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= F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K. =
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Out of the Closet
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(For Aurelius: I never knew you, but you were one of us.)
I'm writing this file for a few reasons. One of them is that just about
everybody in 303 (and 970) who's on IRC knows I hang out in #depression.
Another is that several people probably know I wrote the "anonymous" FUCK
file concerning suicide some time ago (mailed from a hacked account on my
school's mainframe; there are only two other people in the scene who
attend the school in question). The main reason I am writing this, though,
is because I want to shed some light on things that people--even those who
have clinical depression--might not realize yet.
I am currently on 40mg of Prozac per day. I've been informed by my
psychiatrist that I will have to maintain this level or higher of the drug
in my bloodstream every single day for at least five more years in order to
get the seratonin levels in my brain back to some semblance of normality.
Seratonin is a neurotransmitter, which is a substance in the brain that
helps send electrical impulses across the synapses. In most people who are
diagnosed as clinically depressed, the brain abosorbs excess seratonin
too quickly, which lowers the amount of synaptic activity associated
with seratonin, which gives rise to a host of symptoms associated with
depression: excessive crying, sleeping disorders, eating disorders,
fatigue, feelings of hopelessness, and suicidal inclination. This is my
understanding of clinical depression, which I've been studying first-
hand for 25 years now. I'd appreciate any comments or corrections to
this information.
That is the medical side of clinical depression, which does nothing to
explain how depressed people actually *feel*. I hope I can give you a
sense of what we feel nearly every day of our lives.
Hello. My name is Steve. I was diagnosed with clinical depression
(commonly known as major depression) in 1992. I was diagnosed at Baylife
Acute Care Center in Florida, where I checked myself in for suicide
intervention after slicing my forearms with a knife. I was started on
Prozac in the hospital and they kept me for two weeks against my
will--when I found out that they wanted to keep me, I tried to leave,
but Florida state law requires crisis units to hold suicide risks for a
minimum of one or two weeks.
Since my visit to Chez Baylife, I've had several more "episodes" of
depression, that usually end in me going to a shrink and doing whatever
I can to stay alive. One of the things I do to get the pain out of me is
to externalize it; I'm what's known colloquially as a "cutter," or
formally as a "self-harmer." When the hell of everyday life begins to
hurt me too much inside, I slice myself with a knife I keep at my desk.
I sharpen the knife often with a diamond sharpener, and it is literally
sharp enough to shave with--if you look closely at the insides of my
forearms, you'll notice that there is no hair on them for a width of
about half an inch on each side of the veins. my upper arms (usually
hidden under t-shirt sleeves) are masses of scars both new and old, and
they aren't something I'm particularly proud of. Kids, don't try this at
home. It's not "cool" to be a cutter, it's just a way to get the pain
out.
I recently met someone from the hacking scene on irc who is also a
cutter. He was surprised when I told him that I was a cutter; he didn't
think anybody else did it besides him. So this is written in part as a
nod to him and to inform other cutters who might read this that you are
not alone.
"Hope is an illusion" is a topic I set on #depression every so often,
and most of the time that's how I view life. I've learned not to accept
hope because every time I do, something happens to remove that hope, and
another part of me dies with it. Depression has been likened to a dark
cloud over the mind, but I feel it more as a crushing weight that I must
carry every day.
Sometimes I go without eating for three or four days at a time, and
sometimes I deprive myself of a full night's sleep just so that I can