How depression freed me

When I was 19, I was in my second year of a Bachelor of Science. My intentions were to go to med school and become a doctor, most likely a pediatrician. I was driven. I was motivated. But I was in pain.

Part of the way through my second term, I started having trouble sitting for more than 45 minutes. I mean, it was AGONY to sit. My tailbone hurt so bad that I started alternately skipping classes so that I didn't have more than one hour to sit at a time. Some days, I would walk back to dorms and even just the walking was agony for me.

X-rays revealed a longer than normal tailbone (yeah, I had a tail) and my doctor prescribed me anti-inflammatories which did nothing for my tailbone pain, but were incidentally miraculous for my menstrual pain.

I failed two courses that term. I had NEVER failed anything in my life.

That summer, I went through a series of treatments to try to fix the problem. First, manual adjustment under general anesthesia (if you can't figure it out, just trust me, you don't want to know). Next, an extremely painful x-ray guided cortisone shot. Nothing helped.

Finally, at the end of August, the last option presented to me was to remove the lower portion of my tailbone... the coccyx part. My surgeon felt it would be effective and so the date was set. And the day before I was to leave for my third year of university, I made the decision to take time off for the surgery.

Suddenly, my life was empty. My purpose for 14 years had been to study. I started to flounder.

The surgery came and went. Two days in the hospital and I was sent home with a scar that "not even my future husband would be able to notice" and this:

Yes, being medically inclined, I asked the surgeon if I could keep my coccyx and he obliged. (The "Do you want to see my tailbone?" joke never gets old for me!)

A few weeks later, my incision had not healed up properly and I was readmitted to the hospital for two weeks to manage an infection. Twice, I had to go to the OR for debridement (cleaning out) and packing of the wound. I didn't realize just how large my wound was until I became a nurse. When I left the hospital, my wound was about 2 inches deep and 2 inches wide. Here is a picture of the amount of packing that was required at first:

That same summer, I had begun to realize that while medical school interested me, the life of a doctor did not. I became aware that being the kind of wife and mother I wanted to be would be incredibly difficult as a doctor. My dream, my parents' dream, my teachers' dream... I let it go. But I didn't know what to replace it with. And so I floundered some more.

And then, that same summer, I fell in love. I gave my heart away and it got broken. Bad. Real bad.

Suddenly, I had nothing. No purpose, no direction, no love. I hit rock bottom and I hit it hard.

And I stopped caring.

First I stopped caring if I lived. Then I stopped caring what people thought or expected of me. Then I stopped caring about things that didn't matter, like rigid schedules or unimportant rules.

And then I was free.

It took a long time to recover from that very low place and I have returned to it twice more, and also suffered with postpartum depression twice.

But each time I recovered, I was different. I felt more, both in sadness and in joy. I understood emotion more. Life was less about success and accomplishments, schedules and routines. Life was more about people.

If you didn't know me before my depression, you may be surprised to hear that I was more rigid and more strict than I am now. Yes, it is true. I was more rigid and strict than I am now. It is possible. Just ask my brother how stressed out I'd get if he messed up any of my schedules (I am quite sure he would do it on purpose).

Depression is very misunderstood and a lot of people suffer privately because of the social stigma attached. I try to be very open about my experience of depression in the hopes that I can promote understanding and compassion.

...because it's not all bad. My depression freed me.