It's about 1 a.m. and after a long day and a much needed talk with my sister, I feel it neccesary to revisit my blog. I think it's time to address some issues I've been dealing with. I've failed to deal with these issues when they occurred, and I have failed to this date in coping with these issues. I'm a pretty blunt person so I'll just air it out. I'm Josh Wilks, and I'm dealing with depression and anxiety. As I speak this ordeal into existence, it already relinquishes weight I have been carrying literally my entire livelihood. From being the innocent child belonging to the streets of Englewood in Chicago to the young man holding his Associate's degree writing on his MacBook to detail, in extent, the worry of his existence.
When people throw around the word depression, instantly, suicidal becomes paired with it, almost as if the two are interchangeable. I mean, most of the symptoms that plague people with depression are what leads most people to ponder suicide. Hell, having suicidal thoughts is a symptom of depression. See, depression is a taboo subject within our society, especially within African-American male circles. Depression represents weakness, inferiority, subservience, pessimism. And for a man, who is supposed to be the dominant, powerful, leader, it is a silent killer. Why? Because it almost never gets spoken into existence. Being a man dealing with the restraints of being depressed dilutes you from the group. Natural selection, survival of the fittest takes place. Men aren't always the best when it comes to empathy but come tops to judgement and ostracizing. That is why I believe most men never speak of their depression. Well, that is surely why I haven't spoke on mine, until now. I need to release.
My issues of self practically started when I was young. I wasn't the most athletic, nor the best looking, well-off, etc, etc. And people definitely let me know it too. Sometimes when pickup games went on in the gym or on the block, I often didn't get picked. I have many memories sitting in the bleachers or on the concrete wanting to play ball, football or whatever. I remember looking at the sheets girls made to rate guys in the class and I was consistently a 3 or 4. I remember being picked on because my shoes or clothes weren't brand name. I remember being called big lip because of the Wilks family trademark big bottom lip. I got picked on and bullied everyday in grammar school and I spent many nights crying to my mom about the new slurs or gestures that would be made at me. You couldn't tell kids that my mom was unemployed or that I had to microwave a mixing bowl of water so me and my sister can wash up before school or that anything we ate during that time had to be cooked in a toaster oven. How can kids know that my mom tried everything inside her constantly to make sure we never starved or froze to death or were homeless. I couldn't imagine owning a pair of Air Force 1's or Jordan's at the time, it was out the question. There were times when I couldn't get a haircut so my hair was resembling every black actor on Roots. When I transferred schools in seventh grade, things got really worse. I got threatened to get beat up just because the kids at my school smelled weakness in me. And often those threats were made reality as I had to hide many bruises coming home from school because I got my ass beat in the bathroom or in the art room, wherever. Just to get people in my favor, I would do people's homework sometimes, let them cheat off my paper in class, let them have something they wanted off my lunch trey even though there were days there wasn't much to eat at home, and even gave them the change my sisters or mom would give so me and my little sister could buy candy or chips at the corner store. I did all this because I was afraid to say no, because if I said that, I believed the crap situation I was in could get worse. I didn't want to imagine how worse it could get. I have to say the lowest I have been is when a girl I naturally liked and crushed on started dating me out of the blue in eighth grade. I was hesitant at first, very skeptical of her true intentions as to why she could have struck an interest in me all of a sudden when she couldn't notice me before. But, of course, I eventually got full of myself and let it run its course. Just when I think a good thing has happened, I found out she dated me because someone bet her five dollars to date me for two weeks. After she told me what was up and we stopped doing whatever we were doing, she started spreading all kinds of miserable things about me and let's just say had I got hit by a bus at this time I wouldn't even question why it was my time to go. I was ready to get the hell out of grammar school.
One thing I had going for me, or at least I thought I had going for me, was intelligence. I often got good grades in school, being on honor roll, winning science fairs, spelling bees and more. I never thought too much about these things but my family always told me about my potential and how I was meant to do great things. That I was special. And I believed it. I needed something to keep me afloat so I didn't drown in negativity. Seeking a change, I decided to enroll at Whitney Young, a top magnet school in Chicago to seek a new fortune, but most importantly, start over as a person. I remember back in an old piece I wrote just before I graduated, when I said going to Whitney Young was one of the best experiences of my life. I only gave a half-truth. It presented me with many of the toughest moments of my life.
