Writing about depression during puberty, the consequences and why understanding is important

My depression started when I was 12 years old. There are alot of difficulties we have to face, when we are going through puberty, changes in the body, the restructuring of your brain, sometimes even problems concerning self esteem.

I can only talk about this subject concerning myself, but maybe some of you out there had similar experiences if you had depression while going through puberty. The consequences of the depression during puberty for me was forgetting myself. I no longer felt like I knew who I was, what were my qualities, what were my hobbies, who was I even? My depression lasted for about 15 years, that means I had depression from ages 12-20 and from 22-29. I was suffering from different types of depression and different magnitudes during those 15 years. What I want to focus on today is the fact that I had depression during the whole duration of puberty. My brain felt fried afterwards, everything was distorted. I really lost, how should I call it, the “origin“ of my personality and who I was. I didn’t remember how I used to act when I was a kid concerning my personality, I did not know anything anymore. I felt like my depression and puberty had completely erased who I used to be.

I know we all deal with finding ourselves during puberty, but what made it more difficult for me, was because I started to mix up who I was and who I was becoming with thoughts caused by some of the symptoms of depression. I was lacking self confidence and doubted myself immensly. The symptoms caused me to believe that who I was, was a pitiful, sad and pessimistic girl. I no longer had my temper and will to fight to thrive against all odds.

I was even told I could predict the future by some of my friends (they were all going through depression during puberty as well). The reason for it even coming up, was because I always expected bad things to happen and since they were also suffering from depression, they viewed everything that happened negatively. I had told myself if I only expect bad things to happen, I would not get disappointed anymore. Therefore every time I experienced something bad, I had already expected it, later on my friends noticed me not acting surprised about negative events and started to ask me why. I explained to them that I already thought it would happen, after that they kept asking me what will happen and with my luck the rumor of me predicting the future started. (I assume that I only “knew“ about those negative events like fights and similar things, because I had already known those kids around me so long and was expecting things according to their behavior and personalities. I do not believe I could ever predict the future)

The type of the depression I had back then was very confusing at times, it came in waves. Sometimes I felt like a normal teenager dealing with all the normal problems of puberty, getting pimples, getting interested in the opposite sex and feeling insecure, but at times a wave of depression hit me and I felt like everything I was and everything I was doing was irrelevant. I listened to depressive music, sat at home and sang. (I used to go outside every day all day, on days I felt normal)

I had a huge identity crisis, I kept asking myself: Who is Kerry Ann? What qualities does Kerry Ann have? What is my purpose? This identity crisis had an extreme impact on the complete duration of my depression. If you do not know who you are, what is good about yourself or anything else, thoughts that belittle you are amplified. You can’t really fight back against negative thoughts…. If, for example, you are good at something and know you are a person who likes to help others, then you can remind yourself of such qualities, to defend yourself against the negative emotions and thoughts….

I was just feeling like I was in an endless fall over the years. I succumbed more and more to those negative emotions and thoughts. All this started during puberty, but the identity crisis stayed until the beginning of this year (2020). Yes, I just recently got rid of my depression, but I KNOW, I will never have depression again. Yeah, I know, you might be thinking:“ how can you say that for sure?“
It’s easy to explain, as you can see above, I had 2 years without depression, but the feeling lurked around the corner constantly, I had to watch every step I took and the identity crisis was still there.
This time I have found myself again, I KNOW who I am, where I come from and where I am going! I have been confronted with a situation that IF I was going to get depressed again, I would be suffering from depression again this moment. But that is a story for another time.

I want to show you all, that the consequences of suffering from depression during puberty can affect you for several years! Puberty itself feels like chaos, but suffering from depression during puberty feels like chaos with a black cloud looming over you.

Since alot of things change during puberty, I believe that having depression during puberty has the most influencial consequences for our future, our personalities, as well as severe identity crisis, these and many other consequences can affect our future immensly. We start doubting ourselves and that can carry on into adulthood.

There are alot of consequences from symptoms and experiences we have made during depression in puberty that sometimes even affect our whole life. If we end up forgetting that it originated from the depression during puberty, we might not get rid of those consequences, because some of us gradually start to believe, it is simply a part of ourselves.

BUT, as I have written in alot of my posts, you can find yourself again, you can get your life back and who you were. To be honest, when I was 23 and had suffered a relapse of depression for a year already, I started doubting that I will ever get rid of it. It had been so long already and I believed it had become a part of me since puberty, I even believed that I had lost myself for good.

When I freed myself from depression this year, I found myself in an emotionally chaotic state, I felt shocked, amazed, happy, angry and relieved. I remembered that I am a strong person, I fight for what I believe in, I am honest and loyal, but I will not run after people who do not like me. I am a very social person, I love to have genuine people around me, if I fall down along my path, I will get back up and keep on walking. I will not stray from my path EVER again and I will never become someone I am not (the depressed version of me), ever again!

You can do the same! You can be yourself and take back everything you used to be. It might take 2, 10, 15 years or more! I am glad that I had depression for so many years, it helped me understand depression, what our mind is capable of thinking and how it can influence and change our personalities. I could connect with other people suffering from depression (friends, family, work colleagues, fellow patients in the clinic, neighbors and even strangers online) because I could understand them and relate. I have learned so much from having depression, I am not saying having depression is something good, not at all. What I want to say is, our life, every aspect of it, shapes us into who we are. We learn and evolve throughout our lives, all of those experiences are part of me. I have experienced horrible things, but I would not want to change my life if I had the chance, because I would not be who I am today. Every negative event we experience in life, feels horrible while we live through it, but looking back on it many years later, you will see you have gained something positive from it.
I probably would not have chosen to help others with depression. I probably would have never helped all the people that have received help from me in the past. I doubt I would be as empathic and caring as I am today. I would probably not be as strong as I am either.

I want to share all these things, how people with depression suffer, what difference it makes at which age you are suffering from depression, how long you can suffer from insecurity and other symptoms and how much impact depression has on our lives.

I believe if the majority of people all around the world understand depression more, they can help themselves and others. I believe we would have more empathy all across the world. I believe that this mental illness already affects a huge amount of people in different types and magnitudes. The number of people suffering from depression are becoming more. And more people are feeling alone and misunderstood. I truly believe, that if we learn how to understand and deal with depression, we can literally change a part of the world concerning how we deal with each other and how we view life. I believe that we would all improve our quality of life and that this could help us be less egoistic and more caring towards others.

I wish all of you the best! Please, if you want to write me a comment, I will gladly help you the best I can! I know I do not cover everyones individual questions and feelings, please do write what you think about the posts and ask any questions you have. You can just use the comment section to get something off your chest, or write about your depression on steemit under #depression, sometimes writing about it and feeling understood helps alot!

Have a great day everyone!