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Surf a Flood of random discussion.
originally posted in:Psykana Librarius
Edited by Psy: 4/26/2014 12:53:01 PM
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Depression Awareness - Stories of the Flood.

Note - Please use CTRL F for 'Story Section - 1/2/3' to find the story sections that I've posted. Story Section - 1 Alright, so this is the first in a series of threads to raise awareness of depression, it's symptoms, it's treatments and hopefully busting the crap out of the pervasive myths or misunderstandings that hang around this topic because few people want to start the discussion. The picture at the top of the thread stood out to me as uncannily accurate. People who are depressed very rarely show that they are, let alone tell the people around them about it. They put on the smile or just a blank face to hide what's inside their head. I know I do, I'm sure other people do as well. All of these stories will be posted anonymously, the only person who knows the identity of those telling the stories will be me. I'm not going to be divulging the names for obvious reasons. Some weren't too bothered about anonymity for their story but I'll keep it blank by default and they can let people know if they wish. Story #1 - Cyberbullying in a video game - it's not just to be laughed off. [spoiler]I do have a story to share with you concerning depression and cyber bullying. A while back, but not that far back, I was an avid World of Warcraft addict. Worked my job for eight hours, came home and raided for another eight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. All the other days I spent grinding for gold of leveling my alts for similar time periods. In reflection, it wasn't a good point in my life. Then one day not sure why or when it started, I don't even remember what they said anymore, I started being harassed by the members of a random guild. When I attempted to sell items in Trade Chat they would spam messages to immediately bump my message out of view so that I could not sell anything. They followed my guild raids into the zone and constantly posted hurtful messages about me. They sent me PMs with more messages of the same content. I of course blocked them so they couldn't send me PMs and I couldn't see their messages but their spam still disrupted my sales and got to the point where random Pick up Groups started rejecting me for dungeons even though I more than met gear and skill requirements because of the crap they heard from this guild. I was furious. I PM'd GMs multiple times about the issue and each time they either couldn't or wouldn't do anything to stop them. Being young I didn't want to or know to escalate it further and to not stop until I got a satisfactory ending so I just continued on dealing with it. I couldn't just log out either. I was a raiding member of a guild clearing newish content. I couldn't just pop offline whenever the assholes started posting. My guild needed me. And being a social outcast in real life, my guild mates were the best friendships I had. I even bought tickets to St. Louis to have a get together with them. It got so bad and I was feeling like such crap that I admitted to the GM responding to my latest report about these griefers that I felt like giving it all up and ending it all and he had to talk me down or he was going to call the cops and give them my address so they would make sure I didn't kill myself. I'm not sure what happened to the players in question after that. I don't think Blizzard ever did anything but eventually my computer couldn't keep up with new content and I got side lined in raids and I just stopped playing and that killed the problem. To this day, anyone putting down a person feeling suicidal or depressed gets my blood boiling because they are insulting me. They are calling me a pussy, they are calling me weak willed and I'll be -blam!-ed if I'm going to take that shit lying down anymore, I'll be -blam!-ed if I let the same shit that happens to me happens to someone else, and I'll be -blam!-ed if I let some -blam!-ty Ann peice of shit dump on a person already feeling like shit. [/spoiler] Story #2 - Depression and self-harm, 'getting help' isn't easy. [spoiler]So I'm going to give you my story on an alt. You prooobably know who I am and I wont bother getting into my persona to mask it. I was just too embarrassed to tell you on my main. It's for you thread should you share it anon. A treatment or idea of sorts. I suffered from depression for over four years. Got into the cutting scene and was raised in an emotionally, mentally and psychically abusive family. Which is, I believe, the cause of all of my mental crutches. The option to see a therapist wasn't there. It simply didn't and doesn't exist for some people. "Getting help" isn't easy, especially with the social pressure that hovers around asking for it. I turned 18 and was kicked out of my house while attending college which lead me to turn to games, poor eating/sleeping habits, and