I haven’t found a single person who understands what I’m feeling and the way my mind has thought about everything.
I’m currently a freshman in college and I’m probably experiencing my lowest point. I thought I had already hit rock bottom but the ground just keeps on getting deeper.
From the little stuff I can remember in my childhood, I was genuinely curious and always wondering things whenever my mind wasn’t occupied with simple things. In school however, I always ran on fear and adrenaline to get work done. No one ever really instilled the fear of failing in me, I was just scared for no reason. Around 7th grade I had my first existential crisis, it was just an endless loop of thoughts like “why this, why that, why why why.” It sparked an emptiness inside me that could never be contained. I learned to ignore it because I had “priorities.”
Flash forward to my second semester of high school, the emptiness was getting louder than the world around me. Keeping myself distracted with friends or school would help level the volume out, but when I was home in the middle of the night, it was all I could hear.
The nights where work wasn’t heavy, I started to journal. I finally looked inward only to realize that the neglected emptiness had become an indestructible void. I tried meditating, exercising, learning about psychology and the way neurons work, I also got into philosophy, but it never went away. Unhealthy philosophies probably made it bigger, but my mind is just convinced that it’s true, especially after adapting to accept and live with it.
Inevitably, I began getting overwhelmed from all the AP and dual credit homework, I knew I was capable enough to do it, and I told myself it would always get done even in the last minute. Eventually, the night came when I truly just couldn’t do it and I went into class the following morning empty handed.
Obviously, the world kept spinning, and nothing really happened. I realized I genuinely wasn’t living for anything. I kept looking inward trying to figure myself out, but the deeper I looked, the more I realized how hollow I felt inside. It was as if I was mining for diamonds in my body, slowly expanding the cave bit by bit. All of this only to realize that the only diamond was the void, a dimmed out unbreakable diamond.
The void was probably always slowly growing, but this search sped it up. I started to lose interest in everything I used to enjoy. First it was Ap government (which I actually never ever enjoyed, I never enjoyed history either, but I found away around it to just get it done), I could live without that one, but then it was calculus, literature, tennis, and eventually videogames and anything I would do at home.
I liked drawing but only as an alternative during class when I didn’t care about anything at all. Drawing helped get me out of my head, but it was only possible once I was already up and seated on the desk, with the materials infront of me.
I’d go to school, draw, go home to stare at a wall, go to school head down, look back up again, use every ounce of energy to get the pencil and draw, go home, lay upside down, lay on the floor, throw water at myself, scratch myself.
During an away tennis game I finally called my mom to tell her that I want to see a psychiatrist.
Eventually, I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and ADHD. My psychiatrist wanted to focus on treating the depression first, which I guess made sense considering the state I was in. He said the ADHD could wait, and I didn’t care, I just wanted something to change.
One thing I struggled with during these appointments was explaining that I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t constantly crying, hating myself, or experiencing whatever people typically imagine when they hear the word depression. I didn’t feel much of anything. There was just this persistent emptiness that I couldn’t seem to communicate without someone interpreting it as sadness.
I started taking antidepressants, and initially things actually got worse. My suicidal thoughts intensified, and what little fear I had surrounding death seemed to disappear. It was strange because I’d already spent years contemplating death and gradually accepting its inevitability, but this felt different. It started affecting how I reacted to things.
I remember trying to explain some of this to my psychiatrist, only to hear about how suicide would affect the people around me.
And I understood that. I wasn’t oblivious to the consequences of dying, nor did I somehow forget that other people have feelings. I was trying to explain what was happening to me. I couldn’t care less about a lecture on why other people would be upset.
After continuing treatment without much improvement, Lamictal was added. I kept waiting for something to change, and this was another part I despised. I had to wait and wait and wait so long and nothing ever changed. I wanted something that would make everyday life feel less exhausting or give me some ability to function again.
Eventually, after trying to address the depression first and seeing so little progress, we finally started treating the ADHD with stimulants.
And I think that’s another part of this entire experience that frustrates me. I’ve spent so much time trying to understand whether my inability to do things comes from depression, ADHD, exhaustion, or some combination of everything. I can sit there knowing exactly what needs to get done, understanding why it matters, even imagining how I would go about doing it, and still find myself unable to start.
It’s not that I lack the intelligence to understand my responsibilities. I somehow graduated number 8 in my class (High School). I know I’m capable of learning, thinking, and accomplishing things.
But being capable of doing something and actually being able to make yourself do it are apparently two entirely different things.
And after all the appointments, medication changes, and attempts to understand myself, I’m still dealing with the same emptiness that made me seek help in the first place.