Head is getting clearer...

I've been spending a lot of time playing basketball and getting my mind correct.. When your down for a while you need to do these things.. Anyway I'm feeling good and tired lol. I've been spending a lot of te hanging out with Ms. E & she really makes things a little easier recovering. Well I'm going to study for chemistry now ( worst class ever). Thank you everyone for being there & reading my posts. It helps me & hopefully it helps you also.. God Bless & stay well! :)

Sorry, Sorry, SORRY! :)

I know I've been missing & it's completely my fault.. Im not good at keeping up with things.. Well the meds have been working & I've been exercising.. I enjoy playing basketball again.. My suicidal though have lowered & I'm actually doing my work. My second mom has been so supportive! I hang out in her class morethan I do at home lol. She actually bought my breakfast yesterday which really had a great impact on My day. She's so amazing :). My mom really doesn't like me taking the meds but its my only option.. Things are looking up & I'm proud to say I'm starting to feel "alive" again.. How have you been? Oh & I promise I'll keep better care of my blog from now on :)

2nd Day on Zoloft

So I had "bathroom issues" this morning. my stomach hurts,  I see that i clench my jaw a lot.. I have bad insomnia and got about 4 hours of sleep.. Hopefully I can get something for that. Other than that and headaches nothing really bothersome.. I haven't noticed any feelings or symptoms getting better. Only the second day though!! :)

Spoken

I was in church today.. The Pastor was speaking on Genesis and "First Things First". He believed Abram's (known as Abraham) father was actually suppose to be the Father of many nations and God was calling him to go to Canaan. So Abrahams father Terah packed up his sons, grandsons and daughter in law and set off.. 

         Now Terah and the family stopped in a place I believe he named in Haran after his dead son.. Terah has 3 sons and the first born died and his name was Haran.. Terah never left Haran and finished his journey.. He never got over his sons death or came to better terms with it so he stayed in the city of his pain and suffering. I think he ignored God's call on his life because he "couldn't" go forward any longer.

    Terah left to go to a land of promise but somehow lost his motivation throughout the move and fell into depression. He made Haran his grieving spot and there he died himself.. never ever making it to the land of promise because there was no hope, no motivation and he just laid in his tears.

  I don't usually examine or rethink sermons but it was just something about this one that I needed to think through.. the moral of this story doesn't even have to be from a spiritual viewpoint.

 Grief (and depression in general) are significant motivation killers. They kill our dreams and ultimately rob us of our lives. When we choose to settle in the place of our loss, depression, sadness or grief, we die there. How about we don't die there.. How about we get the help we need? It may seem so hard now.. but you can make it. 

I have 2 questions..

1) Are you in a Haran? 

2) If you are what can you do about it?

1st Day.. :(

No changes as expected.. My head is killing me & my stomach hurts.. I'm on my way to recovery though. :) How are you though?

Guess What!

Finally went to the doctor today... Started me on 50 mg of Zoloft.. I will be posting everyday on how I'm feeling & what the medicine is doing. Thanks for the support everyone.. I know it may be hard to get help for depression but if you had a heart problem would you take meds for that? So why not take them for a mental illness? Think about that.

Breaking Down

Hey! New Semester.. I have two gyms (I absolutely love gym) chemistry and history.. I know I hardly made it out of last semester so I have no idea how to handle this one. Friday I go to the doctor to see what antidepressants he prescribes for me! I've heard good things about Prozac & Zoloft. Anyway my teachers are pretty cool. My first period teacher is kinda loud and I'm not a much of a morning person so that might be a problem.. lol joking. My other teachers are cool too. I feel like I will enjoy this semester when I get on my meds. I have no idea how long recovery will take though and when I will start to actually fully feel better. 

       Honestly it will help to feel better but I just need my memory, concentration, energy and motivation back so my grades can stop suffering. Being fully happy can wait because my future depends more on school than my feelings right now. I have no idea if I should tell my teachers what I'm going through. I always told them at the end of the semester if I felt they needed an explanation.. but like I said I have no idea how I'm going to make it through the semester. 

