Emily's Story

[Emily93]

My name is Emily Maki, and this is my story. I was born into a middle class family in a little village in Wisconsin. Both of my parents work to sustain our small house, and we do pretty well. I have one half sister who is 4 years older than me. I have never enjoyed my life but on the other hand I should have no reason to complain, do I?
My depression hit me when I was a child, for as long as I can remember I have had this illness. Well not really an illness because I was never diagnosed, and still to this day have not been. It is more of a I know I have this problem thing. I was always the black sheep of the family, the quiet one, the freak. I have always been the one who is too emotional, the one who cries over life in general. Going to school really didn't help my situation all that much, because as to be expected I was the fat kid with the funny last name. I never did fit in, but then again I really didn't try all that much. I was perfectly happy with being the quite one that no one noticed, but there was the problem, I wasn't not noticed. All of this continued throughout middle school especially when I went into deeper depression about everything. About love about life and especially about my body. I wasn't helping my reputation as a freak at all. What with the black cloths, make-up, the eating disorder, and finally the self injury. At this point you would think any normal persons parents would have taken there kid in to get help, but oh no not my parents. You see my parents aren’t your normal parents, my parents want that “normal” family. You know that one that doesn’t exist, and they would have done anything to get to that normal, even ignore everything that was happening to their youngest daughter.
Middle school came and went and sooner than expected I was walking into my first day of high school. To give you a little background about this particular school, I live in a Village with about 3,000 people in it and people are bussed in from 2 neighboring towns with less people than our village. So yes I did attend a hick school. A very narrow minded, backwoods, country music, football oriented high school. This was not going to be a very pleasant experience on my part. But I decided to try to make the best of things, maybe learn to be happy. That was before I knew that you cant “learn” to be happy, you just have it in you, somewhere. Well to make my high school experience better I decided to continue with a sport that I loved to do, shot put. I joined the track team and I did pretty well, for the most part I wasn’t really “involved” but I did what I could. I gave that up my senior year because when your coach makes you not want to go to practice because he is a complete asshole and focused on the people he wanted to and not the parts of the team that he didn’t care about. I was also a Cheerleader, I know sounds wired and I thought it was at first too, a person like me with the problems that I have, being a cheerleader. After the first season, I was hooked. I enjoyed making the crowd go crazy for our amazing football team, and yes they were VERY good. It kind of gave me that look of being happy. In high school I stared to care if people saw me for what I am, a depressed freak, I really didn’t like people judging me and I REALLY didn’t like talking to people about “what was wrong” when nothing was right. So yes, I am one of those “fake” people and after I realized my mistake it was too late to take it back, because once you become really good at being fake you cant get out of it. Everyday you wake up with a mask on your face and you loose who you really are. You can't ever go back to the way you were, well because you don't know who you really are anymore.
This is when I hit rock bottom. This part of my life, the part that I live day to day. The day my depression came back in full force was after I got into a car accident in my friends grandparents van. Well after I talked to my parents, you know still being 17 at the time. That week will forever stick in my mind, full of lectures and “talks to help me”. My parents saw that my life wasn’t on the right track and that I needed to fix it. But knowing my parents this wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience. It quite frankly tore my life apart, I lost my mind and went insane. Taking walks out of town and not looking back for miles on end until me best friend came to get me. Him pulling up to the side of one of the 4 roads that lead out of town, to his friend crying and refusing to get in the car, still one of the hardest things to get over. After that slowly and I mean slowly faded out of my memory and I got back into the rhythm of everyday life, I thought that I had gotten better, I was spending a lot of time with my best friend and I thought that I was happy. But it always comes back without fail, always. One minute your fine and having fun and the next I go silent and I feel like the silence around me in suffocating me. I want to break the silence but its either I cant breath or I just cant bring myself to put my burdens onto him, when I know that he will always be there for me. He always has been and always will be, period. I am still in love with him, and I have been for 5 years. Its hurt for 5 years, and it will hurt forever, that’s what love feels like to me, pain, suffering, cant breathe, drowning, agonizing pain. That is the life I am in, still to this day less than a month after my high school graduation, going into the work force with no luck and defiantly no love. No love, I want him and I hope to one day let him read this, to get a better understanding about how much I want to pour my heart out and let him in, to let everything be known between us, to me simply free. I want to but I know I never will. I love you Ryan, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all that’s happened and all that’s bound to happen. No i”m not sorry I'm glad that you happened in my life, despite the pain. No regrets, no I'm sorry's, no goodbyes.
Signed, Emily
XOXO Goodbye

[Obayan]

Hi. I'm reallly sorry that things have been so hard for you at such a young age. Have you spoken to a counselor? Because something you said stuck out. It doesn't go away. You are right, it doesn't. Not if you don't do something to get some help to learn how to deal with it. And a doc can help you do that. I can feel the loneliness and desperation in your letter. Because I feel it too sometimes. Not as often as I used to, but I do. I can get pretty down and do some really destructive things and it seems like the choices i make aren't always the best ones. I'm just really sorry you have to go thru this. I really do hope you find some help. Coming here was a great start.

[shatteredhopes]

((((((((Emily)))))))) (((((((((Obayan))))))))) is so wise and so right, its not going to go away or get better without help. If I could go back in time and do just one thing differently (I'm now 48), I would go back to my late teens early 20s and get intensive therapy and treatment. It would have changed the course of my life. So listen to Obayan, and consider talking to a counselor or therapist. Getting treatment now could make a huge difference. You don't want to battle this all your life if you can avoid it, and if you do have to battle depression, you want to develop healthy coping mechanisms now if you can.

Big big hugs and wishing you light and peace in your day.

[uplift]

Hi Emily, Apart from getting profession help, I also suggest you could perhaps try to think about what things would make you happy. Many great achievements start with a dream, so it is o.k. to also use imaginary thoughts, even if they may not be presently possible.

[Obayan]

That's a great idea to try.