By the fact that this letter has no name at it's end I can tell I never finished it. Well, I was depressed.
In any case, I hope what is there makes good reading.
6th March 2014
Dear Mr. (YouTuber),
It was the
fifth of March that you asked your audience, of which I am one, to tell you the
stories of their depression. I have battled depression for the whole of my life,
and so the story of my depression cannot be held in a comment. So long a story
needs thought and introspection notwithstanding the need of all things done by
the depressed: time.
My
depression found its start in the rough handling I received in tender youth.
The youngest of three children in an unsupervised home my older siblings would
unite against me as a force of violence and so I would fight until exhaustion
against them. This prompted my mother to send my older (sibling) to live with
other family members for a summer, but it did little good as (they) had to come
back for the school year.
These
beatings of youth left me with what is called transient brain damage as a
result of trauma to the back of my head. I struggled to read and struggled to
write because of this problem, and even now I would be unable to write this
letter coherently without a program that reads my work back to me as the
written word and I simply do not get along.
My
depression worsened with my mother’s second relapse of cancer. She fought the
disease for as long as she could but lost and died a week after my tenth
birthday. My father was what one may call an absentee parent. He would arrive at
my residence on Friday night and leave Sunday evening, and so I would see him
for the weekend. This left the home in the care of my older (sibling) who,
mentally ill and violent, ruled by needless force.
At the
time, in wake and sleep my life was a nightmare. In my waking times I stood
silent looking after myself and staying away from siblings as best I could. I
often had dreams where my hands were cut off, and I learned in college this is
symbolic of the feeling of helplessness.
By age
fourteen my depression had reached its height, and I could hardly lift my
hands. I had medical insurance, but my father refused to take me to see a
psychiatrist. Why I cannot with certainty say, but he would always dismiss my
maladies with “it’s all in your head” or “You’re a hypochondriac”.
For much of
my high school years I felt like a piece of dead meat with a soul trapped
within. There were times I would sit in bed unable to sleep but unable to stand
as if a prisoner in my own flesh. Every morning I would vomit, I’m not sure
why, before or when I got to school.
I made it
past high school and suffered with depression my whole life finding what
friends I made of little help. I learned in psychology that the abusers find
the abused and that many of us accept abuse as we think it to be normal. I was
twenty nine when I walked away from the abusive people in my life, and I still
have trouble making friends often due to my condition. I take medication, and I
live with my problem but there is little hope of recovery.
The one
great silver lining to my condition is that I can relate to my clients as I
work with the homeless population of Los Angeles. Many of them lived a life as
sad or worse than my own. They find in me a listening ear and accepting mind a
comfort.
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