    In other news I haven't seen Ms. E (second mom) yet..I'm breaking down and all the stress is getting to me already and it's only going to be the third day.. I feel like I should go see her tomorrow because I don't want her to think I'm upset with her. 

   Oh one more thing.. MEMORY LOSS SUCKS... that is one of the worse symptoms. I could be talking to someone and my mind just goes blank or my mom could tell me something and in the net 2 minutes I couldn't remember a word. Especially in class at the end of the class period I probably have no recollection on what we just did. My words get mixed up a lot and I'm starting to stutter out of the blue. I'm stressed to the max lol.

How I'm Feeling..

Honestly I'm feeling like crap.. It took me until 12:30 to get out of bed and I'm really tempted to go right back.. New semester starts tomorrow and I can already feel my depression worsening... I wish someone would shoot me.. literally lol.. I just had a two weeks vacation full of retail shopping(now I'm broke), stuffing my face(probably gained 8 pounds) and ups and downs of emotions (ooo fun!).. 

         Anyway I really really can't do school right now. My irritability is off the wall and I really can't control that. Hoping no one decides to say the wrong thing to me.. lol. Thank God I have therapy today because I'm feeling really really really low.. like I'm at rock bottom and then a quicksand puddle formed and I'm being sucked in it and I'm too tired to grab the stick to save my life.. That's just the truth.. and I'm not going to lie to y'all.

Even though this is a "depressing" post I'm going to have days where I'm going to sound like this. I could do it everyday but that wouldn't be much fun? lol.

I'm still holding on and so can you.. :)
Kind-of a must read on depression.. It pushes me. Click me!
Definition of Lol.. To lighten the mood on my posts lol :)

It's been a while..

Sorry I haven't been posting.. Life issues you know the deal lol. I'm back though.. School starts back Tuesday.. not ready. Can  I please have another month? lol. 

But how have you been?

Why am I depressed..?

I don't really have a complete answer to that question.. When I was 14 I came across papers that said I was adopted.. & that really messed me up.. My parents weren't fit to raise me.. They were addicted and doing all types of drugs and I was actually born addicted to crack and deaf(not deaf anymore started to hear around 2). I do think my depression is biological since drugs are depressants and I think learning that I was adopted triggered it.. 

     I've moved past the adoption part.. I understand I was blessed because I could be anywhere else right now but I'm in a economically sound family, in a nice house, on a computer, physically and mentally well.. except for the depression lol.. but my life could be so much worse than it is.. I do understand that.. but the depression is still here and that's what I don't understand. I probably  inherited a vulnerability to depression from one of my "parents", that my  brain may have reacted to a stressful event(finding out I'm adopted) in a way that caused me to get depressed. I read that in adopted children I have three times the risk of having depression.. so that might explain a lot. 
    Hopefully soon I'll be on antidepressants and things will go back to the way they were and I can be called a survivor.. But for now I'm just making it one day at a time.
This post deserved a picture...

 Even though the light at the end of the tunnel may not be visible.. it's there, just hold on. We can walk there together.

Off I Go..

 I believe the worst people with depression are the ones that don't have a real reason why they are depressed.. At least the people with depression that know why they are depressed can talk about it in therapy and come to conclusions on what to do and how to cope.. When you don't know why you are depressed the frustration could be higher especially when you "just can't get over it" and you don't know how to either..

 I'll take you through a typical day for me.. 

I wake up fully after probably pressing snooze on my alarm 5 times. I feel like crap and I just want to put the covers back over my head. I question why I'm going through life again and the pain will just be the same. I hurry up and get dressed. Jeans, sneakers, t-shirt. I never get dressed up.. too much work.. I head to the bus stop. When I get to school I usually go see my second mom Ms. E.. just to talk, say good morning and get mentally prepared for what the day holds. Then I usually see Coach B while he's doing morning duty.

 Good Morning he usually says to me and gives me a hug.. Honestly that hug every morning is what I look forward to.. some mornings I just want to cry in his arms if its a really bad morning.. 

