Severe Depression

Tweet

Severe Depression For most of my adult life, I have battled with severe depression, it started out being my fear of being outed as being gay. I am from a very, very small town, and have many very conservative, very Republican, very religious family, not to mention being in a very small hick town. So for many years, I covered my walls with posters of women, these we're all women that I idolized as being strong and beautiful, not that I had any interest in sexually. there would be nights I would be so scared of being found out I'd cry myself to sleep, I would overthink things, people would call me gay but it would never be because of anything i did but back then (and sadly still today with some) people would throw gay around as a insult,That's so gay!! stop being gay!!! you're such a f*g for liking that show..... but for me knowing i waS gay i would feel like somehow they knew... Thankfully at 19 i came out and everyone for the most part was relatively accepting all around. Also at 19 I had my first heartbreak, and also my first thoughts of suicide, I remember thinking about different ways I could do it, but I always came back to I could never do that to my family. At 19, i also became an alcoholic, I would have never admitted to that back then but I was, I had to be drinking every weekend, there was never a weekend i was not at a house party somewhere. I did many stupid things while drunk, which at the age of 20 lead me to my first ever hookup online, I was so stupid, so naive, I had only spoken to him online, not even on the phone. I remember when he picked me up i instantly knew he was older then 28 which he had told me he was but that didn't bother me as much he was still a very attractive man. I remember us driving further and further away into what i felt was the middle of nowhere, i was like, so i guess this is how I die? I honestly sat there passenger side of his car clenching my fist ready just in case. He didn't kill me, and he was actually my first real long term relationship, my first time being away from home for months. He treated me great, but as time went on i discovered more and more truths about him, truth #1. he was 38, truth #2. he was a stripper, truth #3. he was in a long term commited relationship with a Army Sgt. I felt so stupid, here i am young and naive and living with a man old enough to be my father, i was the other man, it felt so sick, i told myself i would never knowingly be with someone in a relationship it wasn't in my charachter. But i stayed, i don't know why, i guess i thought he loved me, but nope it was lust, turns out he ended up being involved in sex work in his past, and a ex-friend of his told me through myspace messenger that he was HIV possitive, i was scared to death. I can not ever remember feeling a instant pain and shock before that moment, i truly believed here i was with a man whom could possibly have AIDs i was scared to death i'd be infected, sadly so many of the Gay Movie's i had watched so many we're based around Young Gay men getting AIDs and sadly towards the end of the film they died. (Since that time i have of course discovered that it is not the death sentence it once was.) I felt so scared, so alone, i cried myself to sleep everynight for days, i even shaved my head bald for the first time, (i like to call it my Britney moment, ala Britney Spears famously shaving her head during her mental break down years ago) finally i confronted him and asked him, he told me it was not true, and that his friend was just trying to mess with him. Thankfully i tested and i was clean, i had nothing to worry about, but after all the lies, and then finding out he was cheating on me i left him. This was my 2nd time having serious suicidal thoughts, thankfully i never attempted self harm, it was only ever deeply dark thoughts. Around this time i had my first and last experience with jail, one stupid drunken night i threw a slurpee on a woman, and stupidly slapped her butt. I remember after her shocked reaction, i said don't worry i'm gay, as if that somehow made my action ok, it wasn't, it was wrong, and i will forever regret my actions that night, it is hard for me ever now to admit to, as it is so deeply against my charachter and morals, but one stupid drunken idiotic moment. Thankfully that horrible experience was a wakeup call, i only ever spent the one night in jail, but for whatever reason i was railroaded as a sexual deviant and was forced to take sex therapy which is embarrassing therapy sessions where you share your sexual experiences, what turn you on and all of this deeply personal stuff. I finished my therapy sessions and was deemed not a threat and not a sexual deviant, all charges we're dropped from my record, but i will always live with this horrible drunken mistake, i stopped drinking (for the most part anyway) for almost three years after that, and only ever have drank socially since then, never drinking to get wasted. For the last few years my depression has gotten much worse, i have dealt with many of my loved ones dealing with drug abuse, and other illnesses, i've become a fulltime caregiver to my grandma, and i see her decline more everyday, i have family make choices i cringe at, but still i love them with all my heart, i feel so much deep pain inside, that dealing with it all in a healthy way isn't always possible. This world scares me, i fear everyday, i stress everyday, i cry almost everyday, i never thought my life would be like this, i never thought id grapple with suicidal thoughts, or deal with so much deep strain in family relationships. Sometimes i wish i could just be like other people and just not get emotionally invested in everything, i look at people whom live everyday without a care and i wish somehow my brain could do that, just turn off all the stresses and just try to enjoy life. I currently am writing this, because right now i am in a severe emotional state, and sometimes writing it out helps, as i close this, i continue to look forward to the future, i pray everyday situations change, that people see the errors in there way, that addictions somehow our miraculously cured, and most of all that this severe depression can maybe for once just become mild depression.