Jacob

Jacob, 25, noticed symptoms in early high school and was diagnosed with depression and social anxiety in his first year of college. He takes medication and is about to resume therapy to continue improving his work and romantic relationships.

Jacob first noticed symptoms of anxiety and depression in early high school. Though he thought that everyone experienced them, he felt he did not fit anywher. He wasn’t necessarily sad all the tim; but had chronic dissatisfaction with where I was and what I was doin. A well regarde student and athlete, he says, I would go to lunch with people and laugh and all that stuff and I would go back afterwards and whoa! That was a thing that happened but it didn’t really mean a whole lot to m. Jacob figured out how to mask his feelings with a chronic smile. If you’re this kid who just walks around with this stern face all the time, people are gonna kind of wonder what’s going on. But no one’s gonna question a kid who’s smiling all the tim. He was very introverted and so his parents didn’t pick up on anything when he sequestered himself in his bedroom.

Despite having a very supportive family and friends Jacob didnt tell anybody about his feelings while in high school. In part, he wanted to protect his family, My mom in particular is very sensitive, she is the type of person who will blame everything on hersel. Jacob also felt that Depression was sort of this loaded word that you sorta just kept to yoursel. Because he had no resources and his parents did not know he had a problem, he was unable to get help. But at college, he felt a little more independen and sought counseling, where he was diagnosed with depression and social anxiety. In therapy, mostly prefers a cognitive behavioral approach. When he finally told his parents, about 3 years post diagnosis, they were very supportive. Jacob also has told the people close to him.

Jacob still struggles with a futuris orientation — that happiness will arrive with he reaches the next milestone. I thought college would make me a real person. And then after I got to college, I thought, well, once self-sufficient, I have a job or a steady income then my real life would start. And then after thatnce I find a serious relationship, long-term relationship then that would be the thing. I have all those things now and still in the same situation of okay what’s next, now what do I do?

Jacob now takes medication and is using strategies he learned in therapy, entailing doing social things that are just outside his comfort zone. You kind of just work your way up until suddenly you do all these things that you didn’t think you would be able to do befor, he says. Jacob also credits his personal drive, especially related to academics, to overcome his lack of motivation. Ive always sort of been that way. like to learn new things and try things. I get sort of antsy and agitated when not doing anything or learning something. It basically is what helps me combat depression, I think, if I didn’t have that I think I would be in a much worse situation then currently i.

Jacob got a dog to cope with his depression, but found it was too hard to care for him as needed. The cat he got later requires less work and is a better match.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

Norwegian Elkhound. That has a sad ending to the story, because I, I got him to help cope with my depression, because I was living on my own and that was when I was done with school and living in an apartment on my own. No relationship at the time. And so I got him for that reason, and found out that I just wasn’t in a very good place to take care of him. I was very busy at work. The depression, instead of him helping my depression, my depression made him less happy and satisfied, because I wasn’t able to attend to him the way he needed to. So I ended up finding a new home for him. But I do have a cat now. Much lower maintenance, pretty self-sufficient, and helps, because my partner and I, I are living together with the cat so we can tag team it. So it’s not just one responsibility all on me and it absolutely helps, because for a span for about three weeks when we were moving around and so the cat stayed with friends, and I missed him a lot. And I could tell, because I gotten the habit of coming home from work and him being right there and you’d pick him up and you love on him for a little bit. And it absolutely helps.

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The process of setting goals and then achieving them keeps Jacob’s depression at bay.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

I have bouts where it’s really bad and I feel like everything is falling apart but then my drive kicks back in and I’m able to get out of that rut and move towards the next goal. It’s like the constant goal setting and achieving of those goals that keeps me from staying in a rut.

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Jacob thought each milestone would bring welcome change to his life, but altered circumstances had little effect on his depression.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

Yeah I think milestones like at first I thought college would make me a real person. And then after I got to college, I thought well once I’m self-sufficient, I have a job or a steady income and things like that and then my real life would start. And then after that as well and maybe once I find a serious relationship, long term relationship then that would be the thing. I have all those things now and I’m still in the same situation of “okay what’s next, now what do I do?”

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Cost has been a barrier to getting couples counseling for Jacob, but he has the capacity to pay for it if he cuts out other expenses.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

Is there any kind of help and support that you don’t have right now that you wished you’d had?

I could probably benefit from seeing a therapist again specifically in the relationship department. I’ve thought about starting some couples counseling not because we have problems, because I want to prevent problems. We’re, we’re doing just fine. I have no worries about that and I want to keep it that way. And I want to make sure that my depression doesn’t, you know, compromise that. So I would like some advice on specifics, you know, how do you deal specific situations? I think that would be very helpful.

Is there anything preventing you right now from getting that?

Not really. Maybe, maybe finances, but I’ve learned that that’s a terrible reason, because it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter what your financial outlook is like. That’s getting help for depression is more important. So there are things that I am sure I can cut out to make room for that. And I actually have been doing research on specific therapists for that reason. So I am actively moving in that direction.

