depression.

Now Playing: Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift ft. The Civil Wars (I remember tears streaming down your face when I said I'd never let you go)

The reason why my blog is so chatty and personal is that I'm the kind of person who needs to talk - a lot - to get through things, to heal. I found this out the hard way - during a time when I didn't have many friends, when I was lonely and isolated and had to go through absolutely everything life threw at me, big and small, all on my own...it slowly pushed me over the edge. Even now I get very edgy when I feel like I can't talk to anyone about something. I've also felt like, throughout my whole life, I've become such a complex and weird and generally messed up person that it takes a very long time to explain myself to people - that is if I even understand myself fully, which is probably not the case. My blog...is a good place to do that.

I've always been very open in discussing my medical condition on this blog, but perhaps I have been slightly less open about discussing my mental illness.

From about eleven to about fourteen I went through varying stages of depression - from just the normal pre-teen hormonal stuff and the result of an increase in the intensity of the bullying that has been with me for basically my entire schooling to feeling utterly useless, waking up every day not knowing what life was all about, thinking that if I ended it all nobody would miss me and I should probably stop taking up space. Horrible, horrible thoughts like that.


There were lots of causes for my depression - part of it was just growing up, and all the hormonal nastiness of it all. I think there was a very important warning sign that I missed there - my heavy, infrequent, extremely painful periods, but because periods were so heavily stigmatized and I'd already been bullied so much about virginity and tampons and periods I was too afraid to talk about it. And I had no one to talk about it with. Even now I am very affected by PMS (do not come near me when I am late. I am a fucking psycho.) and by mood swings, which have had a detrimental impact on my self esteem, on my emotions, and on my relationships with other people.

Another thing was bullying. Bullying is not the big punch up that it's made out to be by the media and by bumbling teachers who keep trying to make things better by countless useless anti-bullying campaigns - at least not for girls, and at least not in my experience. It's a mind-fucking game of verbal abuse, ostracization, social isolation, the stigmatization of someone's traits and interests and opinions and the targeting of one or two specific vulnerabilities - in my case, my needle phobia - mostly for the entertainment of people who couldn't understand me or were afraid of me. I spent much of my childhood alone, with few friends - hiding in toilets, wandering around, talking to myself, drifting from clique to clique, having to swallow my pride and let my 'friends' hurt me just so they wouldn't kick me out.

But the biggest thing was having to hide so much of myself - the shame, the weirdness, the fear of not being accepted. I couldn't really get close to anyone because I didn't understand them and they didn't understand me, and there was so much about myself - so many feelings and emotions and experiences and desires and dreams - that I just couldn't articulate to the people I grew up with, and when I did it was always met with a negative reaction.

Now I identify as a late bloomer in that I was kind of late in getting into the whole boys and sex and kissing and all that jazz than other girls, but when I was younger I was definitely developing much earlier than some of my peers - or maybe my peers just never let on. I was eleven when I first got my period and it was a dirty little secret - nobody knew who had their period or what they did or whatever. There were only a few cubicles in the girls toilets with sanitary bins and if you were caught waiting for one of those cubicles when another cubicle was free...big trouble. Guys would open up my bag and search for pads - actually, they were probably looking for condoms - and PMS was treated simultaneously as an infectious disease (not true) and as something I was 'just making up' (DEFINITELY not true).

But being part of an early bloomer meant that all the hormones started kicking in early, too - I loved boys and I was curious about everything about boys and blah blah. Girls found that downright creepy and I was constantly made to feel ashamed for liking people, because I wasn't good enough - only pretty girls were allowed to have boyfriends. If a guy found out that I liked him they would burst our laughing and/or be utterly disgusted - which wasn't, you know, very encouraging when one is shy and in love and ELEVEN.

My reputation and my self esteem kind of went hand in hand in the last few years of primary school. I knew I wasn't pretty, and whilst I wasn't exactly too pleased with the body parts I ended up with I didn't really understand why my looks were somehow my fault, and how that justified people not liking me/not going out with me/picking on me. I was the first to start dabbling in makeup, especially when I started getting acne, and that combined with my loud 'fuck you' attitude got me the slut reputation. Which I also don't understand seeing as we were such small town kids that if none of the boys at school were interested I wasn't really getting any boy action and everyone knew that. But now I know that the slut label is less about what you actually do and more about what people imply from your perceived 'bad' behaviour. I didn't know that then.

I was obsessed with trying to find ways to express myself, to be different, to be special, in a place where I was so often overlooked in favour of pretty people who could outrun me ten times over - even though I knew that would make me get picked on even more. I would wear my hair down even though girls with long hair were meant to have our hair up. I wore knee high socks with purple hearts on them, and shoes with skull motifs. I wore increasingly heavy makeup and became a serial flirt. The teachers were fuming over what were extremely petty challenges to authority, and my classmates were scandalized. But it was the only way, before my blog, to show people who I was, that I wasn't like the rest of them, that I was different.

