I kept out of gangs, drugs in high school. But I can't escape online-school depression.

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Some people seem to fit so seamlessly into society. They make success and happiness, the things that I long for, look easy. I understand that it isn’t as easy as it looks. But, for me, it feels so unattainable sometimes.

I have dealt with depression, to some degree, for a long time but these past two years, since the beginning of the pandemic, have been much worse. 

In the eyes of many people, including elders in my family, I’m a successful Black man for staying in school, graduating, going to college, and for all the "nots" – not getting caught up in gangs or drugs or any of that. But I don’t feel like a success. Not at all. And when I think about all the people worse off than me, the ones that weren't afforded the opportunities to my supposed "success," it just makes me more depressed.

How did this happen?

As if my battery can't hold a charge

I think a lot about how I got to feeling this way. I could attribute some of it to family issues. Mostly the pressure of feeling like the last hope of the family but also having an autistic brother. Dealing with an autistic sibling can be draining, it's a full-time job, and feeling that constant responsibility is even more pressure on my back. 

I could say it was growing up in South Los Angeles, and never feeling safe taking a walk to the liquor store. A few years ago, a man was shot to death right in front of our house. That had me paranoid for months. Having to scrub blood stains off the ground, that's some trauma for you. Even still, my environment is not what had me so depressed these past two years.

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When I’m in the lowest low in a bout of depression it feels like I'm sinking. Slowly my mind, my body, my life come to a halt. My room starts to become cluttered, my emails pile up, chores go undone, I spend all day in bed. I just can’t find a reason, on my own, without getting yelled at by someone, to do anything.

During the first months of the pandemic, I got in the habit of never leaving the house. Now, it has become difficult to break that habit. Socializing with people feels exhausting. It’s like I have a social battery inside me that won’t hold a charge.

Graduating on YouTube

During the first months of the pandemic, I began to realize that things weren't going to return to normal as promised in the news or on school newsletters. The uncertainty left me stranded and my mental health began to suffer.

I managed to finish my classes and get a diploma. The graduation ceremony was on YouTube – short, nervous speeches into a camera by my depressed classmates followed by the assistant principal reading off everyone’s name. It was sad.

We also had a graduation car parade through the school parking lot. That was fun and I appreciated all the teachers and everyone for showing us love. It cheered us all up for a little while. But underneath it all, we felt numb, pacified even. It somehow made the whole pandemic and its mayhem sting just a little more.

I suffer from depression and anxiety. Our mental health is no joke.

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I enrolled in community college and tried to find my motivation. I’m still trying. The hardest part of the transition from high school to college was that there was no transition. None whatsoever. I was logging in to class on the same computer in the same house as I had been for distance high school. I kept trying to imagine my future out in the world but that kept getting harder and harder. 

Lately, I’ve been starting to feel like an agoraphobic. Maybe I am one. There are moments when I hate being at home but I can barely imagine being anywhere else.

I try not to ask for help or complain too much which might seem hard to believe after reading my long list of complaints. I'm really quite stoic, as most men are or try to be. The men that came before me in my family struggled so much more than me yet they didn’t whine about it and so why should I?

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It took a lot for me to seek professional help. Last summer it got so bad, I could feel myself slipping away and signed up for counseling.

I would talk with this therapist and it was a relief to have someone to talk to about all this, someone who wasn’t going to judge me. I wish I could say I'm fixed and that my depression has vanished, but I can’t. Maybe I am getting better and I just don’t know it yet.

I'm afraid of getting stuck

I’m trying to get better at understanding myself and thinking about being the person I want to be instead of the person anyone expects me to be. 

What scares me the most is that when the smoke clears, and life returns to some semblance of normalcy, I’ll find myself stuck in the same life and the same mental patterns anyway. I’ll have went through all this pain and grief and have nothing to show for it. But I think I’m strong enough to find a way out of this nightmare.

Ever since I can remember I've dreamed about the life I would like to have. It isn’t here in L.A. It’s not in any city anywhere. I’d like to find a place where a person can have 10 or 15 acres and some animals, and plant things, have a family and a few friends. A simple life. Peace of mind.

I’m afraid that life isn’t really available to someone like me. I’m afraid I’m dreaming about some ridiculous version of the past.

Maybe I’ll figure out something more realistic and how to get myself to get there but in the meantime I might need a ridiculous dream to keep me going. I can't understand why, but I'm actually optimistic heading into the new year. These past two years have shown me that depression can take away your time, your energy, your whole life, if you let it.

This go 'round, I'm not letting it take from me anymore.  I’m more accustomed to the pressures and pains of this new COVID life I'm living so it's not so debilitating anymore. Things are getting easier.

Eventually it'll be seamless, at least I hope so. Figuring it out one tiny step at a time is what makes this part of our lives so memorable, right? 

Mekhi Williams is a student at Los Angeles Southwest College in South Los Angeles.