2.5 years ago this year I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder around the same time that I had been in a car crash that left me with a host of issues that unfortunately I will never be able to reverse. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was 22; fun, rambunctious, and usually about as happy as I could remember. It was a day of reckoning that took me a long time to admit to myself, because a lot of people had made me feel like I was a problematic mistake and that I “unhealthy” because I had now had problems.
And then shortly after the car crash days got gloomy; interest was lost in a lot of things, and I had truthfully suddenly felt like someone had put me in a dishwasher. Spinning round and round; at a lost for words and a lust for life — I was eventually stunned to learn that one of the many issues. I was left with post-crash was major depression.
At first, I honestly had no real idea of what that meant. I felt confused; troubled, and lost at a time that I had thought that things were spinning out of control because of it. I learned that year that the reason my mood-swings were suddenly ferocious; my focus was worse than watching a yo-yo spin, and the fact I couldn’t find happiness in the littlest of things — was because major depression is a serious condition and it often can have crippling effects on people.
Source: National Institute of Mental Health
In 2017 alone, it was estimated by that institute that 17.3m adults in the U.S had at least one major depressive episode. That accounts. for 7% of all U.S adults.
But the truth is there’s nothing wrong with having or being diagnosed with depression. That was a hard pill to swallow living in “society” New York surrounded by otherwise “perfect” people who don’t always have the best ideas and thoughts of others who may not be seemingly perfectly imperfect. In the industry I work in, I’ve learned that people can have addictions; criminal records, and everything in between — but a mental health diagnosis is where most draw the line.
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