denial. Though talking to a selected few did help, it was little more than putting a band-aid over an open wound. A temporary fix to a large problem. As the years went on the depression seemed to drag. Some days I would be okay, other days it was too much effort to breath. I only wished to stay in bed all day. Later a family member got me a cat. This helped a lot. It kept my mind busy and made me feel needed. I felt more motivated to go to my job everyday so I would have money to spoil him. I would go outside more often, walking him on his leash and allowing everyone to admire him. He understood certain words when I used him. Knew his name, knew when he had misbehaved. Having such a smart pet made me proud. Gave me a sense of accomplishment. I loved him just as I did my family and friends. But only a year of having him, he became terminally ill. I made the most crippling choice in my life and had to put him down to end his pain. My depression peaked at this point. My mind hardly recalls those days even now. What I do remember is living in a fog. My body on autopilot. When I wasn't working I was sleeping. Didn't eat. Hardly drank water. Closed up to anyone who tried to talk to me. Thoughts of suicide strangled me. My room was a constant mess. Never cared about my attire or appearance very much then. It was too much trouble and simply wasn't worth it. Each day that passed felt more and more of a chore. Existing was a chore. It finally broke me one day at my job. Working the night shift and I sat in the back and cried as a child would. My hands were shaking. It was it. It was the day I was done. Completely done with everything. Despite that something in me still wanted to live. I flipped through my contacts searching desperately for someone to call. To talk to me and listen. I wanted help now. Being alone was too difficult. Holding it in; hiding from the world. Putting on a smile when I was around people to pretend everything was fine. Goofing off so no one would even have an idea that I wasn't okay. There was no single person I had the courage to pour out to so I bit my cheek and wrote out a confession on my facebook. I told everyone. Absolutely terrified that I would be scolded, patronized or belittled for it. It was the opposite though. My friends gave me so much support. Family members were giving suggestions. Phone calls. Texts. I finished closing the store, went home to my flatmate asking what she could do to help. I cried in relief that night. Even as I type that sensation of it is causing me to tear up in happiness. It was time to change. I cut out soda and junk food entirely. Instead of going home and jumping in bed or on the xbox I took a walk. Explored the rural expanse around me. Sat and stared out at the lake to relax on clear nights. I took the effort to talk to friends about things that stressed me out. Soon a work out routine fell into place. Every two days a week I set aside time to clean the house. Even making sure to keep every thing as tidy as I could. Once I forced myself into being healthy physically my mind slid into place. The depression and suicidal thoughts ebbed away. Happiness became genuine. It was as if a massive weight on my mind, chest and shoulders had melted away slowly. It was crazy. Just by changing my diet, talking to people, and organizing myself the depression was going away. To this day I find it bizarre and wonderful all at the same time. It was one of the most difficult paths however. To be in a state of not wanting to do anything, because it simply didn't matter To doing everything a functioning person would do. Choosing to do it. And getting better due to that. Convincing myself was hard however. It wasn't as simple as snapping my fingers and thinking "today I will get better". It was a road of success and failure. Some days you won the battle, other days the battle drowned you. But you have to keep grabbing for that light at the end of the tunnel. It's there. You probably can't see it but once you do you'll never let it go. While it will fade some nights and the depression will nibble at your mind, you will feel so much lighter. So much more wonderful in the process. That's all I've got to say. Really rather a messy and all over story but *shrugs* [/spoiler] Sparkles said this, I think it's very apt and needs a highlight up here. [quote]The thing about depression is that it isn't sadness; the opposite is not a state of happiness. It is resignation, and the opposite is vitality. Depression takes the life out of life, and gives the world a haze through which you think you see clearly. Two words are simply needed when referring to depression, whether regarding yourself or somebody close to you: get help. [/quote]

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  • Edited by A Saturnalia: 6/22/2014 6:07:56 PM
