The words that no one hears

Depression

My brother just told me that he's on "happy pills." He's been on them for nearly a year. I never knew that he had a problem with depression. I always thought that he was the good one out of all three of us who never really had any problems (I always thought of my sister as not having many problems either aside from some boyfriend drama, but she wasn't quite as "good" as my brother). I guess that isn't true of anyone and I should never think it. I just always thought that I was the only one who had the depression issue in my family, although I do remember my mom commenting in the last few months of my grandmother's life to one of my grandma's doctors or nurses that she thought that my grandma may have always struggled with a mild depression her whole life but always ignored it. Anyway, I'm glad that my brother was able to take care of it. I do wonder what brought on the trip to the doctor to get anti-depressants though. Was it him or my parents who thought that it would be good for him to have some medication? I think I'll bring it up at some point and ask him a little more about it. There have been some times in my life when I think that I would have really benefitted from some kind of medication. Right now, I'm okay, but I think it would be good for me to know more just in case I need help in the future. In the past I was always a little ashamed to bring it up. Knowing that my brother has something similar is good. We get along well and I don't think it would be too uncomfortable to talk about it with him.
I am really curious now as to who prompted him getting on medication. Was there some huge issue that preceded it? Actually, I doubt that. I don't think that he or my parents would have kept it from my sister and me. The thing that I'm wondering about is whether my parents brought up the idea. I always thought that they should have noticed that I could have used some help. My mom did send me to a counselor when I was thirteen, but I don't really think that it did any good. And then there was the fact that I never felt like she did it for me. She's not an uncaring mom, but I felt like she sent me to that woman because she didn't like the constant arguing between the two of us which would always lead to me breaking down into tears. I can argue with my parents now without crying, but it has nothing to do with the therapy - it is because I'm older and more mature. I know that I have to take responsibility for some of that fighting, but it really seemed like she sent me there to change me. I think she should have accepted the fact that some of the fighting was due to the way she acted, too. Maybe just talking about the constant arguments would have helped. If we couldn't even do that, or even bring it up, then I really don't think that therapy would help at all - especially not with just me in therapy and not her as well. Anyway, therapy didn't do anything at all. I told the therapist everything that I felt. I wasn't keeping anything from my parents - they already knew how I felt about everything. They knew that I didn't like them and I felt like that was why they sent me there - to make me like them. Though, once again, that couldn't happen without more actual talking rather than just arguments.
Anyway, like I said before, I know that I hold some responsibility for the constant arguing, but still, I was thirteen. They were adults. I think they could have handled things better, and I'm not even talking about antidepressants here.
The whole point of this post was that I think I could have had a much better time in 8th grade and some parts of high school with anti-depressants. Not all of our problems would have been fixed, but at least I wouldn't have felt like shit all the time and I think I would have been able to deal with things that hit me a lot better. My high school years weren't horrible (my 8th grade year was) and I was nevere in any real danger of killing or physically hurting myself, but I did do a lot of emotional hurting that was unnecessary.
I know that one of my problems is being unwilling to talk about problems. This, however, is not as severe as my parents think it is - they just think that I don't talk about problems with anyone because I don't talk about problems with them. I wish they could have been more of an advocate for me. As much as I didn't tell them about what was going on in my life, as parents, they should have noticed that there were serious problems. Actually, I think they did notice - they just didn't do anything about it. I'm envious of my brother - either someone noticed that there was something wrong or he told someone that there was a problem.

posted by Shannon @ 3:17 AM