For about 7 1/2 years I have been living with horrible guilt, severe suicidal thoughts, over worrying, over analyzing, constant second thinking, OCD and above all depression.
When I was 9 yrs. old I caught meningococcal meningitis which is a blood disease that not only can effect your spinal movements, but the blood in your brain, out of 5 possibilities of blindness, mental retardation, paralyzation, deafness and deaf. I was one of the lucky ones that survived and unfortunnaly I became deaf. Becoming deaf after living 9 years with no hearing problems what so ever was a very hard thing to accept and deal with. On the fortunate side, I was able to receive a cochlear implant (which is basically a more advanced hearing aid, yet internally and externally for the deaf) after receiving 1 cochlear implant on my right ear, my leaf ear qualified for an outer ear hearing aid the wrapped around the back of my ear.
I started to begin to become paranoid because of my hearing aids, I always thought everyone was staring at means judging me for being deaf, since I have never met anyone with deafness, I was on this scary journey all alone. Although I had the full support of my mom, step-dad, sister and friends. it still scared me to this day that people stare and judge me but now I understand that if they do it is caused by curiosity because like myself, I had never seen a deaf person so I can now understand where others point of view came from.
when I was 11 I started to watch those wacky shows on tlc like extreme hoarding and intervention..etc. that's when I started to catch on that I did many things in a set of four, I cannot control myself but I tend to stop myself if I catch myself in the act. I knew at first I was doing it for attention, like there was something was wrong with me because I've always felt non-important and nobody listened to me. but after a couple of months and I did see people on tlc shows have extreme OCD and the people helping telling viewers early sights of it, I began getting scared. Once again I was paranoid more then ever.
when I entered high school, everything changed, all my friends went to another school, so I cut down to only 2-3 friends, I began to start to make friends but since I was paranoid about being judging me and staring at my hearing aids, I began to isolate myself to avoid people asking me questions about my deafness and hearing aids.
going into grade 10.... was the hardest year of my whole entire life so far. On May 30th, 2012 my beloved step-dad who was practically my dad passed away if a heroin overdose. I was absolutely devastated, I tried to commit suicide more times than I can remember, but each attempt, I lived. Everyday became a struggle, waking up was a crying fit, I lost 2 of my very close friends that I've known my whole life right before and after his passing. I was a complete mess, I can't remember 2012 summer because it was so depressing, I don't think I did anything, I didn't want to do anything. I pushed everyone away because I was quite depressed, I stopped going out, hanging out with people, I cut many people out of my life because I didn't want them to feel sorry for me and since I was planning on killing myself I didn't want them to stop me. my favorite Great grandpa died the same year as well, 2 days before Christmas.
When I entered grade 11, I thought it would be my year since I had to endure such pain the past year. I was wrong, I became even worse, those friends I pushed away forgot about me, excluded me in everything, I went from having 5+ close friends to none. absolutely no one was there for me. I tried to reach out but they were too busy making other plans, having things to do, places to go and I did nothing. my best friend since gr.3 changed, tried to fit in with the popular crowd, forgot about me. so I turned to 2 people that took me in, my friends M and S. Since my family never had enough money to put me in anything, I've grown up having to team support or another group of friends outside of school. M was consist ally busy, either with family or sports, so I turned to S, She has been to this day my number one supporter, but me and her have different personalities. she is very confidant and has that "I don't fucking care what you think" aditude, and for me, I was once the same way before all of this happened... I now became shy, awkward, paranoid, depressed and overall a very worried and over thinking person. this made is extremely difficult to be the person I once was.
I was diagnosed with severe high anxiety, which basically means, I worry and over think everything that pretty much drags me into a depressed state because my anxiety will not allow me to be en myself and to let me live my life to the fullest. I constantly over think absolutely everything, I think every single thing/ problem is my fault, I take blame for multiple things that I had have nothing to do with, simply because I cannot live with guilt, it is overwhelming and exhausting.
I am currently on anti-depressants to help get the chemicals in my brain to go the right way, yet the outside world doesn't help at all, I get jealous of my "friends" at parties that I wasn't invited to, by the attention others get. the only thing I'm looking toward to my last year next year is that it's my last year.
well this is my so called life as of right now, looking toward to recover and be naturally happy I the future and haves more positive outlook on life !
until next post, yours truly Courtney !
xoxo
p.s if your going through a hard time or just need to talk to someone, I find that I give really good advice, so leave a comment below or for more private q&a's then send a msg on my tumblr !
tumblr URL: live strong-stay high.tumblr.com