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Jacob says as he grew up his brain matured and he got better at managing his depression.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

In the very beginning, it was absolutely chaotic and I had just a jumble of information and feelings and thoughts and emotions and worries. And I had no idea how to kind of package that up in a manageable way. And, and address it. And I feel like a lot of people a lot of younger people with depression are going to go through the exact same thing. And part of that is because being young, you just that’s how your brain works. Your life is like that. It’s very chaotic and it’s not, it’s, it’s very hard to manage even without depression. So then you add all that on top of it and it makes it even more difficult. So as you get older, and I hate to say that because that’s what my parents always said, but like, you get older, you get better at managing situations. But there will be a point where things start to just naturally clear up, because your brain develops and you’re able to just process information better, more effectively. And there will be a point where it starts to clear up a little bit, and then you can make decisive actions and then you can see the results of those or continue that or try something else. And eventually it will get to the point where you, you figure out what works and what doesn’t. And once you get there, it’s just maintaining it. It’s just, keep doing what you’re doing. And you’ve figured it out and now it’s just keep going.

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Jacob didn’t know what to expect from therapy, and found he had to get used to all the individual attention he got when he went.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

It was very nerve-wracking. I had no idea what to expect. I had never been to any sort of counseling or therapy before and the, the word counselor or therapist especially had, they have stigmas and I didn’t know at all what to expect and so I went in and it was a I think she was a, like an in training therapist, so she was shadowed by a supervisor or something, but it was still one on one with me and her. And I wasn’t very good, well I didn’t think I was going to be very good at talking to a person about this. Especially one on one. One on one encounters make me a little bit anxious because there’s no other people to take the attention off of me. And so it felt a lot like you know, therapist up here and me down here and she’s just asking me questions, trying to figure out what my problems are.

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A diagnosis of depression came as a surprise for Jacob, because he thought his fortunate life circumstances meant he could not be depressed.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

It actually took a while cause when I was, when I turned eighteen and went to college that was sort of when I started actually taking concrete steps towards getting help, prior to that I suspected I needed help and I was doing a bunch of research to see if anyone else had these same symptoms and what you categorize that as, cause I never thought, I knew of the term, depression, I knew what that was all about but I never really considered that I might actually have depression because I had this idea that I couldn’t possibly because of my life circumstances. I had a great, supportive family, I was financially stable, I was getting an education, I was active, I had friends and no major life traumas, so I figured how could I possibly have a disease like depression, without any sort of like precursors it turns out it’s entirely possible and I didn’t realize that until I started really seeking help.

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Even though Jacob was reluctant to try medications, he decided to take them after realizing depression was affecting important relationships.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

I was not taking medication for quite a while actually. I’ve sort of always been anti-medication. I didn’t want to rely on a substance to get me through. I liked the idea of just figuring out what was wrong and fixing it sort of on my own naturally. And then, it, it just wasn’t working even with my, my therapies because my, my depression often manifests as anger and agitation. Some people get you know sad and dysfunctional. I get upset and angry and irritated. And it was, it was hurting my personal relationships, especially my romantic relationships, just getting confrontational and irritable. No one wants to be around that and I wouldn’t want to be around that either. And so when I was single, I didn’t really put much thought into it, because I was just being mad at nobody. Just mad in general, myself, but once I started targeting another person, that’s when I realized that I, that’s not okay, and its kind of derailing relationships so I needed, I needed to get some outside help even if it makes it a little bit uneasy.

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When he was depressed, Jacob didn’t feel enjoyment: he just felt empty.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

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.

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Jacob describes how achieving milestones left him feeling unsatisfied and led to his lack of motivation.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

There were some days where I just couldn’t motivate myself to do anything. Mostly because I couldn’t see the point cause I had achieved enough milestones and seen those milestones actually don’t make me feel any better. So at that point I realized that maybe, maybe this isn’t a thing that is even fixable and then you get into the cycle of why do I even bother then so it’s just sit here and do nothing. But it’s not even a conscious choice to not do anything. No matter, even if you want to you just can’t cause you can’t physically bring yourself to do it. So I’ve definitely been there, luckily that sort of fades.

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Jacob describes how social anxiety impacted his ability to seek help.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

I didn’t start that right away is because I have some social anxiety mixed in with my depression. Which made it very difficult to do anything other than just sort of reflect personally on it and I still haven’t gotten past the phase of, I don’t know if embarrassment is necessarily the right word , but I still had that reluctance of talking to anyone about it, I just wanted to keep to myself at the time.

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For Jacob, having a job creates a positive feedback loop: interacting with others lessens his depression, which in turn creates more motivation to excel at work, which lessens depression yet more.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

I got a job that I actually just like technologically speaking enjoy. I’ve always been in the soft, software engineering field, but now it’s a slightly more interesting branch for me. So that at least set me up for success and then, probably the constant evolution of me and my anxiety helps a lot, because I’m far more social and far more interactive than I was in past jobs, which makes my depression easier to deal with, which means I have more motivation, which means I can excel and excelling also combats my depression and so it just kind of feeds on itself.

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Jacob says his employer is pretty supportive when it comes to mental health issues, and he thinks there is less stigma in other workplaces too.

Age at interview 25

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 18

There is much less of a stigma now I would say which is fantastic. I feel like a lot more people are seeking help. I my company in particular I know people who have actually taken medical leave for it. Things just get overwhelming and they need some time off. They’re not as affected by work anymore, because of it, they take a couple of weeks to recover. So there is absolutely more support for the condition than used to be. And I think just in general socially people are a lot more willing myself included to talk about it.

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