How I Met Depression

According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 300 million people around the world are affected by depression. I am one of them.

I am fighting depression and anxiety. I realize that the issue of mental health is heavily stigmatized by many people, in spite of their level of education. I thought that I should share my story to help destigmatize it. These words are not easy.

My dad was abusive. My dad is abusive. He physically, verbally and emotionally abused our entire family, but he mostly only physically abused my mother and me. He didn’t beat me into a pulp but I recall the occasional punches and kicks. I remember that the first time he did it, I didn’t even feel pain — I was just consumed by the immense shock.

The next beating was when I was sitting with a bowl of cookie dough for my mom’s cookie business. He suddenly started arguing with my mom. He kicked the bowl from my lap, I fell on my back and then he started kicking my stomach. I felt immense pain and anger! It happened again a couple of times, less memorable than before. I became disgusted by any form of his touch on me.

One day, my mom said she wanted a divorce. He went berserk! He was furious! He went to our storage,got an axe and swung it around in front of our faces. He said, “If that happens, I’d better just kill us all.” Everyone, my mother, my sister and my brother were crying, except me. I was just angry. I faked going to the bathroom, but instead I called my uncle, who lived nearby, about the situation. He said he would come by. As I hung up, I was afraid it would be too late if we had to wait for my uncle. So, I grabbed a Taekwondo trophy made of wood and stone and said to myself, “I swear to God, if he starts swinging that axe, I will hit his head with this heavy thing.” I was ready to hurt him in order to save my family that night.

It was 2012. I remember because some people believed that the end of the world would be that year. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was the closest to doomsday I have ever experienced. My mother left home and then filed for divorce. We followed our brother’s pleas to stay home and consequently remained with our dad too. It was hell.

He would force us to talk about the divorce everyday because he vehemently refused to be divorced. It always varied between “I don’t want to talk bad about your mother…” and “you know what your mother did?!”, sometimes even both. Sometimes it was private topics that no children should never hear no matter how old they are. We have told him repeatedly to not talk about this everyday. We needed a distraction from this hell. He would say sorry but then keep doing it again. Everyday was a torture. No wonder my sister left a couple months after that.

My dad somehow relied on me. He thought my little brother was too young (he was 15-year-old) and my big sister was too emotional. As I tried to avoid him relying on me, he thought I was rebelling. He was suggesting to take me out of the university because I have gotten “rebellious” and put it in some sort of Islamic boarding school far away. I was really mad to the point where I punched the wall. I didn’t break my knuckles but it bruised and I couldn’t use it for days. Even if I would lock myself in my room, he would talk outside my door. Listening to him hurt my head to the point where I banged my head against the wall so that the pain from the head-banging would mask the pain of hearing my dad. At that moment, I remember thinking “I think if I die, it would feel really nice. It would stop me from this pain.” Not exactly killing myself but just to stop living, if living meant having to endure this pain from my father and I couldn’t runaway from. Sometime I wished to just sleep forever and never wake up. Every time he forced me into his world of torture I would think about dying.

I had to get out to survive, so I rented a room near my campus. I said to my dad it was to do my thesis because I won’t be able to commute as much now due to the thesis. Thankfully, he bought that lie.

Couple of weeks staying at the rented room, I felt hopeless. I lost some weight because I had no appetite. I could day dream for hours, just staring at the same spot. I didn’t want to meet anybody. I barely slept. Nothing I can do will ever change this hell. Talking to people about this problem and crying didn’t help anymore as it did usually. I talked to my sister about it, and she suggested for me to see a psychiatrist, it might be a mild depression, as it persisted for more than two weeks.

Depression sounded plausible as I felt I was trapped into a problematic situation of which I have no solutions of. My mom wanted divorce, my dad didn’t. I got all the debris yet the solution was not in my hands.

My psychiatrist diagnosed me with mild to high depression. She suggested anti-depression medication and something to help me sleep. I said I didn’t want any medication but she said she couldn’t let me not have it since it was already leaning towards high depression due to my self-destructive behavior and suicidal thoughts.

She told me that I should not be alone even though I wanted to. It crushed me to admit that without others help I wouldn’t have survived. I told my friends about my condition therefore sometimes I would need to be a parasite and stay with them.

She suggested under no circumstances I meet my dad because he was my trigger to depression. I was worried about not going home because then I would leave my poor brother alone at home. I was worried that if I tell him the reason he would do something dangerous. But she said, “you have to avoid him and lie, if you are sick, you can’t help your brother even more. You need to focus on you, to be healthy, so that you can help your brother.” So I did. At least, I try my best.

Thankfully, three weeks of Zoloft and the rotation of staying between friends helped me immensely. I thought, I had to be better, I had to heal because no matter what he is still my dad.

A year of separation, hell and not talking to my mom, I took the defense of my thesis. I vividly remember this day because my brother told me he wanted to die over Whatsapp. My teenage brother said that he wanted to die. My brother said that my dad hit him, but my brother blocked him. Hearing that made me so so mad and sad. I thought I was unhealthy because it was just me not being strong enough. But if my brother gets sick too, then my dad is the problem. It was not us that was not strong enough. This has got to stop.

So, I went home, took my brother and met with my mom and then afterwards fetched my sister. We ended up staying together while being paranoid of going out because people say that my father has been searching for us all over town and around our schools. That was the first I felt like I was in an action movie. But things gradually got better even though it never really went away.

