remembering the first time i've ever been depressed

severe elevation|high elevation|moderate elevation|slight elevation|stable|slight depression|moderate depression|deep depression|severe depression||anx: 1, agit: 1


In one of the first meetings with Dr. Z a few years ago, she asked me when I first remember ever feeling depressed.

Age eight, I told her. I didn't have to think too much about that answer because the memory is pretty clear. I never thought there was anything wrong with the fact that I experienced depression at age eight - I always thought it was a normal emotion - until I saw Dr. Z's expression.

"Eight!?!? ", she cried out, seemingly alarmed and in disbelief; eyes larger than usual, brows bent toward the ceiling.

It was then that I realized that I wasn't just having mood swings as my parents usually thought; I wasn't just having a difficulty with my emotions. I had an abnormal chronic problem that had been unaddressed for years.

Given the definitions and symptoms of depression that I now know, I'm pretty sure that was depression I was experiencing in at age eight. Like I said, I remember the details quite clearly: Summer of 1986, I had just finished second grade and missed the last 5 days of school because I didn't know we still had classes.
We spent the vacation at our then-living grandparents' posh PC Hills home (I can still recall how it looked); we were supposed to stay there for two weeks but the vacation stretched to two months.
I wanted to go home because I was getting utterly bored.
I had three Barbies and dirty rag doll named Cuddles that I carried around everywhere.
We watched Riki Tiki Tavi, Ninja the Wonder Boy and Rainbow Brite on Betamax.

My brother and I were wrote letters to our dad regularly; my brother made me cry because he told our dad I was lazy.

The fact was, I constantly felt extremely tired physically, without visible reason. My family insulted me over and over calling me lazy, refusing to believe I really was tired. Honest - I really was; nobody understood why of course, not even myself. I remember my bones felt heavy and cumbersome; I likened myself to the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz who needed a good oiling.

I often retreated into my thoughts, cried, and constantly felt frustrated and lonely. But what wasn't clear to me was why I felt that way. I'd always thought it was only because I missed my dad and I wanted to go back home, but I knew through these years that something happened to my head that summer.

And it wasn't because I sniffed the mold that grew on Cuddles.

After that summer, I went into the third grade. Before that point, I was an excellent student. Straight As, self-confidence and a lot of friends. But I started almost-flunking in third grade; I thought it was normal for every kid to get great grades until grade two and then struggle through the rest of school because we didn't drink enough Sustagen. My marks since then were inconsistent but never again excellent, all the way through high school.

I've always been a daydreamer for as far as I can remember, but it was after that summer that I noticed I began delving into morbid thoughts - death and suicide and murder. I even mused about a plot to poison my great-grandmother because she got on my nerves (Oh! I should tell a story about that later, hee hee).

I wasn't depressed all the time; there were alternating episodes of extreme elation as well. I and those around me noticed the mood swings, but no one ever thought it was abnormal so I just took pride in being one of those weird artist types. There were times that I got on my teachers' nerves because I was too loud and noisy, but there were other times that they'd say I was too withdrawn and quiet. Sometimes the other girls said I was annoying and intrusive, other times they said I was too much of a loner. I then concluded that the other human beings in that girl's private school environment were much too narrow-minded, idiotic and couldn't make up their minds.

Of course, now that I know about The Condition, as I look back I can easily spot the symptoms of mania and depression that I've been exhibiting (and exposing other people to) all those years.

And I don't think they're that idiotic anymore.

But yeah, maybe they were a little bit.

I also realize that I would have greatly benefited from seeing a doctor and taking medication at age eight. I'm sure I would have been a better student, had more consistency and focus, and been more sociable. If The Condition had been nipped at the bud, I wouldn't have wasted so much time and be wading in it now. gakkkh!

But yeah, that's that, I'm here and now.