I felt that being in a high school full of intellectuals like me would benefit me to a high extreme. I would be able to meet people who didn't care that I wasn't wearing designer clothes or shoes, call me Arthur because I wore glasses or call me big lip or anything else I had to endure before. I thought my transition to being a teenager would be the end of my adolescent misery. But, truthfully, it was the beginning of a new saga of trials. From the jump, I had trouble fitting in with my new classmates because even though there were many people who were smart just like me, there still existed hierachies when it came to social status. I don't think I was ever going to escape that. I went to school with people who's parents were lawyers, business owners, politicians, engineers and other high, honorable mentions. My mother hadn't gotten her bachelor's degree yet. The wealth gap was more evident than most, as lots of kids came from good neighborhoods, got cars as soon as they got their license and went to travel to other cities and countries in the summer. If you couldn't make an inference on your own, I'm sure you could put me in whatever group was outside of cool or well-liked. Some of my issues from grammar school carried over into high school. I still dealt with issues of insecurity and envy as I spent most of my first two years wishing I was as privileged, secure or even as happy as most of my classmates. After a few months of going through the rigorous curriculum WY presented, I felt that I wasn't so special as my family and teachers told me. My grades were mediocre compared to kids who were taking classes as underclassmen in upperclassmen courses. I remember many times not being able to relate to any of the guys when they were talking about the parties they went to, the girls they were messing with or their excursions from last night or the weekend. My feelings of being an outsider got pushed to the extreme. My upperclassmen days weren't any more pleasant. I spent most of my time sitting on the bench on the football team, getting my ass beat going home, getting robbed multiple times and bouncing from place to place because of instability at home. If there was any a time I felt different, it was my last few years in the city. I had to give people a facade that I was ok and that my life was going in a good direction when I was actually in some of the lowest moments I have ever experienced. There was one time I was taking a train home from school and I got off on my usual stop, 69th street on the red line. Instead of going west towards my home, I sat down and held my head against the glass that encases the station doing and thinking about absolutely nothing. I felt exhausted, defeated. I was tired.
Eventually, my time in Chicago had run its course and I decided a change of scenery was due for me. I moved down to Champaign-Urbana where I would hope leave the turmoil from my past behind as I was sure to experience better things, in a smaller, quiet setting. I started myself off in junior college and got myself a job to coincide. Things were looking up for me. But, I once again let myself down. During my two years spent down here, while I did experience my best years yet academically, getting a 3.9 GPA through four semesters of college, I personally managed to fall within some deep dwells in efforts to cope without a sense of self. Time to get a little artsy.
Envy. Everyday, I yearned to be able to do what my other classmates were doing while away at school. Socializing, relaxing, enjoying life, taking advantage of everything their current opportunity presented them. There were times where getting on social media frustrated me because my life was no where near comparable.
Depreciation. I spent all of my time either working, studying or sleeping. There was nothing in between. There were days I would get up and go to school, immediately go to work, get off work late and try to do an assignment that is due in about a half an hour and then possibly sleep for three hours if time allowed. Now repeat that for two years until May 8th and you have my daily routine. There were times where I was grinding so hard that eventually my sleep schedule was nonexistent and my nerves were off-whack. Fatigue set in at times where I needed focus the most. My worst battles were during night time trying to go to sleep. This is when my anxiety kicked in. I would say it was an accomplishment to get anywhere close to the six to eight hours doctors say you should sleep every night. Days when I didn't have anything to do, I ended up wasting, sleeping close to 13 hours and past 1:00pm. Most nights I got only a few hours, more than often I was waking up after every quarter hour or so because so many things weighed heavily on me. Instead of laying my head down to begin my circadian rhythm, I found myself walking/pacing through my home in a senseless manner, sometimes talking to myself. When I wasn't doing that, I was probably just sitting in my bed just staring at the wall. Or I could have been experiencing one of many panic attacks I have where I think my heart just stops out of nowhere or I feel my chest tensing up or such. Funny things about this, I definitely was not feeling this physically. My mind was playing tricks on me that I am on the verge of dying. And it terrified me.
Loneliness, exclusion, seclusion. I'm not truly alone down here. I stay with my sister and her husband in their home in the countryside of town. No too far is another older sister and my nephew within town. I have plenty of classmates who attend the University of Illinois just a couple minutes away from home. However, my isolation from everything couldn't be more stronger. I spent lots of days walking around campus on my own just in observation. Any time I wasn't in class in Parkland, I was studying or napping in the lounge chairs a little walk from the checkout desk in the library. When at home, I spent most of my time locked in my room wasting my time on my computer or phone. I didn't spend so much time alone because I couldn't get along with anyone or because I didn't know anyone. I love my sisters, nephew and brother in law. Family will always be family. I have a nice personal relationship with many people at work and once in a blue moon I'd agree to go out on an excursion with the crew. At school, I got acquainted with many people who were on the same journey as me. People who thought just like I did, had similar life experiences and were pretty genuine. I just preferred to be on my own because I just could not develop a connection with anyone strong enough to break the chains I placed on myself. I was afraid to show people who I really was or that if people knew some of the issues I was going through or held me back, I wouldn't be accepted. It didn't help that most of the people I kept around me were so much older than me. That barrier was just too big for me to jump. While I may have some life experiences that have shaped me, I didn't quite share theirs or have the credibility they have built. A lasting memory I have from my time down here comes from the latest Unofficial that went down. After work, my coworkers and I decided to go out on the town. I got rejected from every bar we went to because I was too young and I ended up on campus by myself just lingering around. I decided to try and meet up with some old classmates to see what they were up to. While trying to meet up with them was a failure, I ended up putting myself in a bad situation. I came across a scene where a drunk student had gotten beat up and robbed and I was the obvious oddball around everyone else on campus that day. I got approached and questioned by cops. It didn't help that I carried an expired ID with me. Somehow, I got out of the situation. During that extremely cold evening, I walked a couple miles to the Amtrak station and called a cab to take me home.
