Today is a momentous day and a joyous occasion. You have accomplished much and come far. What lies before you is college, the military, jobs, training, travel, a whole world of possibility. Your parents are proud of you and so am I. I have been asked to speak today because the school believes that I am an alumni who can offer you view into a successful future. As a moderately successful actress who has appeared in a few commercials and as the friend on a few sitcoms, I would agree with your teachers. I am an example of the moderate success that hard work and determination can lead to, but that it not what I want to talk about today.
When I walked across this stage nearly 15 years ago, I was full of a mix of emotions. I have come to talk about some of those emotions. I have come to tell the truth. For those of you who are looking toward the future filled with excitement and hope: I am not here for you. This speech is not for you.
I have come to you today to tell a difficult story. It is a true story and I tell it, not in an effort to gain your praise or your sympathy or your admiration. Instead, I tell this story because I believe it might touch one of you out in the audience. I look at all of you, so young that you don’t even know how young you are. I remember that age. I remember Brother Tom, some of you may still have him for European History. He stood before us in his black frock that looked like a big dress draped over his belly. He told the class that it was the best time of our lives. At that time, that was the worst news I could have been given. If I could offer one bit of advice to all of the teachers here today: stop telling children that highschool is the best time of life. You see, I knew then what I know now. And I come to tell you not because I do not think you know, but because I do not want you to be alone in your knowing.
It was not the best time of my life. That was a cruel impossibility. It wasn’t obvious. I had friends, loving parents, good grades, and teachers liked me. I had a date to homecoming and prom. I competed with Mr. Hardkin’s Mock Trial team and even went to state finals. Teachers described me as energetic and outgoing, but there was something wrong with me. Or rather, something felt wrong with me. Something creeped and crawled inside me, left me crying in the far stall of the bathroom and angry at the universe. My parents called it teen angst, but I knew it was something deeper, something different. Something untouchable and more harmful than a hormone-driven phase.
Depression found me early. I was a happy child with an easy smile and when I found myself a miserable freshman, imagining ways to kill myself, it had happened so gradually that I was not surprised. Of course, the harassment and bullying by some of fellow students certainly didn’t help slow my emotional decline, but that is not a topic for today. I’m sure I’ll have ample opportunities to discuss my experiences at a reunion should I decide to actually attend.
I believe that there are those of you out there who know all about these feelings. Those of you who have felt them and have hidden them. I want you to know: your secret is not so secret. It is universal. It is shared.
I tell you this not to shame you, that is the last thing I want to do. I tell you because I want you to hear me. I want you to know that depression is not some harmless stray cat that you let into your home one day and feed. It is a monster in disguise. It is a savage, remorseless, brutal creature with sharp claws. It does not love you, does not write your poetry, does not help you feel and it will kill you if you let it.
I was twenty-six. I had nursed and loved my depression, treated the little parasite like a pet, had made it so much a part of me that when it shut me down and drove me to madness, I shrugged my shoulders as if an adorable puppy had just shit on my rug. I said, “Well, that’s just my depression, it is November after all.” As if any excuse could make up for the havoc it was wreaking.
I was twenty-six. The ambulance came faster than I had expected and the note that I had written for my room mate seemed as appropriate knowing I would survive as it did when I had thought I would die. It said, “I’m sorry about the dishes. I’m just so tired.” My method for attempting suicide is not important. Some of you may want to ask me about it after my presentation and I will not tell you. My method is not important. Suffice it to say, I wanted to die and knew how to get it done. But, among the frozen bits of me that wanted to die there was that tiny, pink flesh corner that wanted to live. The piece that picked up the phone and called the ambulance, that admitted what was happening and refused to give up.
I will not go into the gory medical details because I am not here to use scare tactics. I believe that you are all smarter than that, that you deserve better than that. Instead I will tell you that they loaded me to the ambulance, they took me to the hospital, and they saved my life.
The next evening, I had dinner in the cafeteria of a mental institution. It was the first time that I knew, I knew, I was in the wrong place. I looked around at my fellow patients, my peers, my colleagues in insanity and I knew that I had made a mistake. I knew that I had let a weed fill my garden, suicidal ideation, like a poisonous flower had bloomed in the garden of my heart and had taken over the soil.
It wasn’t that moment exactly. It wasn’t even when my room mate showed me where, in the bathroom wall, she hid her contraband chocolate. It was later, in the cold quiet of the night that something new sprang inside of me.
Laying there, on a twin bed with a rubber mattress pad, I could feel the harsh weave of the hospital blanket. Light from a floodlight flowed in through the bars on the window and was muted by the curtains. The thing I felt was shocking, overpowering. I lay in that little bed and sobbed with relief; I wanted to live.
I see that some of you are giggling. It may seem overdramatic, or maybe you’re laughing to hide your discomfort with the topic. It doesn’t matter to me. I have my story. I have my salvation.
I am here to tell you that it should not get so far. You should not let depression linger in your house. You must care for yourself better than I have. Your teachers will not sense your pain. Your friends will only be made uncomfortable by your anguish. You must fight your own fight as others have done. You must press on, or perish in battle, defeated by your nemesis.
Thank you, and congratulations to the class of 2011.
