Buckle up, folks. Because it's time I got personal on here again. It will be sad and dark but hopefully uplifting by the end.
From 2002 to 2003, when I was 14 to 15, I developed generalised anxiety disorder. Coupled with that and my Asperger's came a bout of severe depression. The causes were numerous: my GAD itself, my relationships at school (which I've already documented at length here) and the frequently rocky one I had at home with my dad. Today I know growing up was far harder for many others than it was for me, for which I'm grateful, but during this period I still felt so lost and tormented that I contemplated suicide, and openly showed increasing despair.
I want to focus here first on my home life then, especially with my relationship with my dad. It's really great now, and Dad will be the first to admit he has a pretty short and unpredictable temper (as do I), but in my early teens we very often were at each other's throats and not always over petty things. He would yell at me, for instance, whenever he tried to help me with my maths homework, or if I accidentally damaged something around the house. Those reactions just cut me like a knife, so much so that I still hesitate often before requesting his help with something. I'll never forget one Sunday afternoon, I was so upset about how he'd verbally attacked me for something (I forget what, but it was obviously the straw that broke the camel's back) that shortly afterwards, Mum forced him into my room to talk to me. I then demanded of him "I want you to tell me you love me. I want to hear you say it." (He never had, but this time he did, and he's repeated it numerous times since.) I was slouched down in my chair, just sobbing.
Soon after that, my parents staged an intervention for me. They took me to a local youth mental unit for numerous sessions, firstly with a delightful therapist named Cherry. (Meanwhile, at school I'd been seeing the guidance counsellors, chaplain and nurse for help.) After assessing me, she put me on an anxiety medication called Anafranil to help the nocturnal attacks I'd literally lost sleep over; I've since also been on Luvox and Pristiq. I can still vividly recall the waiting room and her office there; the latter was a very stark white with support messages pinned to noticeboards on the walls, toys on the carpet and whatnot. Her office, however, was painted grey. I think my predominant feeling when I was there was one of confidence and compassion, but without wanting anybody at school to know I was having to go there.
After almost 20 years I obviously can't recall much of any of our conversations, but I can recall everything else about that phase practically to a fever pitch. I still have photocopies I was given, for some reason, of two letters from the time from a male psychologist I saw there, himself a very helpful therapist, to my then-GP, outlining what he'd done there with me to bring the GP up to speed. I occasionally revisit those letters to this day, partly for posterity and partly to remember how far I've come and how far I still have to go.
But as of today, overall I'm content with myself. And I'm proud that I endured and participated in that intervention, and I'm definitely thankful my parents staged it for me. Now as you know, I've had a lifelong romance with the arts, so here's a song that also helped me through that very hard period, for any of you who might be enduring hardship now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gobdU5Pycvg
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