Personal Narrative: How Depression Changed My Life

For the past few days, I’ve been thinking about some kind of exciting ‘hook’ to grab your attention, but there is nothing exciting about depression. There’s no happy tale to tell about depression, no way to spin it into something fun to read, and nothing interesting to say about depression itself. So I’m going to spill my guts out to you in the form of writing about my personal experience and ongoing struggle with a disability that is misunderstood by many people around the globe. It’s probably best that I start by explaining how my depression came to be. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that I have not the faintest idea where it all started. According to my mother, ever since I was a small child I had always avoided family and crowds. …show more content…
I won’t get into detail about any of that for your sake, but I can tell you that I was never the happy kid. That’s not to say that I had a terrible childhood though. I’m a pretty privileged person and I have had a lot of opportunities in my life that I know many other kids haven’t. That’s precisely why it’s so difficult to point to some period in my life and say “that’s what made me feel like walking trash for so many years.” But frankly, if it were that easy I don’t think I’d have depression at all. I know the prompt is to detail a single personal experience but there’s no single event in my life I can remember that is worth writing an entire paper about, so to expand upon my experience with depression I’ll tell you about a time I struggled with suicidal thoughts and actions. The first time I ever felt the extreme want to end my own life was during my freshman year in high school. Back in 7th grade, I fell so deeply in love with a girl (we’ll call her K) and I honestly believed that I’d be with her for the rest of my life. Being that young, of course I’d think of