Returning from the Hospital
The first day back from the hospital, regardless of how long you're out for, is a scary one. For me, I had just been through a very intense experience where I had to look at my life in ways I had never looked at it before. I had to work to find the root of my depression and figure out what I was going to do to deal with it. And I had to remind myself to think optimistically and use positive coping skills.
It is important to understand that the hospital is a crisis center—they are there solely for the purpose of making sure that kids are safe and their medications are stable, and then they are released. So when I was released from the hospital, I had a lot on my mind. The last thing I could think about was school. But school was there And I was no longer on medical leave and had to be attending.
For someone who is depressed, it is a struggle to get out of bed in the morning, a success if you make it to school. My first week back in school, I did not attend any classes. It was overwhelming enough to get up in the morning and be in the building, surrounded by kids who had no idea of the experience I just went through. I felt isolated from everyone, feeling like no one could understand what I had just been through. When I started attending classes, it was so physically taxing that I would crash after school. However, it was my second week back at school and my teachers expected that I was better and therefore should be beginning my work.
I never told my teachers about my depression, which made it harder for them to understand. And everyday I had to come in, living out a lie that I had been extremely physically ill. I had such a fear that I would be judged and criticized, that I would be classified as weak and dramatic, that I didn't want anyone to know about my depression. Physical illness is much easier for people to understand than mental illness. And because I was often unable to complete my work, I didn't want my teachers to begin thinking of me as a slacker, or someone who was using my depression as an excuse to get out of assignments. Ideally, upon return, a student would work double time to keep up in class and catch up what was missed. However, when battling a daily mental illness and trying to sort through the daily experiences in positive ways, the most that can be expected is that a student would work at half the normal pace.
What I hope from today is that you can take away a better understanding of the struggles of depression and the return from hospitalization so that fellow students and teachers can give appropriate support in helping a student on the road to recovery.
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