How I Pulled Myself Out Of The Pit That Is Depression

When I was around 15 or 16, I started to self-harm and I developed an eating disorder. I would feel bad just about every day, sometimes for no reason. I began to distance myself from my friends and family, and I felt unloved and unwanted. More days than not, I felt it would be better to just end it all. But despite all of these circumstances, I was able to pull myself out of the hole that is depression, and here's how.

I will admit that as of now, I'm not perfect. I'm still on medication, I still have my down days for no reason, but that's life. Reflecting back on my life, a big problem I had that I think only influenced my sadness was thinking that I had to have a boyfriend to be loved, almost as if to prove a point to myself and to others. But this isn't the case. If anything, trying to maintain a healthy relationship while you're in that kind of condition will only be harder. Don't get me wrong, it's okay to still have a significant other, I have a boyfriend now and he's been by my side for over a year. But don't try to get a significant other simply because you think that will make your life better. If that's the only reason you're going into relationship, it won't make things better.

The eating disorder I had was bulimia. In my case, I would binge and eat large amounts of food and then through it back up. This would occur, usually, around once a day. I did this because I had an extremely distorted self-image of my body. At one point I was five foot six inches and weighed 115 pounds. After eating I would feel extreme feelings of guilt and that's what gave me the motivation to purge. Something that can be helpful when recovering from this type of eating disorder is to keep in mind that it's normal to eat. You're encouraged to eat. It's not only ok, but expected, to eat when you're hungry and you shouldn't have to feel bad for it. Positive thoughts aren't the only things that you need unfortunately. I had a plan of action with my therapist that seemed to help for me. I kept a journal of when I ate and when I made myself throw up and then we would review my notes every week. If one week was worse than another, we would think about whether there were any triggers that may have caused me to have more of an urge to throw up. Whenever I had a week that was better than the last, I would put more glitter in my glitter jar and for some reason it helped. I had the urge to be able to fill that jar to the brim with glitter.

In terms of the actual mood problems associated with depression, I can't say enough how important it is to share how you're feeling, be it with a parent, a friend, your therapist, your psychiatrist etc. Even if you don't have a mood disorder, it can be really helpful to talk to someone about how you're feeling, even if you're just stressed. If you let those emotions continue to be bottled up, instead of coming out like a steady stream, it will come out as an explosion. For me, that explosion consisted of self-harm. Another thing my therapist told me to do when I felt the urge to hurt myself was to draw on myself instead, replace that pain with some creativity. Another really good outlet for depression is art. It doesn't matter if you think you're artistic or not, simply putting your time, thought and energy into art is really relaxing and distracts your mind. It moves your mind to something less destructive and more creative. For me personally, I did a lot of painting and drawing and in the process, I got pretty good. A lot of my paintings were Bob Ross paintings, and I actually ended up selling a few for a decent amount of money.

Another thing that sent me into a spiral a lot was thinking about the future. I would think, "What if I never get a boyfriend?" "What if I don't get into the college I want?" "What if I'll never amount to anything?"—things like that. But something really important to focus on in the case is the present. When you're afraid of the future, simply live in the moment. If your mind starts to drift to the future, just draw yourself back to the present—what am I doing right now, where am I right now, what can I do right now to improve this one moment?

After years of medicine changes, relapses, and therapy sessions, I finally pulled myself out. I'm now very happy with my boyfriend of over a year, I'm going to school for nursing, and I'm looking forward to my future for once, I wish all of you the best.