My classes sucked.. glad next week is the start of the new semester lol. I had Graphing & Design. such an easy class but I was probably failing for half of the semester. That teacher emailed my basketball coach so many times and had talks with me I lost track. My motivation was so low and my energy I could hardly get anything done in that class.. I'm glad I ended up passing & I'm glad he didn't give up on me.. Next I had Math. First off I hate math with a huge passion but when I was "well" I was pretty good at it.. My memory has worsened so I could hardly remember anything when I did stay awake to learn in that class. I ended up passing that class with a 70. The teacher passed me because I went into that final with a 56 in that class.. Someone was on my side.. Then I had American Lit which I love to write but I never did assignments lol. I was probably sleep in that class about 3 times a week and I never studied so my tests grades were pretty low.. My last class was weight training which I loved especially because I loved the teacher. Especially since he was my bball coach also. Exercise made me feel better but it was good because I HAD to do it. If its my choice to exercise I would stay in the bed.. I had a 97 in that class. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's very hard dealing with the side effects of depression and school at the same time.. Especially when teachers don't see that something is wrong with you. You don't get extensions on work and not using depression as an excuse but it was hard for me to keep up. I wanted to drop out.. but that's another story for another time..

At the same time school kept me from isolating myself.. It keeps me sane.. 

just like this blog does..

My posts are tooooooo long! Lol. I'll start shortening them.

My Story..& My Carers.

When the depression first hit me I didn't know what it was. I just hoped it was going to go away.. especially since I'm not one to talk about my feelings. Coach H. was the first person that noticed the change in me. She was the first person I confided in on how I was feeling. She is a coach though so I don't talk to her much since she is busy and I don't want to bother her.. But when I talked to her I still didn't talk to the main person that could get me help.. my mom. Me & my mom don't have the relationship where I can go talk to her about anything so I really didn't know how to talk to her about this.. So as months went on the toll on me went up and things just became worse..
The weirdest start to a relationship ever lol. So early in the semester i was in math (sophomore year). Our old math teacher got fired and a they hired a new one.. This teacher Ms. E was no joke. She was strict and was all about teaching. But she was a excellent teacher. Anyway I mentioned my grades dropped. I used to be a A student and now a C & D one. So almost everyday in that class I slept.. I didn't do crap in that class. Nobody cared or noticed me and I didn't care either.. My grade was probably a 50 something. Anyway the next semester in this class we got a new math co-teacher Coach B.  and he actually was my co-teacher for my freshman year when I actually did work :). I considered him as a father figure since I talked to him about everything. He saw what I was doing in class and started making me come to tutoring. Since I was still in basketball season it collided with basketball so I didn't go that much. After basketball season a very unproductive one for me I started going to tutoring more often to see what I could do with my grade. This probably was around 5 months in and this is when things were still getting worse but I was starting to numb myself out. Stopped talking to a lot of friends.. stopped hanging out... stopped working out.. I was all over the place. One day after tutoring the math teacher Ms. E & some others were just casually talking and she seemed so cool as just a person not a teacher. Something kept bothering me to talk to her. I think it was probably the guilt of sleeping in her class together so I did. I told her everything & I can now call her my second mom.. She actually had some good advice.. oh yeah I got myself to a good point where I was able to get a 74 in her class. Now when I was struggling in Math 3 I went to her for tutoring. I go to her just to talk.. to hang out.. to just be somewhere except home since there is a lot of fighting there. She was the one who told me to get help, to talk to my mom.. Coach H. Coach B. and Ms. E all saved my life and without them I think I wouldn't be here right now. I don't want to put this in past tense on my condition because I do still have depression. I actually didn't even go on meds yet and this is one of my toughest periods of depression yet. But those nights I want to end it all I think of them and how it will affect them. I guess sharing this with you will show you that compassion and advice can save someones life.. that you can make it.. and most importantly don't wait to get help. If you struggle with this I'm sorry to say but it won't go away by itself you need professional help. You might feel like this is a weakness but its not.. Its an illness and if it wasn't an illness why would they have medicine for it? Another way to motivate you is to search in Google is life after recovering from depression and see how these peoples lives changed with medication and therapy. Life is hard with depression and so is recovery but you have to get help or symptoms can worsen.. now that isn't fun.
Click here for tips and recovery processes.  Stay strong.. Stay hopeful.. & most importantly stay healthy whether it be physically and/or mentally. Don't make the mistake of waiting depression out because it believes that's its invite in.

