Dreaded Girls Camp

When I was sixteen, I was supposed to attend a girls camp with my church for a week in the summer. I didn't like camping but I had gone before so I knew what to expect. This time, however, I was filled with dread and I absolutely did not want to go! I didn't understand but it became a huge deal to me. When I told my father I didn't want to go, he told me that I didn't have a choice. It wasn't mandatory unless you had my father. I tried to persuade him but he was not having any of it. He was usually very reasonable but not this time. I went but it was a lonely and excruciating experience. I spent most the time in my tent and distanced myself from everyone.

In hindsight it is easy for me to know I had depression but I didn't recognize it. Again I wish my mother or father would have talked to me about it.

What if?

I have a better understanding now and greater insight into depression. Some of these insights have come very recently as I have been writing on this blog. As I look back on my teen years, I can see that I actually experienced episodes of depression throughout my life. They were shorter and I eventually pulled out of them without medications or even understanding what really happened.

Growing up in a family of eight children, I would find myself trying to disappear for hours or days at a time. If I could avoid talking to anyone, I did. In at least three separate instances, I recall sitting on the floor in my mother's room for hours as she tried to get me to talk and tell her what was wrong with me. Since I couldn't understand what was happening to me, I couldn't vocalize my feelings which meant I stayed on the floor. Finally, I would come up with something to say which earned me the freedom to leave her room. I wonder if I could have described what I was feeling, would my mother have recognized that I was experiencing depression similar to hers? Would she have opened up and tried to find a way to help me?

There were a couple of situations that seemed to define for me the disease I had. I was sitting on the couch looking out the window one afternoon and saw two neighbors just chatting. The thought in my mind was I really needed to be outside chatting with them. But when more than an hour passed and I hadn't moved from my couch, I realized that no matter what my desire was, I had no ability to put thought into action. Another incident was a day I actually headed out my door and was going to get the mail. As I opened the door, I saw another neighbor outside working in her garden and I very quietly closed the door and quickly went back inside. Everything became too hard. I couldn't answer my phone because I didn't know who would be calling. What if they asked me a question and it was difficult to answer? Making any kind of decision was a huge challenge, an insurmountable obstacle. I stopped going to the person who had cut my hair for years and went to someone that didn't know me. I couldn't go to the store because if I ran into someone I knew, I might be required to carry on a conversation and thinking of something to say seemed like an impossible task.