“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” —Anatole France 

My story will come in installments since there is no way that I can write everything, let alone remember it all, in a single blog post. The truth is, I don’t remember much from the period of time that I was depressed. I remember bits and pieces, but for the most part it’s a blur. Looking back on it, it feels as though it all happened to someone else, not me. I guess you could say that it did happen to someone else, because I am definitely a different person than I was back then. I am much more myself now than I ever have been.

It started my junior year of high school. Why? I don’t know. Depression is funny that way. I’d had issues with anxiety, including social anxiety, for pretty much my whole life, but the depression hit me in eleventh grade. I remember going to the doctor and telling her that I was sad all the time. I also went to see a therapist, and I remember telling her physical symptoms that I felt along with the depression– I’ve always had a good mind-body connection, and the physical symptoms helped me know that something was not right. Some of my “friends”gradually left me when I told them that I had depression because they either didn’t know how to treat me anymore or they didn’t want to have to deal with me anymore. My good friends stuck by me, and they are still my closest friends.

My junior and senior years of high school are mostly a blur. Occasionally one of my friends from high school will say, “Hey, remember that time when ______?” and all I can say is, “Oh, yeah.” because I actually don’t remember a whole lot. I don’t know why I can’t remember much from that time. I guess you could say that I’ve mentally distanced myself from that time of my life, but I think a better explanation is that the person who I was during that time is dead; I am a new me, the me who I was meant to be all along.