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall..

"Depression deflects the blame onto the sufferer. In fact, depression turns you into the number one enemy of yourself" Now isn't that nasty.. - That right there was a sentence from the book Is it Weird in Here of is is just Me? That book I read and it gave me so much hope at that moment.. He talked about himself and how he was before, when the depression hit, during it, his hospitalization, and his recovery. He showed that things might have been bad then but sometimes you really do have to go through hell to get to heaven.
I guess I'm writing this because I'm trying to find hope in myself. I honestly do hate myself. I hate myself for not being able to fight this depression off. For not being able to go to school and get the grades I used to get... for laying in bed all day trying to breath.. for wanting to die. Sometimes I don't believe my depression is an illness, I believe it is a sign of weakness inside myself.. but I guess that's the depression talking huh?. Bright side is I have a appointment with someone that can give me antidepressants on January 13th. I'm praying these work because I don't have patience to hop to medicine to medicine. I need to get better so I can get back in shape for basketball next year, so my grades can go back up, so I can gain my relationships back and, so i can enjoy life like a real person should be able to.
What are your goals for this year?

My Day!

So today I stayed in the house and played some Modern Warfare 3 and "cleaned".. Then my best friend Bri came and rescued me out the house and we went to see Mission Impossible.. May I just say Tom Cruise is one fine man. So after I had a Coke from McDonalds (nothing like a Coke from McDonalds :)) Trust.. I came home and decided to do a little more posting.. Overall it was a pretty good day. Back to school in a week! :(

How was your day? Anything exciting happen? 
Check out this pic! Lol

Strong Video.

http://youtu.be/pAE12hdQ9ok

Depression Is..

Depression is when sleep is so much better than being awake.
Depression is when "just" becomes your least favorite word..
Depression is when you just lay around all day because you are too depressed to do anything
Depression is when you go to school and work and you are unmotivated to do anything..
Depression is when you wish you were lazy because you could actually do something about laziness
Depression is when you have no hope, no perspective, when you are unable to see the future..
Depression is when you feel weak, embarrassed, on the verge on tears if not already crying because you are unable to do what you used to and you have no idea how to fix it.
Depression is those mornings when you ask yourself why am I doing this (life) again..
Depression is when you get irritated over the littlest things so you take your problems out on others.
Depression is when your smile covers everything..
Depression is those moments when you can't even speak because you are so overwhelmed so you just go into the dark room and go back to sleep.
Depression is the relationships that are ruined because you isolate yourself so bad you just can't talk anymore.
Depression is the days when you just throw anything on and head out the door..
Depression is the days you can't eat and the days you eat everything in your sight.
Depression is the hurt that you face when someone says "Just be happy"
Depression is the envy you have when you see people do a lot and you can hardly get out the bed to clean.
Depression is the instigator between yourself and yourself. It makes you the worst enemy of yourself.
Depression is the nights you just want to die. You stare at the pills for so long. You feel like you can't handle life anymore.
Depression hurts but why do we have to?

One of my Favorite pieces on depression..

I originally found it on Tumblr but no one knows who the original author is.
“Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation. Depression is humiliating. If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life. It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. Depression is humiliating. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged."

It was deep right? Thats my life summed up in about 500 words..

Introduction

Hey everyone! I decided to make a blog since it is a new year & a lot of changes are coming my way! The main reason I decided to make a blog is to give others hope. I'm 16, a junior in high school and I live in Georgia ( I'm originally from Queens, NY). I struggle with major depression & I know first hand how hard it can be to have a mental illness. Especially as a teenager you don't expect this kind of thing to happen to you. I would like to keep the hope alive because when you hit rock bottom it's really really dark & your hope dissapears with the light.
So you can call me Leena & I'm here to talk at anytime. I will continue to post hopefully everyday so you can learn more about me & I can learn about you!