I have to admit, I was probably not the most pleasant person to be around when I was younger. I’ve said before that who I am now is not entirely compatible with who I used to be. We would not have gotten along. A lot of it was because I lacked self-awareness. But I was also self-involved and self-absorbed. I was so caught up in my own issues that I didn’t pay much attention to the world around me. I regret that but it’s not something that I can change. All I can do is learn from my mistakes and do better in the future. 

Everyone’s life journey has its ups and downs. Each playing out with its own rhythm and timing. That being said, for a while I had a hard time coping with the changes that life threw at me, which has been well-documented. Puberty was not a great time for me, but what came after was even worse. Little did I know, but the coping mechanisms I had developed over the years did not actually work. As with most everything else, I learned that the hard way. What can I say? Someone who is as hardheaded as I was needs to see things go to shit firsthand before they’re willing to change their behaviors and tendencies.

But even after I realized that things weren’t working I didn’t really know what to do differently. I didn’t know how to fix everything that was broken. In truth, I wouldn’t have been able to fix it on my own—I know that now—but I pretended like things were fine and that I had the answers. It was easy for me to bottle everything up inside, and try to ignore all my negative emotions. It was easy for me to let bad behavior slide, and let myself be mistreated and manipulated. I let people walk all over me because I didn’t really know how to say no back then or how to put up boundaries or how to stand up for myself. I felt helpless, like my life was out of my control. It wasn’t a good feeling, and it wasn’t something I let go of easily.

I internalized all of the negative things that happened to me, even if I didn’t deal with the emotion head-on. I just suppressed it, and kept it with me. I held grudges and I kept receipts. Sometimes I acted out of pettiness, but mostly I suffered in silence due to my passive nature. It wasn’t actually a solution, but it felt like one. And I was content to let things play out around me. I had accepted my station in life, thinking that I wasn’t capable of changing it. I carried this mentality into adulthood, and while the consequences weren’t immediately visible, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist.

Another lesson I learned the hard way—ignoring your issues doesn’t make them go away. In fact, they actually get worse. Each year as my birthday came and went, I buried my pain and trauma even deeper. And the longer I ignored them, the worse my issues got. Even though I was a year older, it didn’t mean that I became a year wiser. Rather, it meant another year of bad habits and faulty coping mechanisms. It meant another year stuck in my ways. Another year of pretending. Another year of lying to myself. Another year of convincing myself that what I wanted didn’t matter. I had the worst of both worlds: I was self-absorbed, but I also didn’t prioritize my needs.

How is this possible, you wonder? Depression, anxiety, and toxic behavior. The first two we’ve covered in depth. This is a mental health blog after all, so it’d be a problem if we hadn’t! My fight against depression and anxiety has been a lifelong struggle for me—that’s old news. But even after finding healing in therapy, this is something I have to deal with every single day. It’s easy to fall back into old ways, old habits, and old mindsets if you don’t stay vigilant. I’ve conquered my demons, but it doesn’t mean that they simply go away. They stay with me forever, but the scars remind me of the decisions I have to continue to make. I need to take what I learned and apply it and reapply it constantly. If I don’t, then all that work was for naught. 

I might have hours, days, or weeks when I’m in a melancholy state. But I can’t let that snowball into something bigger. I can’t let that become permanent, not again. I won’t let myself relapse, I can’t. I refuse to give in, and let my demons win. The changes I’ve made are too valuable to let them go to waste. I’ve worked too hard to allow things to go back to the sorry state they were in. I might find myself in a funk at times, but I also must find my way back. I have to dig my way out, but I don’t want to dig myself deeper. That’s the biggest difference between who I was then and who I am now. 

Everything I did back then only did more harm than good, driving me deeper into my depression. My aforementioned coping mechanisms consisted of ignoring things, pretending that problems didn’t exist, and letting things slide. I neither fixed issues nor addressed them directly. Instead I put them off for future me to deal with. Seems fine for a time, but one day you will reach your breaking point and you will have to pay the piper. If you don’t deal with issues as they arise you will explode when the time comes. It’s better to blow off some steam a bit at a time than to try to tackle everything all at once. Of course, doing that will lead to some upfront adversity and you’ll have tough decisions/conversations to make, but it’s better for you in the long run.

Unfortunately for people like us who are suffering through various mental illnesses, this coping method isn’t always that obvious of an answer. That would make it too easy. We’re more inclined to keep our emotions pent up than we are to wear them on our sleeves. We’re afraid of confrontation. We’re afraid of disappointing or upsetting others. We’re afraid of being vulnerable. We don’t want to bring others down with our sadness. We don’t think they will understand. We don’t want to relive our pain. We don’t want to be a burden. We don’t want to feel helpless. We don’t want to seem useless. Our concerns are valid, but where do they stem from?

The answer most likely varies for each individual. For me, all of my issues could be traced back to my lack of confidence. Up until twelve or thirteen I lived a relatively happy life. I had friends at school and at church. My grades were great for a while. But then in sixth grade, I got my first C, and there were two harrowing incidents where I was accused of something that I didn’t do. The following year, I had a hands-off math teacher that didn’t explain the material well. And I was too shy to ask for help, so naturally, I struggled. These experiences, coupled with others along the way started to sap my confidence. And once that happened, it sent me in a tailspin that I wasn’t able to recover from.

