I would just stay in my room, under my covers. And I remember looking outside the window and just thinking to myself, watching cars go by and just thinking to myself how, how do you get in your car and just go you know, go about your day. I remember that, that was a big part of me thinking about my depression.

I was spending hours a day in my room, sometimes never leaving my room. And that was the second period of extended, prolonged depression that I felt. I’d been seeing a counselor with the university for most of that year, but they were very surface level chats in which I’d say, again, this happened to me in my childhood, but I hadn’t really processed how it was still affecting me. And, all of a sudden, I changed on a dime, to be constantly coming in setting up emergency meetings. Not because I was actively suicidal, though I was experiencing suicidal ideation at that point, but just because this sense of being overwhelmed was overwhelming and I didn’t have any other outlet with which I could articulate that.

because you’re in this like mindset, you just see you know like a dead field, you know, with a bunch of like flowers like wilted and nobody there and so, I don’t know. It’s less, I’m not like that religious but I do feel like your mind like, your, whatever is going on in your mind does like almost like change the world around you and in some profound ways. Yeah, so I guess that was kind of how I looked at it or it was like do you just want to stare at dead fields or do you want to like see, you know like, an awesome forest with a bunch of people running around, having a good time.

It’s funny because they represent me so much in a certain way. Walter always wants to be pet, petted and he always wants you to give him all the pets and he’s super outgoing and super loving. He’ll just sit on someone’s lap, like brand new person, never been in the house before. He’ll just sit on their lap and get hair all over them, you know. He loves it. Richard is more standoffish. He doesn’t like being picked up. He’s not the friendliest cat. He’ll let you pet him if he feels like it. So it’s funny because I think they’re both like parts of me. They both, they both reflect parts of my personality which is really cute, I feel. Because Walter always wants attention and I’m super outgoing and I always want to make new friends, and then parts of me are like, when I get depressed or when I’m like feeling anxious, I don’t want to talk to anyone right now, like. I just want to do my own thing, you know, put my headphones in and zone out, you know, like. It’s like cats.

Yeah, it’s. And then you’re more like Richard?

Yeah, and then I’m more like Richard. So, I like my cats. They’re, they’re super funny. They remind me of me, that’s why I like them. They’re like my little babies that are fuzzy and walk on four legs [laughter]. So, yeah.

I usually felt. It was like a nice comfortable numbness afterward, like how, I would just think of someone who is like on hard drugs like heroin would feel, just like calm, nothing can affect me now. Like now I can actually just go through my day like a cement block, and that’s terrible because that numbness from the depression is something else in itself honestly. The numbness is like the scariest thing that I think my friends and family have witnessed with me. It’s just that literally where is, where is she. That’s her body, but that’s not her.

So I was doing all the right things, I was doing really well in school, I was on a bunch of athletic teams, I had friends, so there was nothing really wrong per say with what was going on. I just felt like I didn’t really understand why I was doing all these things I was suppose to be, people were suppose to enjoy high school and I didn’t. I just went everyday kind of begrudgingly and I didn’t feel like I was getting anything out of it. I was like what was the point of what I am doing here and I didn’t get a whole lot out of my social relationships either. Friendly or romantically I felt like I was just going through the motions and doing what typical high schoolers do. But I wasn’t feeling the impacts like I thought it should be. Everything felt like empty.

There are times I go into my room and lock it up. It’s just to me, it’s just like being in a very comfy prison. So it’s like something I don’t want to do, but it’s so familiar. It’s just familiar, it’s just so cozy.

So it feels safe and relaxing?

Yeah, but even wanting to go back there, it makes me feel like why would I want to go back to a place that I want to go to every time I get upset.

I always just felt like there was something wrong with me. Whether it was my, my gender, in particular. I just kind of felt like even at a young age I noticed there was a difference between boys and girls and I kind of, kind of had this inkling that people would prefer you were born a boy instead of a girl. And that made me really, just I had very low self-confidence because of that

Because I just felt so horribly inadequate, just like I couldn’t do anything right, you know like, I can’t you know, you know, I’m not as smart as other people, I’m not as pretty as other people, I’m not this, I’m not that.

Just like I couldn’t do anything right, ever. And I think that’s really what it comes down to with my depression, feeling like I’m never good enough, like never can do something right.

Because I get very perfectionistic about things so, ever since then I’ve had this mentality that if I’m going to do well in school, I’m going to do better than everyone else which is really anxiety provoking and having really high expectations of myself really makes me feel depressed because I’m constantly comparing myself to other people and feeling this overarching theme of inadequacy. You know, like I’m never going to be good enough, and I keep raising the bar for myself and then feel like a failure all the time if I don’t meet an expectation and if I do, there’s always something beyond that. So yeah, I mean just that constant theme of feeling like everyone else is better than me and that, that made me feel depressed for a while and it still does. That’s something that I struggle with is that I’m very insecure and I think things like that really contribute to my depression. It’s just like, feeling different, feeling insecure and inadequate and not feeling like I’m able to connect with people.

And just like having a fear that I’m going to end up alone, like all these things are just like in the back of my head. So it kind of keeps me from having like a meaningful life because I’m very negative and skeptical.

definitely the self-doubt factor plays in. Because no matter how I’m doing, how good I’m doing I’m always in that perfectionist state of mind and that’s actually self-destructive sometimes without me knowing it. Everyone will be like this is great [name] this is great. Ya know, and I’ll be like no, or I don’t want it. You know, with my music it’s always been like that, with my writing it’s always been like that. And definitely with my work it’s always been like that. So I think that’s just one of the things that kinda alters my everyday life. Just that.

it was just all in my head. It was not that anything had ever happened to me it was just all of a sudden something in my, something in my mind just decided to go wacky and. It, it really started to become a problem my senior year in high school and I, that was about a year and a half or two into the start of it all and I had such a negative outlook on life like I’d said. I, it was hard for me to wake up and just approach the day-day things.

so the last three months of high school were very terrible in the sense that I, I was just always so sad and I wasn’t doing well academically, I didn’t finish great . I just couldn’t really take anything seriously and I couldn’t devote myself to anything because I couldn’t focus, my mind was just always racing with thoughts that I couldn’t control.