So it was a combination of bullying and not fitting in that led to ridiculously low self esteem around this time, too. I never felt pretty, and in a society where a woman's worth is based so heavily on physical appearance this can do crazy things to your emotions and your attitudes when you're young and impressionable. I wanted more than anything to be attractive, to be desirable, for someone to tell me that I was pretty and wanted, and to mean it. I felt like I was being judged for things I couldn't control, that I was a victim of my own intelligence and my inability to do things that were more commonly accepted.

I clung onto the vain hope that high school would somehow be AMAZING. I think I knew in the back of my head it wouldn't be, but I used it as an escape, to think about how wonderful high school would be, that maybe I'd be accepted and desirable and popular. I was a weak and superficial kid, but I was broken down by bullying and low self esteem and the beginnings of depression. High school wasn't amazing. I threw any social status I had out the window by skipping a grade. I found it so hard to make and maintain friendships. One of my best friends broke my heart and it took me so long to get over it. There was still uniform, there were still teachers, there were still rules, there were still limits on how I could express myself - even though I was free from stupid hairstyle rules or makeup bans or no hat no play. The disillusionment killed me.

My depression hit the lowest point in year eight. I had gained quite a lot of weight by then and I hated how I looked, I was ashamed of how I felt, I would irrationally fall in love with total assholes and then feel like shit when I got kicked to the curb and I had nobody to talk to.

Depression is hard to explain or describe. It's hard to pinpoint when you get depressed and when you pull out of it. For the most part, people who knew me then tell me that they didn't know I was depressed, or don't believe me when I say I was depressed.

There are lots of myths surrounding depression: the biggest one is that you need some kind of 'justification' - death of a family member, abusive household, just lost your job, post natal hormonal shit...whilst some kinds of depression can be linked to circumstance and big life events, most of the feelings and emotions of depression are irrational and aren't related to having, or not having, certain things. All the money in the world couldn't solve my depression. I'd just go from being a working-class depressed person to a rich depressed person.

The second myth is that if people are 'okay', they aren't 'depressed' - that depression robs you of your ability to act in a socially acceptable manner. I'd argue that depression makes you more aware of social convention, and you follow them more strictly out of fear, shame, guilt, etc. Nobody knew I was depressed when I was. I remember trying so hard to hide it but being unable to not hide it.

There are loads of others, but they were the two main ones that I was faced with when I was depressed.

Depression is so heavily stigmatized it's hard to get people to take you seriously. People think you're overreacting, 'just growing up', or being ungrateful. Unhappiness, in our society obsessed with material possessions, is so heavily tied up with what you do or do not have - unhappiness for no apparent reason, unexplained depression, is just a mind fuck for most people. This is especially the case when people think you 'have everything' - and the only way you can actually say that about anyone is by not taking their perspective, not considering their emotions or values, and by sweeping all their traumatic experiences and fears and etc under the carpet. This is what people did to me. On the surface, I wasn't starving, I wasn't pregnant, I wasn't poor, I wasn't dumb, and I wasn't going to die of an incurable disease. But I was deeply, deeply unhappy.

Being Asian compounded the stigmatism - nobody wants to have the kid who's messed up. Depression and mental illnesses is 'just a stage', or the result of 'bad parenting' or 'lack of discipline' - or worse, 'not having a good family'. There's very little support or understanding within the Asian community of mental illnesses, and it's a major loss of face. It makes the guilt and the shame of being a person, and being a person with depression, just that much worse.

And so you hide it. You spend so much energy pretending to be happy, telling people you're okay. You wait for someone to see past the charade and really care about how you're feeling, but nobody ever does. You wonder why you can't feel genuinely happy and why the littlest things make you feel so amazingly shit, and you feel guilty because you know you have so much and yet you can't make yourself feel good about anything.

The hardest part for me was the feeling that nobody cared, which was very heavily linked to the feeling that nobody understood. A life time of being isolated, a loner, of not being popular or particularly desirable had led me to think that nobody gave a damn whether I lived or died and so there was just no point in going through the motions when I found it so hard to find the joy in life. When I was at my lowest points I half-heartedly attempted to harm myself or take my own life, and I remember vividly what was going through my head: this is the only way to make a point. This is the only way I'll be taken seriously. This is the only way people will realize how badly I needed help. This is the only way to make people feel bad for what they've done to me. This is the only way.

Depression was something I had to deal with myself. I was never officially diagnosed or treated with a mental disorder - never had the drugs or the support or just the acknowledgement that I was going through tough times. It could have gotten worse; it could have been longer or harder, it could have ended with a mental breakdown or even worse...

Fortunately, my depression didn't reach really really dark places, and I'm a tough cookie. Even though I cry easily, throw lots of tantrums and get wild crazy mood swings, I'm much tougher than I look. My medical experience has taken me to some very dark places and put me through enormous amounts of physical pain and psychological pressure, and that really toughened me up. A lifetime of being bullied and isolated also prepared me for some hard times I had to face utterly alone. But I know what it's like to go to places you don't want to go, and to feel like you'll never shake off the blues.

There's no definitive end to depression, and just because you're 'no longer depressed' doesn't mean you don't get hurt or upset or angry or just down and moody - I still do, and that's okay. But the first time you feel genuinely happy again, when you start to see the joy and delight in the littlest things...it was euphoric. I felt human again, just knowing that I could feel happy, feel optimistic, be fully appreciative of the many things and opportunities and blessings that I have. That recovery is not specifically linked to what you do or do not have, but that does have an impact on the things that triggered depression in the first place.

