That time I learned I could swim...

I’ve always had this darkness inside though that I never understood until I got into college and took a psychology class. Depression… It has been my shadow all of these years, attached to me without me even realizing, following me everywhere I went, slowly draining my life force. Self-diagnosing isn’t exactly an efficient way of solving the puzzle. I saw professionals, took series of tests, surveys, physicals, etc. Severe depression/anxiety. I didn’t know what that meant… I am slowly realizing what it means, that with all of this, slowly discovering triggers and figuring out why I have self-esteem that is lower than dirt. I feel like the only reason I haven’t imploded is because I have been floating on my back in the ocean staring into a blue sky when this whole time, I was blind to the fact that I am broken, and once my eyes opened... I started to drown… and I don’t know how to swim.

I became an empty shell. I felt as if my lungs had filled with water and I was truly dead. I wandered through daily life numb to life around me, kind of like being on autopilot, the plane is flying but there is no one in control. I hope that makes sense. I felt completely lost. I attended a mandatory event in the gym of my school, I’m not even sure what it was for, I didn’t pay much attention. I just remember feeling eyes on me and when I investigated to make sure I wasn’t going crazy, sure enough there was this girl that was staring at me. When we made eye contact, she waved at me and I just slowly looked away. She was not having it; she walked over to me and plopped her colorful self-down and introduced herself. I refused to talk to her because I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but she continued on in her effort to be my friend.

Fast forward a bit, she followed me home one day, somehow convinced me to go to a birthday party and I couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t just give up and leave me alone. She would talk to me and constantly play 20 questions with me, and I figured if I humored her, she would leave me alone. WRONG! She would put random things in front of me and watch me, and looking back on this is funny because she was doing some sort of social experiment and I fell right into it. She would put notebooks with pens in front of me and when I didn’t react, she’d try something else, she did this until she put a book in front of me and according to her my eyes lit up for a moment. She did this from time to time throughout the school year and learned my likes and dislikes without me even talking to her. It took me a while but I did eventually open up to her... about everything, just completely word vomited. After that I stared at her absolutely terrified because I was honestly afraid she was going to look at me like the depressed freak I was and walk away... I told her that if she wanted to leave, it was okay. But she didn't and she just smiled at me and laughed and told me she wasn't going anywhere.

I felt like a huge weight was lifted, not completely, but enough to where I realized I was able to breathe and learned how to doggy paddle. I didn’t know what a friend was or what it meant, but if I were to go into a dictionary and look up the word, a picture of her would be there. She never gave up on me and even now a whole decade and some change she is still in my life. She taught me how to keep my head above the water and even when I feel like I’m starting to get tired of keeping my head above the surface, she is there with a lifebuoy to keep me afloat.