My Battle with Life & Depression

Hello my name is Leslie for those of you who do not know me. I'm a 16 year old girl who is a christian and loves life. If you have met me between now and last July then all you really know is the girl with an active imagination, but I was not always that girl.

Like many of us, I have story; sad, tragic, whatever you'd like to call it, but I call it a testimony. Something I dealt with that sucked but ultimately changed who I was. And I'm about to tell you it. Now this will be long and I'm not going to rush through it like I usually do, thinking people don't want to hear what I have to say, no. I'm going to 'tell' my story this time, not just summarize it. What make my story so long is because it evolves someone else's story, not just mine. So... Here it goes.

We spent a lot of time with my grandparents on my mother's side (we call my grandmother Nenaw and my grandfather Granddaddy) my grandfather had diabetes and didn't take very good care of himself so as he got older he began to have health issues due to it.

He joined the army at a young age and after he became a cop, so he was active but didn't eat the right things like he should. He had a heart attack when I was little (around 3 or 4) I don't remember much except being at the hospital with him.

Fast forward 6 years later when I was 10. 10 wasn't the best age for me. I had a huge fear of the dark due to hallucination I had at night that was because of a chemical imbalance in my brain involving the serotonin levels. My mother also has this and it was passed down. It can cause depression, anxiety, lack of sleep, hallucinations, all sorts of problems but at the time we didn't realize what exactly was going on. I was 10 and wasn't the best at describing my feelings or my fears so yeah.

I remember my grandfather visiting the hospital a lot. At the age I was, I didn't know much but this was the beginning of a long ordeal. The blood circulation wasn't the best in his feet and it got worst due to his diabetes (in severe cases, diabetes can cause you to get your feet/toes/legs amputated) I remember them telling us that he will have to get a couple of his toes amputated and it was going to be fine. My best friend and her family lived with us so for a while they took care of us while my parents were busy going to the hospital and helping my grandma out.

Couple months later we ended up moving into my grandparents house to help them out while my best friend ended up moving to Oregon for several months (yeah, great timing)

I was home schooled and had just started 6 grade when we got settled with them. I went to my church's youth group where I quickly figured out that I wasn't good at making friends. I relied on my older brother and best friend so much that when she left and he got his own friends, I had no idea what to do or how to socialize with kids my age. I was always around adults more than kids my age so this freaked me out. My anxiety worsened, fear of the dark didn't get much better and now, I didn't have any friends I could talk to (11 year old's didn't have phones, at least we didn't)

My grandfather's health didn't get better. A couple of toes went to all of them and that from one foot to doing both feet. (electric wheelchairs are not a good invention for him. Our walls still have marks from when he ran into the door frames) I remember when I first felt depressed. It was after a softball game my dad had and I had just came home to change. I was going to go to the water park in a couple days and I remember not wanting to go out or do anything. I felt alone and like life wasn't fun anymore.

I honestly thought I was going crazy. I couldn't believe that this was a normal thing, specially for my age. For a while I never talked about it because I thought if I did my parents would think I was crazy or that I was being dramatic. (LIES) so I went on. Made some friends, had my first crush and got my best friend back. (but she has never gotten used to the Texas weather since then.. -_-) life was good. On the outside.

Then my grandfather had to amputate both his legs from below the knee, down. At this time, hospitals and medical care was nothing new. It became part of our life to wash our hands often, wear mask if someone got sick so we didn't pass it to him, help him out, check up on him.

This man was not an uptight guy. He rarely complained about his situation and always made jokes about how short he had gotten. He'd wake us up screaming and scaring us, only to ask if we wanted to go get sonic. He'd also blare his music while I did my school and blasted the base. So yeah, he was basically a 20 year old guy trapped in a 50 year old's body. But he never gave up. Not once.

He was told that many people gave up and didn't ever learn to use prosthetic legs. Of course he took that as a challenge and went to physical therapy wearing a smile.

During all this I told my parents about my problems and they put me on a low dose of Lexapro. Which ended up helping a lot.

So by this time I was now 12, living with them for about a year now and getting along pretty well. He was doing good and didn't have much problems until a couple months later where he got a staff infection. A month in a hospital and he was out, but now he had to rest and he lost a lot of his strength and had to start over again with therapy.

But that didn't stop him.

He became the only man to ever walk out of that place with prosthetic legs. He inspired many people and he refused to give up. Fast forward a year later. Everything was great! he was doing well, things settled down. finally! No more hospitals.

