T.

My names Tammy McNee, I live in Melbourne Australia and I’m 18.  At the beginning of this year I was officially diagnosed with mild depression and anxiety. Not the best thing you would want to hear when trying to start a fresh year while beginning year 12. I never really knew when it all began but looking back now I see little signs of where it started. The times I would be upset at school for no reason, when I would come home and cry myself to sleep, when I became so self conscious I would wear never wear tight clothes because I was embarrassed of my weight, little fights with friends, being tired and weak all the time.. All those little things that happened helped me realize that I didn’t just wake up with depression one day.

It started getting really evident and obvious to myself at the end of year 10 when my first real boyfriend broke up with me. I thought that I really loved him, I thought that he was my forever and I fell hard, we were together for about 4 months before he asked me to be his boyfriend then we were together for another 5. We broke up December 2010 because he lost feelings for me and didn’t want a boyfriend for VCE (year 11 and 12). I was fine with that because I kinda started to feel the same and I wasn’t heart broken until a week later he kissed one of my best friends and started seeing her behind my back. At that moment in time, I felt so pathetic and worthless and it took me a long time to get over it. Whenever I saw them together at school in year 11 I wanted to break down and cry. They ended up dating for a while but I finally got through accepting that he was over me and I forgave them both and moved on. In May, a month before my birthday I fell for this boy Josh. To me he was everything my ex wasn’t and I fell pretty quickly. On my 17th birthday he asked me out but unfortunately we only lasted a month. I lost my V’s to this boy and a week later we broke up. I felt so disgusting and used because I thought that he had finally got what he wanted and just got rid of me. It took me so long to move on from him. I would cry every night just because I wanted him to be with me. It got to the point that I couldn’t function at school and started failing. It was also the time when everything started to fall apart.

A few weeks after we broke up, home life got terrible. Mum and dad were constantly fighting, I couldn’t be in the same room as my dad and I was in my room constantly because I didn’t want to be a part of this family. This went on for about 6 months and Mum was always threatening to leave my dad. It started to affect me mentally and physically. I was unable to control my anger towards my dad and my family that I started to take it out on myself. I would bite, punch, headbutt myself as well as cutting. Self harm pretty much took over my life, I couldn’t fall asleep unless I had made myself bleed, it was all I could think about at school. I would find myself daydreaming in class about cutting myself and what other objects I could use. My longest time being clean would be about 3 days, and those 3 days were such a huge struggle. 

Over the summer holidays I went camping with friends, I was scared because I was away from my Mum and I didn’t know what to do if I had a breakdown. My friends knew what was going on but they didn’t fully understand. I had such a great time up there but by the end of the week I was just ready to go home and it all got too much for me. I hadn’t cut that whole week but on the last night sitting around the campsite I saw a bottle top from a beer on the floor, without anyone noticing I picked it up and started to scratch and tear at my skin on my wrist. No one had a clue what I was doing as it was dark and I was under a blanket. It felt so good to release all that tension in my chest even if it didn’t leave a mark.  Two days later I was away camping with my family and the fighting between mum and dad had gotten worse. Mum had asked my dad for a divorce.. I don’t know why but I thought it was my fault so every night when I went to have my shower I would go to the bathroom and slice at my wrists. Being summer time the only way to hide my cuts was a whole heap of bracelets and even though it looked stupid it was the only way.  Once we got home I was okay again, I was clean for about 6 weeks.

But then year 12 started.. and that was hell. About 2 weeks into term 1 I was looking for full time work and wanting to drop out, but I didn’t. I’m still there, 9 months later and I’m still at school completing my VCE. But wow has it been a struggle.

