At the age of 18, which now seems like a lifetime away, I was in a new city going to school and having a real hard time coping with life, but had no idea why. It was like living in a black hole, unable to sleep because closing my eyes meant my head would fill with horrible thoughts and crippling guilt over every little thing I had done in my life. I was a mess.
A trip to the doctor really saved me, he told me I was suffering from depression and gave me a prescription for Paxil. I knew very little about depression being an illness or if medication would help, but desperation made me pop open the bottle and take my medicine.
Paxil is suppose to take up to 2 weeks to work, but I remember starting to see changes very quickly and these changes were big. I was the same person but suddenly felt like going out and doing stuff with friends, sleeping started to happen every night instead of every 3 nights and best of all, no longer did I fear closing my eyes.
Since that time I have known other people with similar symptoms and strongly encouraged them to see a doctor. Depression is an illness that kills far too many people every year because suicide generally looks like a good idea, when in that state of mind, you can see no rosy future and nothing looks good anymore. It is very dangerous.
I stayed on Paxil for maybe a year when a new relationship made me a pretty happy person and the medication no longer seemed needed and I just stopped using them, but here is a very important warning, do not stop taking it cold turkey because there are side effects to that. Talk to your doctor and remember, there is help out there and better days are always just around the corner.
