This is kind of personal but I'm not going to F-lock it because I'm not ashamed of what I'm going to write.

I've been depressed for about 5 years. I honestly think it took around 3 years for me to even put a name to how I was feeling. I just thought it was normal to feel that way, or that if other people didn't feel so anxious, stressed and upset then the way I was feeling must have been my own fault.

I started listening to Fall Out Boy when I had just started at uni (autumn 2005). I was feeling particularly low - partly because I felt like I had messed up my final school exams (A-levels) and I wasn't too sure whether I wanted to be at that university (let alone doing that degree) and partly because I hated moving out of home. Fall Out Boy became a complete distraction for me. It's not just that they make great music. I concede that other bands probably possibly make better music, but it's also the lyrics (angry and sad lyrics seemed to fit my mood/my sense of humour better than power-pop) and all of the stuff they do to interact with their fans. The more I found out about them, the more I liked them. And when I see them I get a funny feeling in my stomach which obviously must be love :D Basically FOB provided a good enough distraction for me that I started thinking beyond "either I drop out or I kill myself", and I'm fairly proud of myself for completing my degree. I even had some fun along the way.

This summer, I graduated (well, I didn't actually go). Seeing my routine change completely, and feeling like I was back in the same place I was at 18, with no plans and no idea where to go from here, I started feeling really bad again. I had stopped taking my anti-depressants just before my exams because I had decided they were pointless and didn't do anything. In reality, while they don't make you feel better, they can stop you alternating between hyper/happy and immobile/suicidal. When I was first prescribed anti-depressants, I was unable to move from where I had been sitting for hours at a time. I would sit in a room without any lights on and try not to think. Once I stopped taking the pills, I got a whole lot worse.

Maybe it seems trivial but at that point I was convinced that nothing was ever going to change. I would always be an A-/B+ student, I would never get into medical school, and I was in exactly the same position as I had been at 18 - completely and totally directionless. I felt nihilistic and pretty much wore an "I don't care" attitude (hence why I love the song). My family tell me I was horrendous to live with at this point. I was so far removed from asking for help that I became more and more convinced that things couldn't get better and that it was not worth sticking around to see if they did. I started planning a holiday so that I could get some time alone to kill myself. Ikr? Not the most logical decision I have ever made, but at the time it made me feel less anxious and more content. I didn't think anyone would understand how I was feeling, so I didn't bother telling them how I felt. During this time I can remember a voice in my head saying "Why don't you kill yourself?", almost constantly. That thought interrupted and overrode anything I thought or tried to say.

The more depressed I became, the less faith I had in God. For a long time I stopped believing in God (and I think losing your religion is pretty stressful in itself); then I decided that if God did exist, He obviously didn't care about me and so the feeling was mutual. I'm not entirely certain about what stopped me from going through with my plans this summer. When I think back about it, the level of detail I went into, and the sheer detachment with which I made my plans is difficult to understand. I don't feel that desperate any more. The two things I know are; I remembered Pete's thingy for MTVU and I thought that if he could get through it then so could I, and one day I just woke up and felt different. I didn't have a plan, except that I knew what I wasn't going to do. Although I've felt low since then, I haven't felt suicidal. On a personal level, I think it's a God thing :) but I guess you could put it down to will power? Survival instinct, maybe? Who knows.

I still didn't feel comfortable telling my parents how I had felt. I have never told my dad this, nor my brother - I hope I never have to. The worst part about depression is the accompanying feeling of guilt. I felt that I should be able to cope on my own, that no one else needed this kind of help, and that maybe they wouldn't take me seriously. How do you know if what you are feeling is 'real' or at least if it meets enough criteria to be considered genuine, an actual illness?

About a week later, I got admission to medical school. My family was happy, I was happy (mostly because my Overcast Kids package had just arrived, ngl), and I stupidly believed I would be completely happy. Of course, that's not how it works. But this time around, I've spoken to my mum and I'm taking my medication responsibly. Moving out of home (even with a lovely flatmate) and starting a new course are not easy challenges to undertake. I'm trying to allow myself to see that these things are not the be all and end all. If I decide that it's not for me, then I can do something else. I'm working on allowing myself to be happy, not just in bursts but all the time.

P.S. Hope this was coherent. My computer decided to restart half way through so I only got some of what I wrote back through Autosave.