Reaching Out

For me, depression wasn’t something I immediately woke up with. What seemed to happen was that an occasional, normal, “it happens” bad morning slowly started to become more regular. I quickly went from ready to seize the day at TCU from not wanting to even get out of bed. When it’s like that, and it happens so slowly, it can be hard to realize just what exactly is happening. I hate to the use the classic analogy of putting a frog in water and slowly turning it to a boil, but… that really does seem to best explain what happened here.

What made things more difficult was that I seemed to be able to hide it easily enough. I’m fairly quiet as-is, so me speaking up less frequently in class or talking less to my roommates wasn't some alarming cause for concern. It could easily be explained away by thinking of the college course load stress, or not getting enough sleep, or some other easy way to rationalize it (mostly for myself). It is surprisingly easy to trick oneself into thinking that things aren't really a problem right now. And apparently I was an actor or something in my past life, because other people seemed to not notice anything either.

Thankfully, I finally got a wake-up call one day that things should not be how they were on such a regular basis. I read a book that seemed to be a perfect parallel to my life. Maybe I just picked up on it more quickly because of how introspective I get when I read books, but something in those pages forced me to take a hard look at myself and realize that I was in a funk. In a way, the realization and acknowledgement that I was depressed was itself a huge step towards overcoming all of that.

I began jumping into social situations more (something that my introverted self doesn’t exactly do easily normally!). I started to get back into a workout routine. And most importantly, I finally started to be honest with myself about what I needed to do to make sure that I stayed happy and healthy. And I think I did quite an okay job of that- or else I wouldn’t be here right now writing about all of this.

So what can I leave to you, the reader, as some sort of advice for the future? If you think you are depressed: Be honest with yourself and with others. There isn’t some shame in being like that. It happens all the time to people everywhere, including our perfect little campus. If you’re somebody who talks more easily to people, let them know what you’re going through. Building up support like that can help you get through so many things in life. And finally, please go to the Counseling Center. You aren’t weird for doing so. In fact, it just shows that you may just have more guts than a ton of others.

And if you’re a friend trying to look out for other friends: Try to stay aware of how their lives are going. Even if somebody is as quiet as I can be, you can still tell if suddenly they’re grumpier, or shying away from socializing more regularly, or quieter in general. And be honest with what you’re seeing from them. That can be a jumpstart moment to help them out. Having gone through that depression life, I know I’m definitely more in tune with what that looks like, and I want to help people in any way I can. After all, you always want to get that frog out of the boiling water before it gets too hot to handle.