My addiction to self harm became worse and the cuts were deeper and took longer to heal. Even going out on the weekends became dangerous, every Saturday I was going out and completely wiping myself out where I would pass out and forget my night. I started getting help from the welfare teacher at school and she referred me to the school social worker. When speaking to my social worker I felt understood and she helped me a lot. She was one of the few people I admitted my self harm to and she got me through it, even though I still did it, it was never has much or as dangerous.  This all happened before I was officially diagnosed with depression. It was so hard to tell my friends the truth about my illness. But once I did tell them I found they understood me a little bit more, and I realized I wasn’t alone. But that didn’t stop the bad feelings. I started seeing a psychologist once a week, plus my social worker, plus the welfare teacher. It kind of became too much for me and because I didn’t trust my psych I stopped seeing her. I felt a bit better but school was getting the better of me and I went back to self harming. I made a private tumblr that only had about 20 followers. I used it as a place to vent, like an online diary until someone showed it to the assistant principal. He got into contact with my social worker straight away and she contacted mum. Things got really bad then. Now that mum knew about everything: my self harm, my thoughts of suicide, my insecurities I felt even more alone and betrayed because someone at school knew all my secrets.  Deep down I thank them for doing what they did but if I ever found out who it was, I would never speak to them again. Things got really serious after that and I had all my teachers watching my every move. This is when my anxiety started. I got a new job but the boss was a bitch so every Wednesday when I had work at 4.30pm I would break down at school and all day I would cry and beg people to not make me go to that place. Everyone told me to quit so after about a month I did. 

But the anxiety didn’t go away, it lessened but didn’t disappear. I started getting panic attacks randomly, at the shops, at school, at netball, pretty much anywhere. My worst one was in the Easter holidays when my parents went away, it was just my older brother Jason, my puppy Murphy and myself home. It was a Friday night and Jason went out and said he didn’t know when he would be home, which didn’t really bother me, until it started storming. I was petrified. I was crying so hard and I felt so alone, I asked so many people to come over and stay the night because I was scared of being alone but all my close friends were away on holidays. I had my best friend Ashlee texting me to try to calm me down but I couldn’t. Murphy was jumping on me trying to cuddle me and I was getting so overwhelmed and claustrophobic I yelled at him and pushed him off. I scared myself. I didn’t want to hurt my puppy, so I went and locked myself in my room and started banging my head against my floor until I felt dizzy and faint. I’d stopped crying went to bed and woke up fine the next day. 

Things kept going like this, heaps of tears, a little bit of self harm, and a lot of panic attacks until a month before my 18 birthday. Because I was so excited for my birthday and my party nothing could bring me down. I had honestly never been so happy in my life. I stopped self harming and had been clean for almost 2 months before my birthday. For my birthday I got a tattoo about my scars on my left wrist that says ‘stay strong’. I finally started to believe how strong I was and that I could beat this depression and be happy again but I think everyone knows that happiness can’t last forever and within 2 months I was back to where I began. I was up and down, everyday was a struggle and I would never know how I would wake up. Then things got better again but these past 4 weeks have been hard.

Its coming up to the end of year 12, the end of high school forever and I feel like I’m falling apart again. Because people thought I was getting better I started keeping all these feelings to myself and bottling them up inside hoping that if I ignored them they would go away. I got so good at putting on a fake smile everyday and tricking everyone into believing I was okay. But now, its all too much for me. I can’t do that anymore, I am tired of pretending like I’m coping, like I’m dealing with this. I have good days and I have bad days, but my bad days aren’t like anyone else’s at school, mine are full breakdowns and loss of every bit of motivation. I don’t like hitting rock bottom, its too hard to get myself out of it and I don’t know what to say to people when they try and help. I just can’t put into words how I feel and no one can fully understand. 

I just want to be better, but I know its going to take a lot of mental coaching and training to get myself there. 

I just need to stay strong and believe in myself and so does anyone else going through this, I’ve beaten it once and I can do it again. Be strong and you can do it too.

If it feels wrong, don’t do it

Say exactly what you mean

Don’t be a people pleaser

Trust your instincts 

Never speak bad about yourself

Never give up on your dreams

Don’t be afraid to say “no”

Don’t be afraid to say “yes”

Be KIND to yourself

Let go of what you can’t control

Stay away from drama & negativity