A student’s story: living with bipolar depression

Editor’s note: This personal narrative is one in a series of responses we received from current PHS students. These are true stories, but we elected to keep their authors names anonymous.

What I’m dealing with started halfway through my freshman year at Perry. I call it bipolar depression.

While most related to seasonal depression, I feel like mine is more aggressive.

On a regular day I’ll wake up sad and feel empty inside. But most of the time it’s just this hollow feeling and nothing really makes me happy but nothing really makes me sad and it’s really hard because it blocks me from having a good time with my friends.

On the worst days it’s the most heinous thing to experience. Imagine waking up and looking at someone you absolutely abhor, and they follow you wherever you go. They’re always lurking, and you always see them in every reflection. It’s just this constant nagging of this horrible, ugly, disgusting person following me around and I can’t get rid of it and it’s just there.

The hardest part about this is that, it’s me. I’m that disgusting, horrible, ugly person, and I can’t stop myself from thinking that.

Waking up on days like this is so hard for me to focus. I’ve probably missed seven assignments because I was so unable to focus on things that need to be done because I was so stuck in this negative place. That’s what I usually call the depression, the bipolar part comes in when I could be out with friends on any regular day of any week of any month and all of a sudden something happens whether it’s positive or negative, but if shifts my mood and I feel like I want to die.

When this happens the only thing I want to do is go home and after I do, I go upstairs lock my door and fall to the ground sobbing because I am too weak to move for the next five hours. But then after those hours I can get up being the strongest most confident, happiest person and no one would ever know that I was struggling with these problems.

I’m constantly in and out of this bipolar depression and it’s really hard for me because as much as I am a happy loving person, it’s hard. I honestly love to be out and around people and I love school and I would love to go do things and to be happy and to make new friends but when this bipolar depression hits all I feel like I want to do is sleep because I am emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted so much that I am constantly being picked up from school to go home to just do that and it stopped me from doing the things that I love. It’s honestly is debilitating.

Now I know for a fact that there are tons of teenagers dealing with the same things in different ways that make them feel alone. It’s really hard because I feel like I’m alone and I feel like I can’t share this with anybody. I feel like if I were to share it with people they would treat me differently.

I wouldn’t just be me, I would be a walking disorder. People wouldn’t treat me the same and would constantly ask me if I was OK and if I need help and the whole “if you ever need anything I’m here for you.” Try that, and people are just so silly they don’t really want to help you, they just want to know for gossip.

So for every teenager out there who is suffering, I want you to know that it’s OK. It’s OK to struggle and it’s OK to be sad to be angry and alone and feel like you are not good enough. Because even though we feel that way, we are strong and we are confident and we are worth so much.

We deal with life and death battles everyday and a lot of people can and can’t relate. People always tell you “it’s a decision” and that you “just have to be happy” and that “you can change how you feel”, But they just don’t understand. I can’t tell you everything’s going to be all right, but I can tell you that you are loved and that there is someone who genuinely cares about your wellbeing.

I hope that this article that Precedent is writing about really hits home for a lot of people, because you again, are not alone.