Who's that girl?

Where's she from? No, she can't be the one...

It’s hard to remember what I was like before 2016. And I don’t mean that in a reality-altering-election-year sort of way.

No, rather, my 2016 turning point came months before that, as I closed out my senior year of college. That spring semester sprung lots of crying and bouts of extreme melancholy (which I would later learn was depression — surprise!) on me. I was crying a lot and I had no idea why. I would lay in bed, wondering why I existed and what the point of living was, and I had no idea why. Until I texted a best friend who I knew had gone/was going through something similar. “I think you’re depressed, dude,” she said.

At the time, that seemed like a plausible explanation. To me, at least. The grad student I had a free session with at the school’s Health Services didn’t seem to think so. I told her about my depressive moods where I couldn’t even get out of bed, couldn’t eat. I told her how worried I was about the mountains of student loan debt and how I would never get a job and never amount to anything, never succeed.

“I don’t think you’re depressed,” she cooed. “You’re going through a big time of change.”

I didn’t think that was quite right. Was mere graduation stress the cause of my loss of the will to live? Dubious. But she was an expert, who was I to disbelieve her diagnosis?

Still, as the months went on and I graduated and moved back home jobless, I knew something was wrong. After more talks with my friend, I got help. Went on meds and started seeing a therapist and everything.

I now had two professionals agreeing with my self diagnosis. My doctor had believed me enough to put me on anti-depressants and my therapist took me more seriously than the UHS grad student had. (I’ll save my therapist escapades for another day, though.)

And yet, for that first year or so of being on meds and seeing a therapist, I didn’t truly believe I deserved it — the meds, the help, the sympathy from friends. I wasn’t the type of person who should be depressed. I knew plenty of depressed people and I felt that my pain, my suffering was nothing compared to what they had been through. I felt like a fraud. And I felt like there was a concrete end, that at some point I would stop going to therapy.

Four years later, I’m still in therapy. And I don’t plan on ever really stopping. I had a therapist once tell me that just as we take care of our physical health, by regularly visiting the doctor, we must also regularly take care of our mental health. It’s not something you can put a bandaid on. It’s ongoing work. Now I tell almost everyone I know to at least try out therapy. It’s great!

At some point in the last four years, my attitude changed. I no longer feel like a depression impostor. I talk about my mental health relatively freely on social media and with friends. And just how I had a friend to go to when I was feeling depressed and unsure, I’ve been able to provide that support for other friends, too.

I feel proud of how far I’ve come, how much awareness I have around mental health as a whole and around my own.

But I often look back and try to remember what pre-depression Lauren was like. And sadly, I really can’t recall. The Lauren I know now, the Lauren of the past four years, the Adult Lauren, is one that has been plagued with anxiety and depression. She still can’t escape the constant anxiety, constant worry, constant what ifs. It’s hard to imagine myself without that anxiety, without that experience of depression, even when that was me for 21 years.

It’s even almost impossible to imagine college me, going through college life — classes, exams, clubs, sorority drama — withOUT the lens of anxiety. Who was she and how did she do it??

It sucks that I can’t remember what I was like before The Depression hit. It sucks that I can’t remember how I thought or felt, what my mind was like. I feel like I’m missing out on a key part of myself, like there’s a disconnect between my two halves, something that I’ll never get back.

I miss her, whoever she was. And while I know I may never get that feeling back, I’m still holding out hope that I can remember her someday.

P.S. Can you Name That Tune in my title/subtitle?