Monday, May 6, 2013

Road to Graduation (profile)

“I knew I was supposed to be having the time of my life, but I couldn’t.”

Abby came to Michigan State University as an eighteen-year-old in the fall of 2009. Fresh off a 3.9 high school GPA, she turned down the opportunity to swim for MSU and decided to focus on being a student. Living with a girl she knew from home and sharing a bathroom with another good friend, she was excited for the college life.

However, in her first weeks in East Lansing, she began to struggle with a demon from her past: depression.

“Depression and suicidal thoughts began to dominate me,” Abby said.

The depression came first, weighing heavier on her shoulders every day. As she suffered from the pain of it, she bottled up her emotions. Afraid of being viewed as weak, she kept her problems to herself. Her problems were her problems.

“My parents didn’t know. My friends didn’t know. I didn’t want people’s pity,” Abby said.

At 14, Abby’s parents informed her they were getting a divorce. The separation was complete three days before her 16th birthday. Less than a year later, her mom would leave the state and move to Georgia.

“So much of it stemmed from their divorce. I was really depressed my sophomore year of high school when the divorce was happening. I didn’t want to do anything ever,” Abby said.

Similar feelings of not wanting to do anything crept back to her in her first year at Michigan State. Hours would pass as she lay in her bed, engulfed in darkness, crying.

“I don’t even remember what it was really like. I was a different person. Sadness was the norm,” Abby said.

As weeks passed, the feelings worsened. Sadness remained constant, but was joined by thoughts of suicide.

“I thought about it daily. When I drove I would think, ‘I can just hit that wall or a pole,’” Abby said.

Throughout her first semester, the thoughts of suicide remained. On certain nights, she would take five or six pain killers or sleeping pills, hoping to fall asleep and ease her pain, but also consciously thinking, “If I don’t wake up, it’s no big deal.”

When her roommate was around she’d hide it. Doing her best to hold back tears and put on a straight face. Anytime she was alone though, the feelings dominated her. 

She returned home for winter break still harboring the negative feelings. Home alone one evening, upset and crying, she took another step in her depression.

“I didn’t think anyone would notice. I thought I could get away with it. I was ready to be done,” Abby said.

That night she ingested upwards of 20 over the counter drugs: Benadryl, Tylenol PM, anything she could find. After swallowing the collection of pills, Abby passed out on her bathroom floor.

She would awake in the hospital later that night. Alive thanks to a timely visit from her sister and three stomach pumps in the emergency room. 

“When I first awoke in the hospital, it was like an out-of-body experience. I could see myself doing the terrible things and I was questioning myself, ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing this to yourself?’” Abby said. “I saw what I was doing and I knew that I shouldn’t be doing it, but I couldn’t make myself stop. It was like sane me had lost all control.”

Today, as she sits on the front porch of her final East Lansing residence, the day before her graduation, tears well in her eyes thinking about her “rock bottom.”

While that winter night may have been her lowest, it was far from the end of her struggles. She returned to school in January, still dealing with overwhelming feelings of sadness. Suicide still lingered in her mind.

“The nights I was really upset, I wished it had worked. I wanted to be dead,” Abby said.

Along with her green gown, Abby will be wearing gold chords when she accepts her diploma to signify to those present that she is receiving her degree with honor. And if her final semester’s grades factored in prior to graduation: high-honor.

Even when contemplating suicide, she found a way to go to class. 

“I remember sitting in the classes, but I can’t remember a thing that happened in them,” she said.

Control of her life was slipping away. School, though, was the one thing she still felt a sense of control over. So even as she went through her days in a haze, she knew she had to get things done.

“I needed to do well. Because [school] was fully on me, I did it,” Abby said.

In March of her freshman year, her niece was born and happiness began to find her again.  

“I remember being really happy around the time she was born,” Abby said.

The depression would not go away though. Negative feelings still ran rampant through her freshman year and would continue into her junior year.

“It became less defining. It wasn’t my whole life anymore,” Abby said

By the time she began her second year at MSU, suicide was barely a thought. However, she still found ways to hurt herself. Knocking her head against the cement wall in her dorm room or burning patches of skin people wouldn’t see with her hair straightener on bad days.

“It was like I was addicted to the pain,” Abby said.

Toward the end of her freshman year, Abby’s walls came down a little bit. Though her parents never knew, her sister was now aware. As was her boyfriend. And they were checking up on her.

“I finally had a positive voice. They didn’t want to lose me,” she said. “In April of my freshman year, my boyfriend told me he loved me. When that happened, I knew he legitimately cared about me. I didn’t want to take that away.”

With her newfound support-system, Abby was able to continue on the journey to recovery and eventually reach a point of sustained happiness. In her final days as a college student though, she can’t even point to a definite end. And perhaps, she hasn’t reached it yet.

“I still deal with lingering sadness. When I am sad, I’m really sad,” Abby said. “When things go wrong, 
there are times where I still feel like I’m not good enough, like I didn’t do things right, like I’m stupid.”

A new chapter approaches for her though. And as she closes the books on her time in East Lansing, though sadness may linger sometimes, the lessons learned are engraved within her.