High school was liberating in a sense that having your period didn't make you a witch and whilst sexual desire and pleasure is still a social taboo for women, at least being physically developed is less of an issue. I don't have many friends but the friends I do have are amazingly supportive and I love them dearly. There's still bullying, there's still ostracization, there's still loneliness, but I know there's always people to talk to, chat to, email...and I'm just a stronger, older, better person now.

Self esteem and body image issues is a major problem in a society where women are constantly pressured to conform to the ridiculously high and unhealthy standards set by catwalk models and pornstars, and in a society where men are subconsciously trained to desire women who aren't normal, aren't natural, aren't healthy. It's only really this year that I've been able to look in the mirror and say 'you know what? You look okay' - this is the first year that I've pulled apart perfect from pretty and realized that I'll never be perfect but I can be pretty to some people's eyes, and definitely to my eyes if I try hard enough. I've learned to love my body for all its quirks, all its battlescars, for everything its been through and all the feelings and sensations that it gives me.

I know some feminists reject the idea that self esteem should be based on other people's opinions, but we are social animals who desire social and sexual interaction and so our self esteem and personal opinion will always be informed, at least partially, by what other people think of you. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although it can be - as I found out when I was younger and I was totally rejected because I didn't conform to some unattainable 'norm'.

An attachment to societal attitudes and expectations stems from an insecurity that we will never be accepted and we will never find someone unless we conform to what is expected of us. I was severely impacted by this insecurity - I had a genuine fear that I would live out my life with no friends and no lovers; I had seen this happen to better people than I ever will be and I was terrified of the prospect. That insecurity crippled me, weakened me, undermined what everyone now considers to be my strong personality - but in the end, my eccentricity had to win that battle. I simply couldn't do it, and my fear that my lack of conformity would make me be alone and lonely was replaced by an even greater fear that I would surround myself with friends have make relationships with people who didn't know me and therefore couldn't love me - that was a bewilderingly scary thought, the idea of living with someone and being surrounded by people that I had to hide things from. And I knew I was going down that path - when I was eleven I said 'yes' to a guy who "asked me out" (c'mon, it doesn't count when you're eleven!) even though I didn't like him and wasn't attracted to him - and the weirdness of being in a situation when you're expected to be close to someone you have absolutely nothing in common with was bad when you're eleven but worse when you're sixteen. The insecurity and the isolation was bad, but suppressing so much of myself...that was even worse. This year was the first year I thought 'fuck it' and endeavoured in all things to be fearless; to be myself. And even though I had steeled myself for another year of solitude, I've found people who love me for who I am, and that's the biggest ego boost of all. For people to say that I'm weird and pretty, not either or. For people to think that I'm beautiful not because I look like some supermodel, but because I smile at them every day and I'm not afraid to present myself to the world the way I like to. This is the first year that someone that I've liked - and thought was way out of my league - wanted to spend time with me, get to know me, be close to me. And yeah, weird convoluted things happen, but I've had all these emotions and experiences that everyone used to tell me I wasn't worthy of, and would never get. Well, suck it. It happened. I'm not the ogre you made me out to be.

I'm not an expert on depression - I only know of my own experiences, what I went through. My depression was heavily tied to my self esteem, to body image, to bullying and to hormones and to being isolated. Emotions impact everyone differently.

Depression is not something you fully shake off - it just goes into remission. It might come back; it's definitely heightened my emotions, made me a little more sensitive. I've been actively working to keep myself in a good frame of mind, and part of doing that is just being with people, talking to people, taking time out when I need to be alone, and blogging. I started my Thousand Thousand Fearless Things lists not because I thought you guys needed to know every weird thing I notice in my daily life, but because I was beginning to lose the magic of the little things, and that's the first sign of slipping back into depression, for me. Making myself think about all the little silly things that made me happy, all the little trivial petty pedantic things that we so often ignore and forget...it has really helped me to see the brighter side of things even when I'm stressed and tired and on edge. I haven't considered myself depressed for a couple of years now but I'm very aware that it might come back, and I'm very aware of the consequences of depression.

The reason why I'm going on this very tangential spiel is that recently someone close to us took his own life, and everyone is very lost and confused and guilty. I know what it's like to be in a dark place - although I will never dare to assume that I understood exactly what he was going through - and emotional disorders, like sex and every other taboo, are only exacerbated by fear and ignorance and silence. I'm not saying I'm a better person that he is because I pulled through and he didn't - I'm just saying that depression and mental disorders and big emotions and suicide are there, here, everywhere, whether we like it or not, and we all have to do our part in managing our own mental health, and in helping people to deal with the ups and downs of life. Because even though there are drugs and research and statistics - none of this matters when you're in those dark, frightening places. The worst part was having no one to talk to, and not being allowed to talk. I just can't help but wonder how many lives we could improve, and how many lives we could save, if these topics were approached with compassion and sincerity and kindness and proactive action rather than fear and contempt and denial.