This is me.
I took this picture of myself on January 20, 2006, on the day after my final therapy session for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For 23 years, I suffered from PTSD, psychogenic amnesia, anxiety, and depression; and, on the day I took this picture, I was, according to the experts, “cured” of mental illness.
I was free.
This is the face that I hid from the world for 23 years of my life. On the day that I took this picture, I was face-to-face with the reality that I had spent 23 years living a lie. The time had come for a change. So, I took this picture, stuck it on my wall, and said good-bye to mental illness. It was time to move on and get going with my life. Time for new challenges and great journeys.
But I have been there, in the dark place.
I took this picture so that I would never forget.
My name is Scott Davis, and when I was 13 years old, I was sexually assaulted by a family friend. Due to the violence of the attack and the resulting trauma, I developed a condition known as selective amnesia. In other words, I completely repressed the memories of the attack, and, for the next 21 years, I had no memory that it had ever happened.
But I didn’t forget. Instead, I spent the next 21 years cycling in and out of severe depression. Much later, I would also learn that I was suffering from anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Finally, on top of all that, I also had mild dissociative identity disorder (DID) resulting from the amnesia. Because I had no memories of being assaulted, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I thought that I was going insane. So, I did the only thing I could. I hid it all from everyone.
Desperation
In 2002, the situation became desperate. I was a wreck. I was losing control of the depression, and things got progressively worse until my wife finally encouraged me to get professional help. I went to our family doctor, and he officially diagnosed me with major depression.
Over the next three years, I went to therapy, took medication, and read every book on recovering from depression that I could get my hands on.
Finally, in 2004, I beat depression and was given a clean “mental bill of health.” Our son was born, and we were buying our first house. I had a rewarding and lucrative new career. I was ready and willing to get on with my life. Things were looking up.
Or so I thought.
One night, in June 2005, it all came crashing down. My amnesia ended, and all the memories of the assault came flooding back.
Anyone who has been through serious trauma can tell you all about flashbacks. They take you right back to the event. And so, that night, I knew that I had been sexually assaulted by a man who I trusted.
Suddenly, everything became clear. I wasn’t insane after all. The depression, and all the mental problems, were caused by this assault and the trauma it caused. Things began to make sense.
However, I was lost. I was paralyzed and betrayed. I felt like I had been living a stranger’s life for 21 years. All my gains and achievements felt cheap and empty, and my bright new future seemed like a very distant and foolish dream. I didn’t know what to do.
After my “memory breakthrough,” I began therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative identity disorder. Because I had spent 3 years in therapy for depression, I already had many of the recovery tools that I needed, and my therapy went very quickly. I recovered from PTSD and DID in a few months. My “real” recovery, however, did not go as quickly.
They say that you never really recover from trauma; you just survive it. I still suffer from the effects of the assault. Sometimes I get anxiety, and sometimes I have nightmares, but I am able to manage these things and lead a normal life.
However, in many ways, I am starting my life over. When I took that picture in January 2006, I knew that I had fully recovered from mental illness. However, I didn’t know what was next. For 23 years, I defined myself as “crazy” and I hid from the world. Now, I was looking at my life, and my future, in an entirely different light. I had hope. Sure, I still had challenges, and I still had a lot of work to do, but for the first time in my life, I had hope that things would get better.
They did. That’s why I am here.
Why I started FindingYourMarbles.com
When I began treatment for depression, there were many resources available to help me recover from mental illness. However, I found that there were few resources available to help me learn how to live with mental illness. For example, there was little information available about how to stay organized or plan your time when you suffer from depression. The information that was available was either very condescending, or it required a huge investment of time and energy to get started. This was a major problem for me, since I was trying to hold down a career and keep a marriage together at the same time as I was recovering from depression.
I also found that the therapy and the anti-depressant medication had side effects that were affecting my life, and there was very little information available to help me deal with these side effects. In short, I needed advice on how to get through life, and I needed it fast.
Finding my Marbles
I started doing some research online, and I found some online depression communities where I could go and discuss my problems with others. These communities were a great source of support and I got a lot of advice there, but I found that most people were in the same boat that I was. They needed advice from a “sufferer’s perspective” on how to get through their lives, but they didn’t know how to do it or where to go to find it. The advice they were getting was either from people who didn’t understand mental illness, or the skills were too difficult to learn for someone who is struggling with a mental condition. Finally, I decided to come up with the advice on my own.
So, I began reading. I read everything that I could; from books on carpentry to self-help manuals, I read them all. I tried different ways of doing things, and I kept track of the ones that worked. Eventually I had a bunch of little “life tricks” that helped me live with mental illness. Some of them were simple, like buying a pill reminder to track my meds; and some were a little more tricky, like learning “grounding” techniques for managing panic attacks. I kept the ones that worked, fixed the ones that didn’t, and wrote them all down.
I started FindingYourMarbles.com because I want to share the things that I’ve learned. I am convinced that learning these skills and tricks helped give me the strength and confidence to recover from mental illness, and I want to pass on this strength to you. It is my gift.
More importantly, I want FindingYourMarbles.com to serve as an inspiration to anyone who is suffering from mental illness. You can do anything. Don’t let the world convince you that there is something wrong with you just because you are different. The world is wrong. You are perfectly normal and you can do anything.
Finally, I believe very strongly in my work. Depression stole my hope. I was trapped in that dark place. I felt like I had no future, and that my life wasn’t worth living.
I know how it feels to have no hope. I am here to tell you that there is hope. You can overcome mental illness. All you need to do is learn to trust yourself.
You can be free.
And you can find your marbles, because you never lost them.
Thank you for visiting FindingYourMarbles.com.
Scott
