I spent 3 years in college and didn’t walk with a diploma, much less a degree. While being successful in terms of team athletics in my 3 years spent in post-secondary, I am not entirely sure if I’d consider my career successful as a whole or not. While considering my grades, establishing relationships, or maintaining my happiness, I’d have a hard time arguing that I had a highly successful 3 years, but the team successes that we experienced may alter my argument. At the end of my college career, the single largest victory that I will carry with me for the rest of my life is, bar none, the opportunities and platform that this blog has given me.

I currently feel mostly-comfortable discussing my past struggles regarding my mental health with complete strangers, and I have even had the opportunity to discuss it with a few people since moving to Salt Spring Island for the summer. I would’ve never had this confidence 3 years ago, at a time when my severe depression was mostly kept secret due to myself not wishing my issues to become somebody else’s. This mindset put my development on a back burner, and it has, at times, become incredibly difficult to not live with an intense feeling of regret for the 11 potentially awesome years that I missed out on. 11 years that could’ve been made so much more significant in my eyes if I were more open with myself and others and if I received the help I needed from available services. I’ve recently started to come to grips with the harsh reality that lost time isn’t going to magically return to me, and I’ve begun attempting to adopt habits of forward-thinkers. While I can’t fix everything that has been damaged, I believe I can make the next 60 years of my life indescribably special if I truly wish it to be so.

I’ve been spending my summer on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, as previously mentioned, and upon coming here I have come to realization with a number of different things. At the top of this list, I realized that while in my past it may have seemed obviously apparent that I was depressed or lacked confidence in myself, but I would guess that most of the friends that I have made here in the past two weeks likely have no idea that I struggled and still do struggle with depression from day to day. I have come so far, and oftentimes I fail to sit back and recognize the progress I’ve taken as an individual. While things aren’t perfect, I hope that any of my readers who are struggling with one of a million different mental illnesses find my climb out of an endless pit of intense suicidal thoughts, deep depression, incredible anxiety, and bullying victimhood as a source of inspiration or reassurance that things do get better. High school, elementary school, and post-secondary education are not ends. They are simply new beginnings and opportunities.

I sincerely thought that elementary school would be the beginning to my end come high school. I’m now 21, and I’ve lived almost 10 years longer than I previously expected to at a point in my life. I have an incredible family who I’m unbelievably blessed to have received, some especially selfless friends who would do anything for me, and every day I feel myself becoming more thankful for these pillar-like figures in my life. I’ve always had a passion for helping and talking to others, and I have fortunately been lucky enough to have the opportunity presented to me to discuss mental health as a direct result of this blog with hundreds of different people. While I am absolutely a deeply flawed person and am overall unsatisfied with where I am in life, I have found a sense of peace, stillness and belonging in the positives I have discovered.

The severe depression that I previously hated with every fiber of my being has almost become an inward beauty that I have learned to appreciate, as if you had to run the tip of your finger down the branch of a rose before reaching the petals. The harshest times of my life don’t necessarily feel worth it in the long-term every single day, but the days that it does have had such an immense calming effect on my mind. I think that being depressed can slightly mimic being thirsty: when you are craving something to satisfy your thirst, you’ll do anything to make sure that equilibrium is found, even if it means venturing out of your comfort zone. When I found myself at rock bottom, I felt as though my body went into a sort of hibernation status. I maintained my position at the bottom of this pit until I found a means of climbing out, or, playing off of my previous example, a drink to quench my thirst. Between finding quality friends that supported me and showed me love and coming to the realization that I was incredibly fortunate to have received the family that I did, I found something to grab onto and start my climb.

I believe that everyone who has suffered from depression, BPD, GAD, SAD, or any one of a million different disorders may enter a similar primitive state upon hitting these all-time lows. Once we reach these lows, however, I only see two available options, and I was fortunate enough to be a survivor of severe depression. This tangible illness isn’t something you snap out of, it requires a healing process. The same truth for any illness is true with mental illness as well: if your body is capable of healing, you survive. If your body isn’t able to cope, then you don’t.

I want my story to be about motivation and selfless inspiration. No matter how terrible your situation is, it can get better if you put forth the resources required to improve and cope with your illness while networking with those around you. Grab a coffee with a friend, have a few drinks with your father while talking to him about what you’ve been going through. Talking about mental illness and improving education regarding the subject is the only way it gets better, and it’s on us as individuals.

“I don’t want my story to reflect self-indulgence and selfishness. I want it to reflect selfless inspiration, hope, and motivation. I want my story to be life-changing, and not just for me but also those involved in it. Most of all, I want it to show recovery. I will manage my depression for the rest of my life, don’t be afraid to let it out. Be afraid of holding it in.”

– John Dennis

Let’s talk,

Garrett Suderman 

sudermang blog@gmail.com