If you've made it this far through my essay, you now have an idea of the context and extent to where my issues lie. I know that most seem pretty petty or whiny, but through the mind of a young boy who never had a hard constitution, it was the equivalent of the big bad wolf destroying his straw house. While you can say that over time I should have gotten over these things, as most are simply juvenile encounters, they managed to stay with me all the way into my early twenties. How? Well, instead of talking these issues out or slowing releasing these tumultuous events from my hands, I threw them onto the sled with all my other baggage I never fully addressed and carried them with me through life. Such an unhealthy way to go, but it was the only way I knew. As a guy, I didn't feel comfortable telling someone about my depression, opening myself up for judgment and dehumanization. I felt that I would be excluded even more than I already was and people wouldn't even view me as a man anymore. Ultimately, I knew these things would become too much for me, I just never knew when. Ultimately, how I handled being poor, insecure, negative, and the trials that were placed before me led to the state I am in now. Where I always feel like I am compensating for something I think I don't have or want. The problem wasn't that I let these things break me down, its because I had absolutely no belief that I was worthy of anything. There have been times when I felt like nothing and truly believed it for quite a long period of time. That belief stuck just like leeches, sucking every bit of life out of me, bit by bit until no more could be taken. I've heard and experienced so many negative things consistently about/to myself that I became convinced that I am exactly what people say about me and more. As I admit to these discrepancies, I only feel the worst type of feeling is that I disappointed my family and most likely, my mom. My mom was always on my side and was there for me to give me uplifting words when I needed them. Same for my many brothers and sisters. I was never without an ear to tell my problems to and they all believed in the person I would soon become. I feel like I let them down.
One day, I was going through my Facebook timeline and came across the story of Madison Holleran, a former track student-athlete at the University of Pennsylvania, featured on espnW. She had the ideal life. Came from a well-off family who sent her to private school. In high school, she was an accomplished student, track and soccer star. She, just like many of her friends, got accepted and attended very prestigious schools. Madison seemed very social as she was a heavy Instagram user, which profiled her life on campus in Philadelphia. As great as Madison's life was through pictures, she was dealing with very dark demons. Madison committed suicide January 2014, jumping from the ninth level of a parking garage in downtown Philly, one hour from just posting a picture of a park on her feed. Her family and friends were shocked. There was no indication that Maddy was experiencing any type of trouble or that anything was bothering her. And I'm sure that was what is making her death hard for anyone close to her to cope with. Here is where my motivation to deal with my issues came from. While I would not deem myself suicidal by any extent, I understand that depression can drive you to extreme lengths, lengths i never want to see. A woman completely polar opposite from me on the outside, deemed her life no longer worth living. Beneath her beauty, dedication, success and liveliness, laid dormant an emptiness, isolated, insecurity that drove her off the cliff. These same issues plague me at this exact moment and that is what leads me to express my thoughts to everyone. No one knew what was going on in Madison's head and what drove her to take her life. I have learned through her struggle, that I need to make a change within myself so that people I love and are close to me don't have to share the same despair and tragedy.
Depression to an extent is a disease. It starts as a thought and spreads and spreads until it it stopped. If it is not stopped, it will keep spreading until it consumes your being and kills you. Depression is also just a problem, that many of us have yet we ignore. The one great thing about problems, is that they have solutions. Before I even typed a word to this post, I devised of many ways I would solve my problem. One, I have to talk to a therapist or counselor about my issues. For so long i have believed that I can beat these issues on my own. And for a long time i have failed to eradicate them from existence. Therefore, I can not trust myself and must take actions to make sure I get proper treatment and help so that my existence is never in danger of myself. Two, I will have to give myself time to allow my troubles to unload themselves as i go through my shift of thinking. Mainly, i have to allot myself time to deal with my issues of self and that eventually, I will build the assurance and confidence that life has so much to offer than what I think it does for me. Before, I was not willing to be patient and let my problems diffuse. Now, I am. Third, and most important, so important that if this isn't done any other step is just null and void, I have to get every bit of enjoyment and pleasure out of life as I can, no matter what. Even if I have to enjoy things on my own, I have to enjoy them. Although I didn't think much of my achievements in life, they are my achievements, solely belonging to me. The life experiences I have been through were meant specifically for me to prepare me for what I am now and will be. Compared to high school, I actually have done a good job in allowing the metamorphosis occur from being a boy to a man, one that hopes to be the pillar of my family and alleviate the pressures I have felt growing up bringing us prosperity. I have worked hard to get everything I have and to stay alive to tell my story to you all. I believe in modesty as honesty, but sometimes you have to let yourself know you are supreme and exude greatness that lays within. Before I close out, I want anyone suffering from depression to do something about it. Get help. Don't be afraid to talk to someone or deal with your demons. It can mean the difference from your people in tears of joy celebrating you or in tears of disbelief from death. The hardest part is starting the conversation that us as humans have forbidden.
http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12833146/instagram-account-university-pennsylvania-runner-showed-only-part-story
