stigma_vastu
Maria Kristin
In 11th grade, Maria was diagnosed with depression. Although she started immediate therapy sessions, she developed an eating disorder. Her depression probably started in her childhood due to bullying in primary and middle school. In her words, she was an “outsider”. By the end of primary school Maria started to train with her 8 years older brother. Before his graduation, Maria and her brother went to the same school which made it easy for him and his friend to look out for her. Eventually they graduated and left, but the bullies stayed. The safe bubble was broken.
The bullying worsened and Maria started to blame herself for the growing bullying towards her. She thought she was the bad person. Her parents nor her teachers did anything about it, thinking they were kids. And kids change, bullies will learn their lessons and eventually everything will blow over. First signs of depression started when Maria was 14. With constant mood swing she began to lose appetite and her weight began to drop.
By the end of middle school, Maria's bullies grew up, so to say, and admitted their fault. Some even became Maria's friends. Still, the constant bullying had created a psychological trauma and adversely affected her self esteem. From 9th grade on, Maria felt melancholy and wished to speak to a therapist. However, her parents thought her feelings were merely hormonal changes due to puberty. It took them two years to realize that it was not normal for a kid to feel this sad. So they started to look for a psychiatrist..By the time Maria went to 11th grade, her sad feelings went from occasional to persistent and constant. Happy thoughts became extremely rare and Maria did not know how to cope anymore. She began to hope that by the same time next year she would be gone. After she was diagnosed, she started to explain her situation to her friends when they invited her to come out. This created a snow-ball effect and the friends started to open up about their personal problems. They all realized that no one has to be alone with their thoughts.
Maria had developed a secondary eating disorder. As a teenager she felt that by losing weight she would become happier. It started in a normal way with missing breakfasts and keeping away from “unhealthy foods”. But it took a turn and she began to fear and avoid food in general. So her weight together with her self-esteem began to fall. Maria became obsessed with losing weight because it was the only thing she felt she could control. Her family, friends, even events, were all out of her control.
As of now, Maria is still struggling but she is trying to control her eating habits. Still, during stressful times (exams, tests) she sometimes falls behind - followed by starvation.
Maria has played an important role in her friends group by encouraging them to go see a therapist.
Albeit, it is scary to talk about depression, and one might think others will not care, but it is ten times harder and much more destructive to hold these thoughts all to yourself.
Maria stands by the importance of opening up about our problems. She said it helps both others and herself to understand themselves better.
“If possible, you should talk to somebody, a professional or someone from this field. If you do not have that possibility, then talk to your friends. And try to remember that Your problems will not make You a bad person. Do not blame yourself!”
“If your relationship with your therapist is not sufficient - they make you feel like you're making too big a deal of something not relevant - change your therapist. If you are feeling blue, that is real and you are important. No one has the right to say your problems are irrelevant.”