It would be easy to place absolute blame on my teachers for my diminishing confidence. Educators need to have a certain amount of tact, understanding, and compassion when dealing with elementary school kids and pre-teens. It’s clear to me that a number of my teachers were lacking in those regards. But blaming them would absolve me of any responsibility or accountability, which as I stated a few posts ago is something that I’m no longer willing to do. Sure, maybe things would’ve played out differently if I’d had better teachers, but things might’ve also played out differently if I had reacted better or if I had adopted a more optimistic outlook. Everybody and everything played a part in the way that I turned out, self-included. Each factor may have differed in size or importance but it doesn’t mean that it didn’t have an effect. 

The cumulative result was that I struggled in school, in creating and maintaining friendships, and I was woefully incompetent at finding love and acceptance. I didn’t know what I was doing, although I liked to pretend that I did. It looked like pigheadedness at the time, but now that I’m older, I think that it was likely more nuanced than that. It was part of a defense mechanism that I had inadvertently constructed. Outwardly I wanted to appear capable and confident, because inwardly I had started to buy into the doubt. I started to believe that I wasn’t smart, that I was a good-for-nothing, that I wasn’t going to get very far in life. To me, my lack of success in all facets of life was proof that I was always going to be a failure.

Really though, what exactly was I expecting? I was a teenager struggling to figure out his purpose in life—no different than any other American youth at that age. Rarely does someone that young know what the fuck they wanna do. High school and college are there to help you find who you are, and to figure out your calling. You’re supposed to make your mistakes then, so that you’re better informed for the future. Everybody makes mistakes, because no one is perfect. I know people say that all the time, but for whatever reason, this is something that young me didn’t internalize. Part of that can be attributed to the perfectionist within, but again it would be disingenuous to leave it at that. 

What it came down to was having a toxic mindset. I didn’t deal with things in a healthy way. I didn’t allow myself to make mistakes or be imperfect. I wasn’t accepting of my quirks and intricacies, and I didn’t love myself for who I was. I tried not to show emotion because in my mind anger and sadness were bad, and happiness and joy were fleeting. I downplayed my strengths, and I refused to acknowledge my weaknesses. I didn’t know what I was doing but I also didn’t heed outside advice. I convinced myself that I needed to have all the answers otherwise I was worthless. I lacked ambition and drive because I had no direction. I rarely told adults what career path I wanted to follow, in part because I genuinely didn’t know. But the rare instances when I felt confident enough to share, I was shot down quickly. A less sensitive kid might’ve shrugged this off, and been like, “fuck you. I’m going to do what I want to do.”

But of course, that wasn’t me. That wasn’t how I was wired. This would’ve contradicted my passive, anti-confrontational nature. So instead of reacting, I clammed up and I stayed quiet. I built up walls and distanced myself from everyone. I pretended like it didn’t affect me, knowing full well that it bothered me immensely. My rejections and failures were the only things I ever thought about. I never thought about how I could fix things, what I could do better, or what I was good at. Each day I wallowed in self-pity, trapped in my pit of despair. I told myself things like, “you can’t do this,” or “you’re not meant for that,” or “see? I told you you’re dumb.” I know now that this mental self-flagellation only made my depression harder to deal with. I didn’t want to feel this way, but it was what I was most familiar with.

So the cycle repeated. Each time I experienced rejection I took it personally, but I didn’t say or do anything to address it. Every time someone told me I couldn’t do something or that I wasn’t capable, I believed them. Every time someone shat on my dreams, I took it as a sign that my aspirations weren’t rational or attainable. Each time something ended poorly, I took it as confirmation of the lies I told myself. Before long I stopped believing in myself. And when that happened, my dreams began to die. I stopped thinking of what I wanted to do, and I started thinking about what I thought my parents wanted me to do, or what I thought my peers expected of me. I was only just projecting onto others.

That’s besides the point though. Either way I was telling myself that I don’t matter. That my needs weren’t important. That my dreams were delusional. Over time, I began to believe it. And everything that made me me became more and more suppressed. Before I knew it I had lost sight of who I was. I was a shell of a person, just going through the motions. Living out the life that I thought I was supposed to live. There was no passion or fire, just sadness and loneliness. And all this because I had grown used to bottling everything up, and suffering in silence.

Things may have turned out differently if I’d had a less toxic mindset. If I had been more vocal. If I hadn’t let things slide. If I had known how to establish boundaries. But I also wouldn’t be who I am today without my adversity. I wouldn’t have found my strength without seeing my weakness. I wouldn’t have found my passion if I didn’t first try living out the life I thought I was supposed to live. I wouldn’t have found what I was good at without my past failures. I wouldn’t have found happiness without healing. But I wouldn’t have needed healing if I wasn’t broken.

Depression hurts and it sucks. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. But through it I found who I am. And without my experiences, I wouldn’t be able to share the insight I have today. It is tough, but you will get through it, because you are strong and intelligent and capable. You are worthy of praise, and your life is worth living. But first you have to admit to yourself that you don’t have all the answers. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t be afraid to reach out. Don’t be afraid to speak up. Just don’t keep everything bottled in. It’ll be hard at first—old habits die hard—but it’ll be better for you in the end.