Welcome ! This web site was developed mainly as a creative outlet to help those who suffer from depression get through the "healing process" and to help those who are not depressed, understand the world in which we live. It is dedicated to those who have lost their struggle with this relentless disorder and to those who continue to fight.
I named the site "The Swan's Sorrow" because of the picture above. I feel Salvador Dali's Bacchanale captures my struggle with depression and gives it an image. I truly believe that words do little in capturing the emotions of depression. Pictures, on the other hand, are worth a thousand words.
The picture represents my life and my emotional transformation from a duckling to a swan. I was born in Los Angeles in 1979 and raised by my great-grandmother. You could say my childhood was a normal one. But despite this, there was always a sense of loneliness and sadness that I could never shake. The last time I remember being free of this feeling I was about 7 years old. It wasn't until I was 18 that I realized that I might be suffering from depression. In those 11 years, I lived everyday in a veil of sadness. I hardly remember a day that I wasn't physically tired or unhappy with my life. I thought as long as I seemed ok on the "outside" I would be o.k. I look back at those days now and I wonder how I made it through. Hence, the Swan.
By the time I was 19, I realized that I needed to get help. For no reason at all, I would start crying. Sometimes I had to excuse myself from class or friends and pull myself together. I didn't want people to know that I was having a problem. What in the world would I tell them if they ask me why I was crying?
'Til this day I don't know how it happened but somehow I ended up at the Psychological center on campus making an appointment. Unfortunately I went two times and stopped going. Facing my problem was to much too handle. It was almost 9 months before I went back. This time I was in much worse shape than before.
By the end of '98 I was on medication for depression. Because I had no medical insurance (many of you may be familiar with this) there was no pressing need for a diagnosis; however, I learned that I most likely suffered from "double depression" which is Dysthymia with bouts of major depression. The reason why I didn't realized I was depressed was because I was always depressed.
The depression was hard on me. My whole life came to a halt and in order to save myself I dropped many of the loads that I had been carrying, such as, school, work, research, everything. Friends were not a problem. Many of the friends I had before my depression kicked in had packed up and left long before I even realized that they were gone. At this point I had sunk so deep into depression, that I spent my days sleeping. I didn't feel like eating, talking, showering ,going to school or work... all I cared about was sleeping. I loss weight (I barely weighed 90 pounds) and became so weak that the trip to the bathroom seemed more like a trip across the country.
To make a long story short, I slowly got myself out of the whole I was in and my struggle with depression continues...
BooksMusicVideo | Enter
keywords...
|