I shared my story here before, about 7 months ago – back in May, but things have changed since then.

This is kind of an anniversary post, and a pretty substantial change from them. Today I am two years clean of any kind of self-harm.

I cannot say that I never want to anymore. The urge does still surface sometimes, but I have ways of dealing with it. I’ll turn on music or read a book or watch Netflix. Occasionally, I will pull out sharpies and draw on myself if it’s really bad. Fortunately that doesn’t happen too often now though.

I wish I could say that I’m doing better; however, that wouldn’t be the truth because I’ve fallen back into depression.

It took a while for me to admit that I couldn’t handle it on my own and go see my doctor. When I did, she put me on anti-depressants and told me to come back in a month. I went back and things hadn’t improved like we’d hoped, so the dosage was adjusted and I’m going back soon. I’m afraid that the medication still isn’t working.

Insomnia is becoming a huge issue for me. I’ll often spend hours tossing and turning in bed at night trying to fall asleep. If that was my only issue, then I’d be ok. But it’s not. I also wake up multiple times throughout the night. Sometimes I’ll be asleep again within five to ten minutes, and other times I’ll be awake for an hour or more. I can’t figure out what’s causing it, or how to resolve it. Hopefully a change in medication will make a difference.

I just do not feel like myself. And my sleep is absolutely horrible. I have trouble falling asleep, and then I wake up four and five times in a night. At first I’d be asleep again within fifteen minutes, but now it is almost an hour or more before I’m back asleep. All that does is make me want to stay in bed longer when it comes time to get up in the morning.

My emotions are all over the place. I try to stay calm about things like math homework, but I get so frustrated that I start crying. The material just doesn’t seem to make any sense. Then again, nothing makes much sense anymore. I want things to be simpler, easier, but that isn’t going to happen right now.

Honestly, I am kind of counting on medication to help me, because I don’t want to go to therapy again. I had a bad experience with my last therapist and I just do not really want to go back to another one. I know I probably should talk to one, but I just can’t make myself because of what’s happened before. It burned me.

I have not been as open with people about being on medication as I could be. Only a select few people know. It’s difficult because even though I’m a huge supporter of Stigma Fighters, I’m still extremely hesitant to be quite that vulnerably open about my emotional difficulties. I have this overwhelming fear that once I tell people about it, they will never see me the same and won’t trust me with things and our friendship will be forever changed because of what I said to them.

School has become more of a struggle recently. I know that I need to keep on top of my schoolwork, but it’s just been so difficult. I fell behind in most of my classes this past semester, and it was a challenge to catch up. There was so much I had to do to get everything done that it was a bit ridiculous. I know I should’ve told my doctor before I did, but I hate phone calls and by the time that I realized that things were really a problem it was nearly time for my next appointment so I figured there wasn’t much point. I just toughed it out and pushed forward.

Then I started wondering what would happen if I crashed into a tree or drifted into oncoming traffic when I was driving. That’s probably considered “suicidal tendencies” and I don’t want to be ‘labeled’ as suicidal, but I can’t seem to make the thoughts stop. Now, I would never act on these thoughts because the thought of actually crashing the car absolutely terrifies me. One way I can kind of appease these thoughts is to play a racing video game and crash that car into a wall. I can see the car damage and nothing has gotten hurt. It feels a little weird, but if it works then I’m not going to question it.

Knowing that I am not along in this battle, and having a reliable support system really does make a difference. Even if I do not reach out to the people I have, just knowing that they are there makes it a little easier to trudge through on my own.

I know I am a fighter, so I have not given up on this yet. Nor will I give up until I have this straightened out and maintained. Even if medication is something I was afraid of, I know that it is what I need to do in order to manage this depression.

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Katy is a college student studying American Sign Language Interpreting. She’s addicted to coffee and is always dreaming of more tattoos she wants to get. She’s the middle sibling of three. Blogging and journaling have becoming forms of self-therapy for her over the years. She would love to write her own book someday, but she’s not quite sure what to write about. You can find her online:

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