Living with depression at IU

Take a big deep breath in. Now exhale. Repeat. Do you feel any sort of relief?

Imagine going through life as if you’ve taken that big breath in and just can’t seem to exhale. You feel like everything is closing in on you and there is no escaping this feeling.

Now close your eyes. What do you picture?

When I close my eyes, I’m back in my freshman and sophomore years of high school on one of the many nights where I couldn’t sleep because my depression would make my mind race — going through the long list of things that are wrong with my life over and over.

In actuality, my life was really not that bad. Sure, I had some family issues, but who doesn’t? For some reason though, I got to a point where I just wasn’t happy with my life any more. First it started as just sadness and anger what was happening in my life at the time, and then an overwhelming numbness began to control my life. I felt nothing at all.

Now, imagine all of this happening repeatedly for several years of your life.

That is what living with depression has been like for me for the five years I’ve lived with it.

According to thekimfoundation.org, about one in four Americans are diagnosed with a mental disorder at some point in their life. Depression, anorexia, bulimia, anxiety, OCD, body dysmorphia, multiple personality disorder, the list goes on and on. If those numbers are correct, then that means approximately 11,200 undergrads at IU Bloomington are living with a mental illness.

From the American Psychological Association analysis of data collected by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health

Mental illness is different for every single person who experiences one as everyone processes emotions differently. Due to this, in my experience, it can seem almost impossible whether someone has a mental illness or if they’re just having a shitty day.

I’ve heard so many people complain about their bad day, talking about how they “feel so depressed today.” Many of the people who say this are not in fact depressed, but really just upset that their day isn’t going the best.

Depression, for me at least, isn’t something that just comes and goes on a daily basis. I’ll be doing great for months, then something will happen and I’ll just go into this dark place where I don’t want to get out of bed. These lows last different lengths of time just like the highs do. But let me tell you, while the highs are pretty high and I’m feeling on top of the world for weeks on end, the lows are low.

Imagine having month-long periods of time where it takes absolutely everything you have just to get out of bed to go to class. Forget showering and eating, all you want to do is sleep. And when you’re not sleeping, you’re laying in bed in a dark room in complete silence.

This absence of any motivation makes being a college student with depression insanely hard. When you’re depressed, the idea of having to walk across campus to go sit in a 300 person class for 50 minutes sounds like the most miserable thing in the entire world.

Then the weekend comes around and it gets even harder to get out of bed. When you’re depressed, the last thing that you want to do is go out and go to a party and be surrounded by people.

Now, I know that sounds weird that you would want to be even more isolated than you already feel, but from my experience, when I’m feeling depressed I don’t want to be around anyone, especially a ton of drunk people. I’d much rather be laying in my bed watching Parks and Rec trying to cheer myself up.

I know having a mental illness is an extremely rough thing to live your daily life with, so I’ve kind of figured out a way to pull myself out of a funk when I find myself at my lowest.

1. I go buy my favorite food, no matter what I’m craving, because food has a magical way of cheering me up.
2. I call my mom because she’s basically the best person in the world.
3. I spend time doing something that I know will make me feel better, whether that be napping, watching Netflix or being with friends.
4. And finally, I make myself shower. I know that this seems like something so simple, but when you’re really depressed something as simple as taking a shower can make you feel like you’ve conquered the world.

So, those are my tips and tricks for dealing with depression. One more is just to talk to someone, which is really one of the best things to do.

If you ever want to talk to someone you don’t know who won’t judge you, shoot me an email.

Or you can consider CAPS here at IU. If you’re a full time student and you’ve paid your student health fee, the first two psychological counseling appointments are free and appointments after that are $25 and often covered by insurance. You get to meet with someone specially trained to help you feel validated and worthy of feeling better.