“I’ve been thinking about some of those nights a lot lately and how far I’ve come,” Abby said. “I grew up a lot and I’m glad I allowed myself the opportunity to do so.”

“I was a depressed kid. And now, I’m graduating.”

8 comments:

  1. Unfortunately, due to some scheduling conflicts and a busy week for tennis, I was unable to do my profile on Coach Riley. Luckily, a recent graduate of Michigan State was willing to share her story with me.

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  2. Wow, interviewing Abby must have been difficult. Suicide and depression are not easy topics to talk about, and it’s incredible that she opened up to you with her story.

    I like how you make the story all about Abby. You could have easily inserted yourself, but I think centering the narrative on Abby makes her story all the more powerful. I also think you communicate her feelings of hopelessness well. Your tone mimics the heaviness Abby conveyed in her memories of her first three years of college.

    I’m not sure how much background knowledge you have of Abby, but I did feel a bit thrown into the story. I was searching for context while I was reading. It almost felt like I was on a bus overhearing snippets of a two strangers’ conversation, instead of feeling like I was engaging with Abby’s story.

    Overall, I got a great sense of the depression Abby felt, but not as sharp of a sense of what Abby is like. As a reader, I could feel even more sympathy for Abby if I knew her better as a person. I don’t think you need to go super in-depth about her personality because I think the profile is ultimately about her sadness...but perhaps a paragraph or two on what she is like would flesh out the story nicely.

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  3. Heya Daniel.
    I applaud you for taking on such a difficult and moving topic such as depression and suicide. They are not easy to write about, let alone interview someone about.
    I agree with Paula that removing the "I" from the piece definitely added to the strength of the piece. I had to keep reminding myself that you wrote it, Daniel, because I was so engrossed in Abby's story.
    However, I did find myself feeling like this could be any female undergrad's story about suicide. I think there are moments, where, if you switched around the narrative chronologically, the piece could be significantly stronger.

    The part that hit me the hardest was the part where she ingested the pills and awoke in the hospital. Maybe if you started there and then brought us around to why she was hurting herself, it could create a more dynamic story.

    Also, this may be a personal input, but I think the piece could benefit from some statistics, a'la The American Man at Age Ten by Susan Orlean. It is very interesting to me that women have a much higher number of suicide attempts, but their choice in using pills or cutting leads to less deaths, while men, who tend to use guns, 'succeed' more frequently.


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  4. I think you do a great job balancing this really heavy subject. It's not something easy to do, but you a great job of capturing in voice in a way that shows its seriousness, while not trying too hard. Like Paula, I felt a bit thrown into this piece. What was her high school experience like? Maybe by including some quotations from Abby about going into college would help. Additionally, I felt a little lost when you jumped from freshman year to graduation. What happened in that period? Surely dealing with depression isn't cut and dry, and I'd be interested to see what happened in that period. I would also be interested to hear what her friends and family say about her battle with depression as well. I'm not sure if all my suggestions added would be a good idea, but this is just me having my random thoughts. Nice job!

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    Replies
    1. Nevermind, I just caught the high school part. I'm an idiot.

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  5. Wow. These are difficult subjects to talk about. It's a very powerful piece. I think that it was great with the amount of dialogue that you included, but I also think that additional details would benefit the strength of the narrative. What was her body language? What did she do while she was talking to you? While her story is compelling in and of itself, I think that it would be even more beneficial to give the imagery that accompanied the interview. It's a very hard subject to talk about, and I think those little details would bring your piece from good to fantastic.

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  6. Danny,

    You did a very nice job uncovering Abby’s story about her battle with depression. I think that covering this piece right before her graduation was timely, and a good point for reflection on her struggle. I appreciated the honesty of the piece, and how you captured her emotions. It wasn’t just a piece about a person’s struggle that ends happily -- Abby admits that she’s still dealing with her depression. What you’ve written captures real human emotion.

    If you choose to approach this piece as a multi-sourced profile, it would be interesting to hear from the roommate and the boyfriend about what their experience was with Abby. I don’t know if you would be able to have that kind of access, or make those contacts, but I think it would aid the piece. Abby said that she hid all her emotions from her roommate in the beginning, but it is possible that her roommate knew there was something wrong. It would also be interesting to get their perspective after her suicide attempt when they were checking up on her -- were they afraid she would try to do something like that again, what was going through their heads? Overall, you did a great job!

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  7. Something that struck me was the fact that we knew the ending--now I realize that of course you had to interview her and we are cognizant of our time limits and all that--but I didn't want to know whether she ended up okay or not right off the bat. It made the story lose a lot of tension in it's arrival at the end of the journey before we got to see her transition through a really difficult time. That made it difficult for me to get involved. I found that "depression" became just something that happened, rather than something she was living with--that it popped up during college and kinda happened in highschool. Maybe I just know too much about it.

    As for the depression itself, along with everyone else's comments of description, I thought it would be interesting if you did some grunt work on the disease--introduce depression as something medical, more concrete, rather than this nebulous being afflicting Abby.

    It's a difficult objective uncovering those painful details, but I think it would a lot to your story.

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