The Words I Never Said

For the next two years, I was awakened to the power of an invisible force that wreaked havoc on every aspect of my life. I learned to be silent because I couldn’t understand, let alone explain this state of being. I learned what it was like to be unable to get out of bed despite alarm after alarm screaming into my ear. I learned what it felt like to be so incredibly numb that the only thing that could bring me to life was the kiss of a razor blade against my skin. I learned what it was like to lose friend after friend because “I’d changed” and couldn’t explain why. I learned the embarrassment of reaching out to a health teacher for body wash, shampoo, and permission to leave class to take a shower, because keeping up with personal hygiene was damn near like moving a mountain…and people were starting to stare. I couldn’t stand the way depression zapped the life out of me, so when no one was looking, I learned that tobacco, drugs, and alcohol could raise me up or drop me down. I learned that medications carried no promise of raising me from the depths I was drowning in. I learned that I wasn’t like most kids my age, but I also learned that there were others who heard the whispers of the same demons that spoke to me. I learned that there were certain things, things that seemed so ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ in my mind, that weren’t very normal at all. But through those first two years, the most important thing I learned was that even though I couldn’t find my voice, or a proper explanation of how I felt, or to explain how things just weren’t right, I could unravel those feelings in the scribbles of a notebook. It was on these blank pages that I learned to speak the language of the words I never said.

One Swift Kick

My first official battle with depression hit me at just 13 years old, a freshly deemed teen entering my first year of high school. Within the first month of going back to school, I spent a week straight at home with only enough energy and will to move from the couch a time or two a day. My primary care physician offered a mononucleosis diagnosis, better known to teens as “the kissing disease”—one of the most common viruses to infect humans around the world. At the time, the diagnosis seemed plausible to both my family and I. Anyone who regularly comes into close contact with large numbers of people is at an increased risk for mono, leading high school and college students to frequently become infected. In addition to statistical odds, several of my close friends at school were spending time at home in bed infected with the virus. I assumed I’d caught it too—that my fatigue, muscle weakness, headaches, and perhaps even a sore throat (I can’t recall for sure) were all just part of this draining teenage illness. Although my testing for mono came back negative, my doctor remained faithful in the mono diagnosis, as the testing typically only detects the virus two to nine weeks after the initial infection. Looking back, I highly doubt I ever had the virus at all. I just didn’t know what it felt like for every thought, every memory, every conversation, every unascertained demon, to knock you to your knees with one swift kick.