alone"
In high school I was sexually abused by a close friend of the family. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was very lonely and didn't have anyone I was close to.
A month and a half after being at Dartmouth, that's when I decided that I was still feeling the effects, and that maybe Dartmouth wasn't the right place for me. And so I struggled with why am I here and I continue to struggle with that because it's a very different place to be at if you're struggling with depression. My sophomore winter I decided I needed to get help. I went to Dick's House and had a horrible experience with a counselor who made me feel alienated. I left feeling overwhelmed. I felt she was very sterile, very clinical. But then it became necessary my junior spring to go back to Dick's House and this time I had an excellent counselor. In my first meeting she advised me on things I could do when I went back home, and suggested that I could take anti-depressants.
I decided to go on anti-depressants my junior summer, and I was quite happy. It created a situation where I could think about things clearly. But I also decided to stop medication because although it showed me where I could be I didn't want an artificial high. For a while, I was feeling pretty confident. But there was one day that was particularly tough, and I didn't think I could make it through the day. I went to Dick's House and took a time out, talked to someone and didn't have to deal with the stresses of a college day.
I'm developing coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, because I have been dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome I haven't had the opportunity to develop study skills. When I sit down and study, my body falls asleep. The experience affects the way I interact with my family and how I interact within a romantic relationship. When I'm in a romantic relationship, I use that for my talking and my support. When I'm not in a relationship I tend to be very sexually active, and use that for love. Recently, I've been able to use my friends as a resource more. It's been a hurdle with my mother because she has always preached working out one's problems on one's own and with the grace of God. She doesn't believe in counseling, and that's something I need. It's also been tough to come to terms with family members, some of whom are understanding and some of whom aren't.
I'm no longer the same person I was in high school. I no longer enjoy being part of a society, I now prefer to be alone and to have a few people I'm closed to. It's created for me isolation and self-dependency. My relationship to the event is ongoing and it affects the way I live and the choices I make.
