depression for me was a curse and a blessing growing up.

ha! I bet no one here has ever heard of it being called a blessing before, right? Well let me be the first. As usual, I'm the weird one lol.

it was a blessing in some ways growing up. It allowed me to escape life. To withdraw to my "safe place". Granted, my safe place was scary as hell... but in comparison to the world around me, it was the only place that I knew I could exist and feel comfortable with. Kind of like a safe zone that I withdrew to. where I knew what to expect and I had a little control over what happened to me there.

Completely unlike the world around me. that world scared the living hell out of me. people were cruel and unpredictable. I looked at everyone else like they were better than me. I was the defective one and I learned to accept that at a very early age. They were better and I could never be like them. They let me know it too. It got bad, really bad with the others around me to the point that the schools that I was in really had to put a big effort to look the other way. they said that I was asking for it.

so depression allowed me a place to go, to withdraw from everything. Funny enough, when I would just give up and stay in my room for two days, not really sleeping but too tired to care... I felt okay. not good, not great, but I felt safe. A feeling that I never did get to experience in the outside world.

I would come up with fantasies of me being the hero, getting the acceptance of everyone around me. You know, showing them once and for all that I was good enough. I would run these scenarios and fantasies through my head over and over until I would eventually believe that it was real, and that gave me some confidence.

this was when I was really young in grade school. back before I ever experienced hypomania. it was just depression for years before hypo ever started. before puberty. come puberty though, my highs equaled my lows. once again, the weird one right?

I did live a reckless, not caring life in grade school. when bad things happened, I always believed without a doubt that I deserved them.

but I never got suicidal until puberty. actively suicidal. daring life, daring those around me, getting this attitude that everyone and everything was weak, and that I was tough. Not good, not better than anyone, not even worth living, just tougher than them. that was my thing. I started heavy drug use around puberty and I would always be the one to do way too much. I started injecting meth at a very young age, and I would do enough that others around me worried that it was an overdose.

but it was my attitude that I would never overdose. I was just too tough. those things don't happen to me because it was my fate to be the worst and to be the bad one, the despicable one, regardless and there was no escape and nothing that I could do about it. there was no escape so how could I overdose?

I never did overdose, per say. I lost my breath a couple of times injecting meth and I was sure I wouldn't breath again, but it always came back to me. I never did get addicted to any drug that I did either. It just wasn't my fate.

my fate was to be the one that had all of the bad, that carried the horrible monstrosities and nothing else.

it was what I believed.

after the hypo was in full force, I would pick fights with people that I knew I could never win. I wanted, in a hypo moment, to show them that they could not beat me. Not that I would win, just that I couldn't be beat.

that's the path I went down. I couldn't even walk through my own neighborhood without worrying and looking over my shoulder cuz I made enemies with absolutely everyone.

before puberty, I at least tried with people. Never, not once though, did I have anyone in my life that even pretended to like me. no friends. nothing. I became what they made me out to be. and after puberty, I was on a mission to give it back to them full force.

and it escaladed and escaladed and got to the point that I had worked my way up to battling with the people that everyone got their drugs from. Not just students, but dangerous people that carried guns and that loved violence. I got along with them the best, probably because of the love for violence. I had developed that too. I was very violent after puberty. and it just increased and increased.

[Travelinglady]

Sorry you had such a rough time. I can see what you mean about depression being a blessing, in a way.

How are you doing now?

I'm fine now! just remembering and sharing my past, a place I don't go very often.

so how did you get stuck responding to all of my threads anyways? LOL. No one else wanted to.

I thought that by sharing it could possibly help others.

sharing and supporting.

but now I'm a thinkin that I really don't belong on here.

who knows? I'm on here cuz I'm a lookin for something I guess.

hope I find it...lol

[middlepath]

It is hard to remember the past and reflect back. I still wrestle with it. It sounds like you are doing well now, so congrats on that! May you, me, and everyone else find peace and whatever else it is we seek : ). cheers!