Did you know that it is possible to believe that you’re not supposed to be breathing? Somehow as a child I managed this, and I still don’t know if it’s because I was stupid or just way too self-aware. It’s one of those memories that I don’t really think about, and wouldn’t even come up if someone asked me “What is your weirdest childhood memory?” even though that is definitely a winner. It will just get triggered and pop up randomly, and every time I’m in awe that I ever believed that.
I honestly have no sense of time, even now, so I have no clue when this happened, but I was most likely around 4. For some reason, in the middle of the day, I became super aware of my breathing, and I was like “What is wrong with me?! Why am I doing this? That’s so weird!” It apparently did not occur to me that this could be a normal bodily function, and my first reaction was to attempt to stop the offensive behavior. Now obviously, since breathing is an extremely necessary function, when I tried to hold my breath, it didn’t work out, although I don’t think I understood why (the fact that I didn’t understand this is what makes me think I was really young). I really don’t remember what happened afterwards, but I do remember thinking that I should, logically, talk to my parents about this “weird thing” that was happening, and I remember that I did not ever end up mentioning this.
Remembering that story, I also think I had a similar situation with swallowing. For some reason, it didn’t feel “normal” and I didn’t really like it, so I tried to stop doing it. Of course that didn’t work either, but that’s not really the point. Even though I was obviously concerned, and I would guess it was pretty strong, since memories tend to attach to emotions, and that’s the only explanation I can come up with for why I still remember it, I never told anyone.
Why? Well I’m sure that part of it was that it didn’t take me a very long time to figure out that these behaviors were completely normal and okay, and now I breath and swallow just fine. But I was (and still am) one of those delightful people who think that they have to portray themselves as “perfect” and “all-knowing” all the time. In this case, the consequences of not talking about it weren’t anything to speak of, except maybe a period of worry that I had something wrong with my body, but when it comes to mental illness, this personality trait has gotten me into a lot of trouble.
When I first experienced symptoms of any sort from depression, I was probably around 11 years old. I had just hit puberty and started my period. My life in and of itself was pretty normal at that point, and I had good family, friends, school was fine; nothing was out of place. Except, and I forget all the details since it was so long ago, I would have this almost nagging feeling that I wasn’t important. Or that I didn’t really matter. Or the idea that things would just go on even if I weren’t here. Something that led to me getting these waves of not wanting to live anymore. At 11 years old, I secretly thought I was depressed, and I even took the quizzes online that check your symptoms, and most of them told me to talk to my doctor (or in my case, it would have been my parents).
Now I’m going to give you one guess as to what I did with that information. Did I mention to my parents that I might be developing some emotional issues that we should probably address? No, I did not. I took that information, stuck it in the back of my brain, and completely forgot about it until about four years later, when I was in 10th grade. Then it again came up when I had maybe three or four nights over the course of the year (honestly, it could have been more; I can’t keep track of anything to save my life), which I would cry for at least an hour after I’d gone to bed, wishing that I could die. There was no reason, nothing was really “wrong” with my life, I just did not want to live it. And again, I didn’t do anything about it. I told my best friend, over text, when it happened the first time, and I usually texted her when it happened, but she was the only person I told. She begged me to tell my mom, and I was like “No way.” I really don’t remember why I was so against it, but I think it was a mix of not knowing how to bring it up, and this idea of not wanting to “need” her.
I don’t want to make this too long and overwhelm anyone with too much info, so I’ll continue next time with when I finally told my family I needed help, how I still struggled with revealing weakness, and my final thoughts on perfectionism. Do you struggle with perfectionism? Let me know in the comments!