When I am depressed, as I am now and have been for the best
part of 6 weeks, my mind often turns to Year 8. I was 13 and had my first
breakdown. Eight days into my second year of high school, something flicked a
switch inside me and I just couldn’t get out of bed. I just couldn’t face that
place again. I was off school for 18 months.
It’s a time that is
clouded in shame for me.
When I think about it now as a grown woman with children of
her own I feel sad for the 13 year old girl who lay in bed being berated by
family members for being so ‘bad’ and ‘disobedient.’
I was so depressed I literally had trouble speaking –
something I’d forgotten about until it happened again a few weeks ago. I
remember saying ‘no’ and ‘I can’t’ and wondering what the fuck was wrong with
me because I had so many thoughts rushing around my mind but I could barely say
a word.
I felt hated, I felt faulty.
I was punished extensively for missing school. I adored my
newborn cousin so I was cut off from seeing him. I was cut off from seeing
extended family. I was banned from watching tv. I was banned from dessert on
the rare occasion we were actually having some. I was threatened to be sent
away to an institution for bad girls like me. I made my first feeble attempt at
suicide. I was told that I had made my aunt cry for the first time in her life.
I was told not to mention my shameful state to the
interstate family when we visited. Similarly, I kept the secret from friends at
church.
It seems bizarre to me now that I was able to function on
Sundays and go act like everything was normal. But I was so ashamed of my
inability to go to school that I did anything and everything I could to
minimize the badness I was bringing to my family. The guilt and shame were paralyzing.
So I started to clean the house while the rest of my family
were at work/school. I’d make dinner for the family. I’d also homeschool myself
through correspondence but that only took up 45 minutes in the morning so the
rest of the time I’d clean, cook, and then at 2:45pm I’d sit at the front of
the house and wait.
My aunt used to drive past at 2:45pm to go pick up my cousin
from preschool. She didn’t know I’d sit and wait to watch her drive past. For
the 2 seconds I’d see that white station wagon drive past it felt like I wasn’t
alone.
I have written about this time before, and I probably will
again. I think one’s first breakdown is somewhat formative! Especially when it
is met with punishment, isolation, shaming and lasts for over a year. Fuck.
I think I am exploring it again now because I am once again
lost in a confusing darkness, but also because I think I am able to feel the
sadness of that time now. I can look at the 13 year old girl and feel sad for
her – whereas in the past I really only ever felt embarrassed and defensive.
Now as an adult its my job not only to parent my beautiful children, but to 're-parent' myself. I must meet my pain with understanding and compassion especially when no one else will. I talk about it partly to get this past into the sunshine - shame grows in the dark.
And I continue to take it one day at a time. I am not bad. I am not faulty. I am simply in pain.
