For as long as I can remember, I’ve had depression. In fact, I’ve had it so long that I am honestly convinced that I might have just been born with it, even though I’m not sure if that’s actually even possible. I just think I might have been born with it since I also have ADHD, Bi-polar disorder, OCD, and Anxiety, and I was diagnosed as having all of these at the same time I was diagnosed as having depression.
Growing up with depression hasn’t been easy, and I’m honestly surprised I’ve even made it this far. When I was a kid, I didn’t really notice the depression at all, but that was because my Bi-polar medication wasn’t strong enough, so instead of getting sad, I’d get angry. In fact, it was a very major problem which plagued my childhood, and was the reason I didn’t really have any friends. I had people who would be tolerant of me sitting at their table at lunch, but I didn’t really fit in with them and didn’t know stuff they talked about since I wasn’t allowed to watch the same things they were allowed to watch.
In fact, I find it kind of ironic that even though my mother tried to raise me on Disney, I still hate Disney, save for a few shows, most of which the executives at Disney assumed everyone hated and therefore should be canceled and only ever shown at two o’clock in the morning. These such shows were things like Emperor’s New School, Dave the Barbarian, The Buzz on Maggie, and Brandy and Mr. Whiskers. The only shows I liked that weren’t canceled after their first season or so were The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and The Suite Life on Deck, as well as Pair of Kings, but that was a Disney XD exclusive. I tried as best I could to convince my mother that shows on Cartoon Network weren’t all that bad, but she was never really sold on the idea until I was either in the fifth grade of sixth grade, I can’t remember which.
But despite my mother’s best efforts, I was still a lonely child who spent the majority of summers sitting in front of the TV while playing with my toys. It even got to the point where I had seen just about every decent children’s program available, and decided to look elsewhere. I’ll never forget how easy it was to move from station to station to find something good to watch. Where I lived in Houston, it was Disney on channel 43, ABC Family (which I always ignored) on channel 44, Nickelodeon on channel 45, and Cartoon Network on channel 46. It was because I grew up with these differing types of programs on their respective channel numbers, that is just seemed right to me. 43 to me was a very ‘Disney’ number, 45 was a very ‘Nickelodeon’ number, and 46 was just a very ‘Cartoon Network’ number. You must forgive me for not being descriptive in what I say, but I just can’t really think of another way to say it.
Eventually, one day, I was watching Cartoon Network when I decided to see what was on Nickelodeon. However, I made the mistake of pressing the ‘up’ channel button instead of the ‘down’ channel button, and stumbled across Deadliest Catch on The Discovery Channel, channel 47, which still, today, seems like a very educational number; as does 48 since that was The Nature Channel. It was from then on that I began to be interested in educational programs that were not cut and dry like the ones they would present in school. Still, I should point out that even though The History Channel was channel 50, I have never seen 50 as an educational number, but I think we all know why that is. Still, I would tune in to The Discovery Channel and The History Channel from time to time to see if Deadliest Catch or Dog Fights was on, respectively, and eventually moved on to The Military Channel to watch such engaging programs as 20th Century Battlefields.
I would never told any of my classmates about this, however, since they found already thought me as being a nerd simply because I would occasionally bring a crossword puzzle to do during freetime rather than play a game on the computers; that and the fact that I had already made it obvious I was a fan of Star Trek. I’m not exactly sure if it was because of this that they bullied me, or if it was because it was easy to get a reaction out of me, I simply know that they did indeed bully me. In fact, it was because of kids such as those which bullied me that I don’t take too kindly to manners. The only kids to ever really pick on me were the kids whom the teachers viewed as being little angels. Contrarily, the only kids to ever show me any decency where the ones who loved to say ‘fuck.’ Which is probably why I see no problem with that word.
