Leanna

Leanna connects her depression, which began early, to a difficult childhood. She was diagnosed with depression at age 15, and also struggles with some other mental health issues. Therapy has been helpful, as has the support of her husband and the joy of living with cats, rabbits and other pets. She does not take medication.

Leanna’s earliest memory of depression is from when she was seven years old. Because she felt so much sadness, depression and anger in her early childhood, they are feelings she got used to having. She grew up often thinking she was supposed to be that girl who’s by herselfjust being quiet and sad anddisappearing into my own little worl. As she got older, she started missing school, stealing, and having outbursts — the typical troubled child thin, but her mother was an alcoholic and did not pick up on what was going on or have the capacity to help.

When Leanna was eleven, she ended up in foster care for a while and then moved to live with her father, who she didn’t know well at all and whose home was not a good environment eithe. Her mother also died around that very difficult time in her life. She got an official diagnosis of depression at age fifteen, and was also diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and PTSD. Her high school years were tough ones, full of running away, unhealthy social and sexual relationships, and a suicide attempt.

Things got easier for Leanna when she got older and moved out on her own. She got married, and worked at a lot of different jobs like sales and telemarketing and caregiving for other people who need help, which is her favorite work. She is in school part time finishing a second associate’s degree, and plans a future in horticulture – though she would stay in college forever if it didn’t cost so damn muc. Her husband is an enormous help; he also has some mental health issues and they have figured out when to leave each other alone and[when to] work through it togethe. Leanna’s many pets make her happy.

Therapy has been very helpful for Leanna, once she found the right therapist. It is sometimes a struggle to pay for it, but she persists. She also self-medicates with legal drugs to keep herself calm and happ. It has been very useful for Leanna to realize that depression is just a reaction to what’s happene in her life, and that you can’t choose your childhood. You can’t choose who your parents are, the situations that you;re brought up in, so just try to make the best out of it She hopes other young adults with depression will focus on learning to live with it each day, and will realize that coming ou and telling other people makes things easier. Researching on the internet and listening to other people’s stories can also help, because you realize you are not alone with your struggles when you read a forum full of people’s experiences with the same thing that you, you deal with on an everyday basi.

Leanna says her rabbit is nice and chubby, so it’s a good squeeze.

Age at interview 23

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 15

I like to like, my rabbit right there. I like to grab her and hug her. She’s nice and chubby, so it’s a good squeeze. Just, I don’t know, it just makes me feel happy. It’s just, animals have this way of like, you know that they can tell how you’re feeling and they want to help and it’s really nice. Like when I’m sad, my cat, she knows. She’ll come and rrrr and purr.

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Journaling is still too difficult and emotional for Leanna because it opens a floodgate of emotion.

Age at interview 23

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 15

I’ve tried journaling, but something about just like, writing the words. I kind of felt like your experiences and how you feel, like how it just makes you like actually cry. Every time I start journaling I just start crying because there’s just like so much, like I can’t slowly let the floodgate open, it just crashes down. It’s just too much. Maybe someday I can work myself up to that, but for now it’s kind of just like small little mental journal snippets in my head, yeah.

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To her own amazement, Leanna found she would sleep the whole day away, missing class and reversing day and night.

Age at interview 23

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 15

but I would just not go to class because I just felt like, I would just look outside and I be like I kind of just want to sleep this whole day away. And I would just sleep the whole day away, it was kind of amazing that I would be up at night and you know, everyone else is asleep so I would just be alone, but oh my God. I would just walk around at night by myself. It was really, yeah, really actually like depressing how I would just. I still kind of do to this day walk around just by myself. But now I’m not depressed, now I’m just like oh, chilling by myself. But back then I was, I was just moping around, just wallowing in my depression, letting it just kind of, just letting it overcome me.

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Leanna describes how working schizophrenic patients gave her a sense of empathy and happiness.

Age at interview 23

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 15

I mostly worked with schizophrenic patients and they, they would entertain me every day. They, they would, they’re special. I would try to remember I too have technically a mental disorder as well and respect them and I’m not going to you know, joke, you know, they’re stereotypical. They’re making up crazy stories and stuff. It was pretty entertaining, just dealing with them and I liked taking care of them, I loved cooking for them and just watching these like old people with schizophrenia eat just made me so happy.

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After a bout of intense sadness and crying, Leanna feels the numbness of depression descend. This is the scariest part of being depressed.

Age at interview 23

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 15

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.

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Leanna talks about how her negative thoughts can lead to panic attacks.

Age at interview 23

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 15

It feels like the depression gets me to where I start questioning a lot of things and kind of like how my mindset is. I’m very pessimistic in that state and I’ll kind of just send myself like a mental self-sabotage spiral of just doubt, self-doubt and it just sends me into that panic attack. Because then I start to feel really small and just scared about this whole life thing, it really starts freaking me out.

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Leanna links her depression both to neglect in childhood and to self-desctructive behaviors in her teenage years.

Age at interview 23

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 15

I realized that like with my depression, that a lot of insecurities came from not really having the parental unit that I needed growing up. I started becoming insecure, so having to fill up that hole with the depression. I was very promiscuous throughout middle school and high school, early college years until about age nineteen was when I decided that wasn’t a good way. It wasn’t making me feel any better. It was making me feel worse and I was just like what am I doing?’

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A partner who also struggled with emotional problems offered Leanna a source of understanding, support and insight

Age at interview 23

Gender Female

Age at diagnosis 15

I told him about that shortly like before we got engaged. I just let him know like I have these mood swings, I have these, you know, certain things about me that if you’re going, if we’re going to be married and we’re going to live together, you’re going to need to know this. We’re probably going to have some problems here and there that we’re going to have to work through and he understands. He actually has PTSD too, but from, from Afghanistan, so it’s a different. It’s a whole different. We actually help each other. In a way you think that wouldn’t work out, it would be like, too like butting heads and stuff but we actually find a way to help each other out with it and work through it together because we can tell when we’re triggering each other and that’s when we just leave each other alone, let it cool down and stuff and work through it together.

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