I think there are things in life that stay with us for a long time. Words, actions, moments, sounds it could be anything.
I was seventeen when I got told something that threw my world off kilter and I didn’t even really realize it.
If I had to map it out my depression started in the 5th grade when I experienced grieving for the first time. I don’t think I ever really stopped being sad after I realized death was permanent and someone would prefer it to living. Morbid for a 5th grader. There was just so much that followed that didn’t make it better.
Seventeen was a really hard time for me. I had just had my first ever break up which sounds like boohoo, but I am a feeler. My parents are finally getting divorced after years of creating the worst environment by being married and living in the same house. My depression and anxiety is only getting worse by the day. I just felt like my world was falling apart. Not to mention there is the angst of being a misunderstood teenager.
I was sitting in the passenger seat of my mom’s yukon and that day was just a really heavy day for me. I felt like there was nothing for me in the world and it was just all really not worth it. I was telling my mom how sad and alone I felt and just really trying to get motivation for anything at that point.
She turned, she looked at me and goes “You’re not special.”
My mom has this way with words when she is fed up with something that it just feels like it is slicing right through your core. That it is directly aimed for you and only you. That it hits every nerve it is suppose to. It hurts really fucking bad. I’ll never forget the look she gave me or the tone of her voice. It was like she was fed up with me.
I just stared at her. I was at a loss for words. Why did she say that to me? What did I say to deserve that? I just blinked back tears and looked out the window. What the fuck am I suppose to do with that? My mom is telling me I’m not special. I just wanted her to offer comfort.
I just kind of took it and tucked it away. In the dark of the night when I would be begging not to feel anything though it would seep in that my mom told me I wasn’t special. I was young and I just wanted to be seen. I was depressed and felt so alone. I was anxious all the time. I was struggling constantly. Therapy wasn’t working and I looked miserable. Nothing was working and it just felt like I was drowning in negative emotions.
It took me years to come to terms with that one sentence. I tried really hard to not think about it and to push it away. To make myself feel better I told myself that she just meant I wasn’t alone.
This narrative that I created in my head really pushed me in a way that made me who I am today. My mom thinks I’m not special okay. She means I’m not alone okay. When I started to think of it like that I really started to become curious about those around me. Someone has to feel how I feel.
My senior year my friends and I decided that hey we should start a band! It was probably the only good decision I made that year. It gave me this creative outlet to write what I was feeling. Which was a lot. For months we would just be at my house, locking ourselves in this room with instruments and me with a notebook and pen. My favorite times though were when I would just look at my friend and go “play me something nice” and he would. I would sing whatever came to mind and just binge out all my feelings and thoughts.
I was feeling some pretty dark things at this point in time. We would wrap it up and we would discuss if we thought it was good or not say things here and there. He would say “that was really good Becca, you’re really good with lyrics”. I would just say thank you and move on. The more we did it though the more we talked about what I was singing about, how I was feeling, what they were feeling. We started having this open dialogue about the things we were going through. It was really nice to have people that could relate to what I was feeling and to be able to talk about it. Thank you boys for that.
There’s this thing that comes with therapy where you withhold certain information from your therapist so you don’t end up in the hospital. One night I was just so at the end of dealing with how I was feeling. I sang this song with my friend playing the guitar. I played it back and it was like I got smacked in the face. It was my apology for not wanting to be alive anymore.
A violent thought. Something I had been withholding from therapist after therapist for so long. Something I had been trying to convey with out saying it outright because I was scared. Something I could only admit when there was a guitar in the back.
After getting help it took about a year and a half to circle back to what my mom had told me in the car that day. The narrative I had built that I wasn’t alone helped me talk to people about what I was feeling and open doors for them to talk about what they were feeling. I got told I was really good at being vulnerable. All I really wanted was for whoever I was talking to to know that they weren’t alone. You feel alone, but you are not. It is such a hard thing to comprehend when you feel like that though.
I only just recently talked to my mom about what she said to me that day. She told me the more I said “You’re not special” the more she realized how harsh and mean it is. She told me the narrative I made was what she meant. We had a really good talk about it. My main point to her was that all she had to say was I wasn’t alone in what I was feeling.
Not everyone is going to know exactly what you are going through. Everyone has something a little different. There are people though that feel like you. That experience what you feel. Have the thoughts you have. The reason we miss so much is because we don’t talk enough. We isolate ourselves and convince ourselves we are alone. Some people won’t get it, but some will. Learning to be able to converse with myself and others about how I feel and what I deal with was one of the most freeing things I have learned.
Creating an open dialogue with the people around me was one of the best things to happen to me. I hope that you find people in your life you can do that with. It makes a whole lot of difference when you do. You are not alone in the world.
Thank you to the people I have that with you are all dear to my heart.
With my thoughts on the internet,
RJC
With my thoughts on the internet 