Broken

Not long after I moved to Chicago, I had something of a breakdown. It was more like a nervous breakdown coupled with clinical depression and, aside from my parents’ messy divorce, it was the darkest time of my life.

I know why it happened. I lived in an enormous city full of people with whom I had no history or intimacy. My brother was here, but he’s much older than me, we’ve never been close and he really wasn’t available during that time. Things with Brian, which were so unbelievably fantastic in the beginning, were going downhill and fast. I had left one job I hated for one I hated only slightly less.

I felt really hopeless – unwanted, unloved and uninspired. I started seeing a shrink named Dr. Turner. I was referred to him by the piano teacher I was taking lessons from. I’ve seen a lot of shrinks throughout my life and Dr. Turner was by far the best one. It took a long time — several years — to get myself together and get my head back in the game of life and I’m not sure I would still be here if it hadn’t been for Dr. Turner. It was like, for the first time, someone who didn’t know me very well at all looked at me, saw the real me and liked me anyway. He helped me dissect and understand my family issues, and forced me to realize there’s nothing really wrong with me (aside from a little reverse narcissism).

During the time of my depression, I became really unhealthy. I could eat, but couldn’t keep anything in my stomach due to nerves, so I began losing weight. I got down to 103 pounds. I’m a pretty small person by nature, but it was pretty obvious I wasn’t supposed to be that thin. I slept all the time. I stopped responding to phone calls and e-mails. I cried anywhere and everywhere, and almost lost my job because of it.

At some point, Dr. Turner and I decided I should try antidepressants. Therapy was helping, but I just couldn’t stop the crying and the feelings of hopelessness. I went on Zoloft, which gave me a crazy skin rash on my face, and then Celexa. After being on it for a month or so, I lost the bottle of pills one weekend and had to wait until the following week to get a new prescription. By the time Monday rolled around, I was already suffering from withdrawal. It was bad enough that I decided I’d never take antidepressants again if not being on them made me feel so shitty.

It took a long time for me to get better. I know I’m not the same person I was before my breakdown. I’ve developed anxieties I never had before and I’m always worried I’m going to slip back into a deep depression and never come out of it again. The crying that’s been happening since Brian left the second time would be OK with me if I didn’t think it was all too symptomatic of something I’ve been through before. You have no idea how much I hope it’s temporary, that it goes away in a few days and the happy girl I usually am returns in full form.