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On 2015 new year’s eve, in a crappy cheap hostel in Rome, I realized that I have been depressed since I came to Sweden to study in fall 2014. The familiar sensation came back: the inability to enjoy the things that used to be fun for me and the failure in completing assignments. I was travelling across Italy from North to South for three weeks yet I didn’t really enjoy it.

I couldn’t read books anymore because I couldn’t concentrate anymore. When I want to do something with my brain, my head just stopped me from doing it. I almost always have headache or dizziness. Sometimes every part of my body just hurts. Sometimes watching something was too difficult and not enjoyable. I had no appetite so I ate chips to make me full a lot of times. I couldn’t seem to get anything done, not assignments, not chores, not even simple tasks like wear a clothes. I couldn’t even decide on something simple, it somehow just overwhelmed me.

I slept too much or too little. I felt tired all the time. I have no energy no matter how long I slept. I have no interest in anything. I started to isolate myself and stopped caring about my friends when the isolation hurts them. I have to fight every time I wake up. I wonder why I have to get up. I wonder why I have to live my life. It’s like having a fat suit all over me, with more weight on my head, that it just extra heavy to move an inch of my body and do anything with my head. Sometimes I wake up and do banal things to wait, to kill time until night comes and it is time for me to sleep again.

I felt a bit better after going to the university psychologist as it triggered me to look into myself which I think is interesting. It made me figured out my academic failure triggered my depression.

I always believed that I was ugly and the only way to compensate for it was to be smart. That was why I was so ambitious. It was existential. Now, in Sweden, I am nothing because being good in academics is all I am and without it I am nothing. Without my academic achievement I am just ugly.

When one is depressed, they will find it very hard to concentrate. So my academic suffered even more. I had an anxiety attack for the first time when I was about to send my thesis proposal. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t read. I got introduced to my anxiety that time. Depression and anxiety most of the time coexist sometimes even with causal effect.

I was supposed to finish my study in two years but doing thesis whilst battling anxiety and depression at the same time was really hard. Therefore, I couldn’t finish my study in time like everyone else. After two years, the scholarship stopped so I had to find work to support myself. In addition to aforementioned challenges, the financial stress struck me hard. I had to find work without fluency in Swedish. I was scraping anything I can do: from cleaning someone’s house, babysitting, cooking, waitressing. Some of these jobs even pay far below minimum wage. I worked really hard. All that pressure made it impossible to do my thesis.

At the end of 2016, I experienced a serious mental breakdown. I would just cry everyday. So after that I took a step for a long-term therapy. I also took a school break so that I could put away the thesis pressure over my head until I am better. Even though I had to face it every time someone asked how I am or how my studies go or have I finished my thesis. Sometimes, those caring innocent word from others can trigger such feelings for other.

Guilt is prominent when I am depressed and anxious. I was aware that God has given such me a wonderful life, especially the scholarship yet I am wasting it away. I know that I am surrounded by such wonderful people and experiences, but I feel guilty of having such worthless and broken feeling.

During treatment, I figured out that it is tremendously important to know yourself. At the end of the day, I need to know the little things that make me happy and energize me because I was unable to do anything that was physically straining. Going for a night out seemed like going to a weightlifting championship.

Some people who’ve never experienced it, will not get it. A friend I know even thought of me as a weak person. But I know that it is not true even though depression incessantly points out the opposite. I took my family out of a horrible situation which showed that I am strong. It is not about strength or weakness.

I think the hardest part is to accept who we are. That includes: the complexity of ourselves, the time we need to process and decide, the process we need to be feel charged, what we need and what we want. Those must be different from others. The more we expect more things further than the reality of we are, the more unhappy we will be.

I have learned that only I can make me truly happy. I now learn that I need my own system and routine to make me happy. I try to make a to-do list that is realistic and try to accomplish it every day. I try to give maximum three specific tasks a day for myself. I try to make the task not big and vague like “write thesis” or “be happy” will only make me more depressed as it is such a huge task and vague. Instead, it could be “read chapter x of y book”, or “hug a friend”. And if that is done, stop and reward myself. Writing daily journal for the awesome things I did also helps.

I found out that working in service helped me a lot. I like moving because I am an active person and by moving I feel good, like exercise. Unfortunately, I am too poor to afford the gym. I can’t run like many people outside because I have an injured back and the hard asphalt or ground hurts me. The only moving I can afford is working. I got to move around my body a lot while making money and also helping people. I realized helping people made me tiny bits of joy. I enjoy working in service, being a cleaner, a cook, a waitress because it doesn’t need a huge amount of brain power to concentrate and made me feel accomplished.

Things are better now because I knew myself better. I know what works for me now. The depression made me rethink what do I want to do with my life, what matters. I see things differently now. I didn’t think that being waitress will make me happy. I had always wanted to have a fancy job with a fancy office but the whole depression process made me change. I don’t think like that anymore.

Mental illness is not like a physical illness that could be cured with a simple drug. Once it’s there, it will always be there. I am still not cured of depression. I will still have it. I am still struggling with it.

Please go to a psychiatrist or psychologist or seek help to someone if you think you are having this. It is not shameful. I want to help fight the mental illness stigma. My dad said “you told me to go to psychiatrist, you think I am crazy?!” Well, we don’t want to be like my dad.