    I'll share a story. When I was about two years old my parents were fighting all the time, to the point where one of them would hit the other or punch a hole through the wall or throw things at each other. They decided to call it quits (well by they I mean my mother slept with my ex-stepfather in my fathers bed), they got a divorce later that year. We moved about a half hour away from my father and I hated every second of it, I hated my stepfather and I hated my mother for allowing (and sometimes joining in) him to verbally abuse me and my sister and physically assault me with belts, fists, knives, cigarettes, slapping, picking me up by the throat, throwing me across the room, beating me with wooden planks, throwing me off a dock even when I didn't know how to swim (learned really quickly). I wanted to move back in with my father (who was emotionally abusive) just to get away from the violence. Years went by until I finally told the friend of the court that I wanted to move back in with my father, so that's what I did, I packed up my stuff and left. The only problem was the weekend visits that I had to endure (which were made worse by the fact that I had broken my mothers heart and all that shit). Years went by like this until I turned 15, the physical abuse had died off about 6 years prior but the verbal abuse never ceased. I hated myself because of these words that were thrown at me all the time, I hated myself so much that I figured killing myself was the only way to go. I grabbed my stepfathers wallet and paid a guy to buy me booze. I downed the fifth with three packages of sleeping medication and laid on the ground waiting for the end. The blackness crept upon me and I could slowly feel myself closing into death. When I woke up in a pile of vomit and all the pills that I had taken all over the ground I felt nothing, I felt angry that it didn't end so I started cutting, I carved into my arm that day so violently that the blood was pouring off. My mother came home and found me, laying on the bathroom floor with blood and vomit all around, she rushed me to the hospital and I needed 10 stitches to hold it together. My mother blamed me slipping in the bathroom and hitting a vase (which apparently I had broken and used to carve myself), so I didn't have to go on suicide watch, they sent me home. The cutting felt fantastic so I continued to do it up until a year ago (24 now), when I told myself to stop and think of the children my wife and I plan on having, think of having to explain to them what all the scars on your body are from. Later that year, when I was 15 still, a month before my 16th birthday, my mother slept with another guy in my stepfather's bedroom and left him, left all of us (my sister and my half-sister) and ran to live with him and a few of her drug buddies at their house. My sister and my half-sister visited often, to the point where they were pretty much living there. I finally got the courage to finally go and visit, the day before my birthday. I got down there and things were fine, they had a few animals that I got to play with and a few computer games I had never played before. My mother took me to Meijer's (a store like Walmart) and told me to pick out a computer game for my birthday present. I was so excited that she was letting me pick out anything (she had never done anything of the sort before), they really didn't have anything that I wanted fully except for the Sims with a few DLC included. I picked out my gift and we went and checked out, I went home, installed it on their computer and played for a few hours before I went to bed. That night I heard a car leaving the driveway, not thinking anything of it I went back to sleep. When I woke up (I was teh first one awake) in the morning my mother and step-stepfather had disappeared. Abandoned my two sisters and me in a drug house 2 hours away from my father with nothing but our clothes and a letter saying "I'm sorry, can't stay here". I had seen a payphone in that Meijer's so I walked 5 miles with the little bit of change that I had to that payphone and called my father. I then had to walk back and explain to my sisters what was going to happen. There is nothing in this world that I wish I could take back then seeing my 8 year old sister change that day, seeing her bawl until there weren't any tears coming out, seeing that hatred form in her eyes, seeing her innocence and demenor die that day. We never forgot what happened, we never will, I grew more and more depressed by it I get sever Anxiety around new people and crowds and I developed Manic depression as a cause of all of it, my sister who was 14 at the time turned to alcohol and drugs to deal with the pain, my 8 year old sister turned to video games as a coping device, she's in high school now but she's still the same person as that person I saw, she never got to be a kid, she's booksmart but I feel like she's going to be taken advantage of by some boy/man because she's still that 8 year old who only knows pain. The link is a picture of my step-step father to validate this story I guess. There are also numerous other stories I could tell but I think 2 of them is long enough.

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