Grieving My Teenage Years: What I Lost to My Depression

I am nineteen years old. This is my last year of teenagedom. This should be my last hurrah of making stupid mistakes, of not having any responsibilities, and of having fun in the particular way reserved for someone on the cusp of adulthood.

Instead, this last year of teenagedom is really the only one I have. From about age ten to six months ago, just before I turned nineteen, I was trapped in a constant cycle of depression. I would briefly appear to recover, but another wave would knock me down and destroy all the progress I made.

I was too depressed to go out and have fun. I didn't attend a single birthday party from the ages of twelve to, well, now. They always seemed too tiring. You can only turn down social invitations so many times until people stop inviting you. You can only forget to text back so many times until people stop bothering to initiate.

So I spent my teenage years lonely, in and out of therapy, in and out of suicidal phases. I self-harmed, I starved myself, I wrote at least a half-dozen suicide notes. That was my life for about eight and a half years.

Eventually, my parents were convinced to allow me to get on psychiatric medication, and my depression went away. I thought that would be the end of it: I had bad experiences, but now I wasn't sick anymore and could get on with my life.

But, of course, things aren't so simple.

For almost all of my life I can remember, I have been depressed. I am emerging into adulthood without the experiences in youth that were supposed to prepare me for it. I don't really know how to make and maintain friendships: I was too depressed to do so in middle and high school, and now it seems like everyone else got training that I missed.

I am, of course, also autistic, which only worsens the problem. I am in my first semester of college, and though I did manage to make friends at the beginning, slowly, as I always do, I stopped going to events, and I stopped messaging out of group chat. They likely still consider me positively, but I am no longer an active part of the friend group.

I hear, even in our first year of college, my peers reflect positively, almost nostalgically, about their high school experiences. I did have a few things I enjoyed in high school: my Academic Decathlon team, my sophomore English class, my model United Nations experience, but these things are all overshadowed by the cloud of depression that sours every positive memory.

Even at my first decathlon tournament, I scratched at my hand until it bled. I similarly self-harmed at the first model United Nations tournament I won an award at. I spent high school crying in bathrooms and trying to hide the evidence of my self-injury. It's hard to look on the bright side.

Worse, there are gaps in my memory. My depression was worst, I think, in early middle school, and consequently, I have little to no memory of that time. The pattern continues: every time I have a severe depressive episode, my memory drops out. I have said and done things that I don't remember. I feel like I have lived less of a life than I actually have.

I find myself having to be reminded of watching movies or shows that I saw during my depressive periods. It's worrying that when I search through my memories, I find no trace of the shows that my boyfriend swears he showed me two years ago.

I missed out on a lot of my childhood. Childhood depression is a horrible thing. I was ten years old when I first started self-harming, eleven when I began my disordered eating habits. It's hard to find the words to describe what a terrible thing that is. I should have been happy. I should have felt loved and safe and not suicidal.

I'm angry. At myself, for becoming so depressed, and at everyone who should have caught it. My teachers should have seen the tell-tale cuts on my wrist, my parents should have been more concerned about my sudden mood changes and irritability. Maybe if they had been, everything would have been easier. Maybe I would have gotten help and I would have been able to be a normal teenager, not one burdened with debilitating mental illness.

I try to handle the anger. I have forgiven my parents. Mental illness is easy to hide when no one's looking. They couldn't have done any better than they did.

What's harder to cope with, however, is the jealousy.

I have two younger siblings, one of who is just now entering high school. I see her, and I see what my life could have been. She has friends, she's happy, she has hobbies. She doesn't shut herself up in her room and cry herself to sleep at night.

She has parents who, thanks to my struggles, are aware of mental illness, and are watchful for any signs of it. She will not grow up wanting to die. I love her, and I would never wish harm on her. Seeing her have the life I never did is fulfilling. It is also deeply saddening.

What would my life have been like if I had never been depressed? If I had never longed to be dead if I had never injured myself in a desperate attempt to feel better?

I wonder if I would recognize that version of myself. Somehow, it doesn't even seem possible. My depression has taken so much from me. It has molded me. I am the person I am today because of my depression.

I think I like the person I am today. Maybe the alternate version of me is better. I wish I could know that she isn't. I wish I could know that somehow, everything I have been through is worth it. That my depression has molded me into a better person, a more understanding, kinder person.

It probably hasn't. Things don't always happen for a reason. They rarely do, in fact.

I will never get back the years my mental illness stole from me. I will always have missed out on those experiences because of something I didn't ask for, something I didn't want and couldn't help. I will always feel a twinge of jealousy seeing a young teenager enjoying life. They deserve to. I deserved to.

The only solace I have is in trying to make every day from here matter. I'm making up for lost time, after all.