Deep wounds
In a jewelry box under her bed are bits of glass that she
uses to cut herself when things get really bad. When the medication doesn’t work and the drugs make things worse, the bits of glass always make her feel better.
The glass is from a scented candle that she dropped when she was 17. It was easier to hide from her parents than the knives.
“I hated myself,” said the USU student who wishes to
remain nameless. “I thought I was the dumbest person in the world.”
William Webber, a psychologist from Bear River Mental Health, put it simply. “It makes them feel better,” he said when asked about what is commonly known as “cutting,” a self-injuring coping mechanism.
Webber says self-mutilation is one sign of the depression that the aforementioned student was experiencing.
“Some people live in an acute depressive state for weeks, months or years,” said Mary Doty, a licensed psychologist at the USU Counseling Center. According to Doty, such depressive states could leave the victim feeling worthless and physically fatigued.
“You don’t like yourself, and you really don’t think there would be any difference if you lived or died,” the student said while scratching her scarred arm. “You just are alive for the people you love – no one else.” She said that she would spend days in her room sleeping, not talking to anyone because of a fear of being “annoying.”
“I did drugs a lot and I’d cut myself a lot,” the student said.
“They were pretty good at making me feel better at that time.” She blames the drug ecstasy, which she first tried at the age of 15, for her depressive state. Her mother suggested talking to her OB/GYN after she overdosed on the drug and passed out on the front steps of her porch. Her doctor prescribed the anti-depressant drug Zoloft.
“My life took a 180; I totally changed,” the student said. For the first time in a long time, she said she started talking and gaining friends again. She was “happy and hyper” and wanted to talk to everyone. She didn’t see a therapist for long, though, she thought it was a “waste of money.”
“She’s thinking she’s better and she’ll stay better,” Webber said. “But as times get tough, she only has one way to deal with it and that’s drugs and self-destruction.”
Webber said therapy is beneficial because it connects the victim with people who have had the same experiences.
Doty agreed, saying therapy provides a critical role in overcoming depression.
“Psychotherapy helps identify the causes of depression earlier so you can intervene,” she said. “It allows you to change the way you think about things and assumptions that you make about people.”
These patterns of thought lead to a negative outlook on life, Doty said, noting many people who are depressed have reoccurring thoughts of death.
“I always thought about [suicide]; I still do,” the student said.”It’s kinda dumb just to give up on life like that though, even if it
sucks.”
Only thoughts of how much it would hurt her family and friends kept her from committing suicide, she said. The student completed six months of therapy as part of her drug and alcohol counseling for her second minor in possession of alcohol ticket. She stopped going to therapy
once her required time was up.
“Sooner or later, the power of her disorder gets so great that she stops thinking about other people and only about her relief,” Webber said, emphasizing that without therapy, some turn to unhealthy means to cope.
“Many people use alcohol and drugs to help with depression,” Doty said.
“But it only masks the problem.” She said many people can lose other coping skills because they have relied on drugs or alcohol to cope for too long.
“People can believe, after extended periods, that their normal mood doesn’t feel right,” she said.
“You end up feeling flatter and flatter compared to this unnatural state,”
Webber said. “To fix that, you have to go for a period of years at a sub-par state before you recover some of that sensitivity.”
The student still takes medication, now Celexa, another anti-depressant, but doesn’t know if she will take it for the rest of her life.
“I think I’m kind of dependent on it mentally,” she said. The 21-year-old former cheerleader says she wants to continue counseling, but “the first step is the hardest.”
Her jewelry box still sits under her bed. She hasn’t cut in more than a year.
-michacbrouss@cc.usu.edu