“Finding my way out of depression meant that I had to stand up for myself.”

When I first started high school, I was into all kinds of things, like the swim team and working on the video yearbook. I was doing pretty well in my classes and I had my group of friends. It was a big high school and there was lots going on.

But when I was going into grade 10, I just lost interest in all that. I got really into movies, watching them one after another for hours. My hair got pretty nasty and greasy. I slept a lot too.

My mom got really worried about me and I had to go to this shrink who specializes in First Nations issues. At this point I understood that I was depressed. I had seen the posters and all that.

This doctor kept asking me about all this terrible stuff, and I kept telling him that no, I didn’t sniff or get wasted all the time, and neither did my mom. I didn’t hit anyone and no one hit me, and no, I hadn’t been raped or abused. After a while I felt like making something up, but finally I got mad and said to him and my mom, “Look, I am not just a depressed INDIAN, I am a depressed PERSON.”

That shut them all up. The doctor got a funny look on his face and said ok, let’s try it this way, and gave me a prescription for antidepressants. The first ones didn’t do anything except I had this crazy dry mouth all the time. After taking the other ones for about a month, though, I started feeling better. (Or maybe I had just seen all the movies in the world. LOL.)

It took a while, but I feel like me again.