Then bam! Another staph infection...




Okay, that's fine. We can do this!

Another couple of months in the hospital and he was out. (did I mentioned that hospitals now, were a normal place to be for me. He was there a lot)

Fast forward 7 months later. We are ready to move out, everything is good again and nothing can stop us!

He ended up falling onto the hot drive way in the middle of the Texas summer while he was trying to get into his car (yes, hand controls are awesome) he ended up breaking his hip. We didn't bother getting an x-ray because it was a waste of money, it had to heal naturally anyway so they couldn't help.

So we stayed and helped him to recover, hoping that this will one day be done. I am now 14 and my knowledge of what has happened over the years has expanded. I'm getting worried about him and fear that this will never get better. It was suffocating to me.

One night while we were at a place called yogurt land, eating yogurt after church with some friends we got a call. Something was wrong and my grandma called 9-1-1 he was in terrible pain. Now my grandfather never tells my grandmother that something is wrong but this time he did and we knew it was serious.

We rushed home and my aunt (best friend's mother) spent the night with us while they met my grandparents at the hospital. To this day I'm not sure what exactly happened but the doctors said it seemed like a minor heart attack since evidence of one was in his blood stream (something like that) but now something else was wrong. He had a severe pain in his leg and they couldn't figure out what was going on. Another month in the hospital with test and other such things. Finally there was nothing more they could do for him besides give him pain medication. They gave us a choice to but him in hospice but we decided to take him home and believe for his healing.

He never gave up.


I cried one day worried about him thinking he was going to die, in which he hugged me and made me laugh by telling a joke and telling me he loved me...

November 11th, 2010. Thursday morning the day after my brother's birthday, Granddaddy had passed away. I woke up to my parents waking us up (me and my brother and sister share a room.) I thought it was unusual since we were going to the home school lunch my church was having but it seemed way to early. They told my brother to come sit beside me on me and my sisters bed and my heart dropped. I saw the living room light was on and several people in there. I immediately asked if Granddaddy was okay and when they began to say "He was in a lot of pain...and his body was stressed" I knew.

Shock is the worse thing to experience. Half of your mind is in a dream state, while the other is trying to bring you back to reality of the now forever changed, life.

We wanted to still go to the home school lunch, mainly because me and my brother couldn't handle being in the house at this moment. I walked out to go change seeing my family members silently staring at me as I walked past the living room, trying to hold back my tears as I headed to the bathroom. Paramedics walking in and out of the house.

When I finally got into our van I saw the black Hurst, an ambulance, police car, and dark clouds just begging to pour.

After the lunch we went to the mall with my best friend and her family whom gratefully took us wherever we wanted to go to help us get away from it all. We returned home and just mindlessly watched TV and talked before we passed out from exhaustion.

This is when my life and my health declined rapidly.


After his Death it hit me hard. He was a very close friend to me and I looked up to him. For a while I became angry, angry at myself and god. After a couple week's went by (The night before thanksgiving) I died my hair blonde (I'm a natural brunette so big change) with black underneath like the singer Avril Lavigne. That was the start of it. I didn't want to look like myself anymore. I didn't want to be reminded of him or anything, I wanted to move on and forget. 

I wore heavy black eye shadow all the time, dark clothes and basically rarely smiled, when I did it wasn't genuine like it used to be. This was over a period of months. After that I also started to gain weight, which caused me to hate the way I looked and become insecure. My mind began to venture to darker things, There were days where I couldn't stay awake or leave my bed because I was so depressed and exhausted. It took me a while before I went anywhere or did anything.

I know I probably sound dramatic or whatever to you but I wasn't a dramatic person, I kept myself closed off and I honestly thought I was doing fine on my own. I wrote in my journal about my thoughts and looking back, it wasn't the best place...

I'm an artist so it was much easier to draw out my thoughts and emotions instead of saying them. Those drawings are gone and probably didn't even finish the final stages before I ripped them apart.

I cut once because I couldn't handle the anxiety I started to feel about everyday life. I dreaded waking up and simply having to go through another day of felling hollow. Luckily I knew that, that road was a hard one to get out of so I didn't allow myself to do it again

As the months past my family began to notice that I wasn't getting better and the grief wasn't subsiding. A year past and it just got worse. I contemplated whether or not my life was worth it, whether I even had a purpose here or if anyone would miss me if I took my last breath. I let those thoughts wander in and out instead of changing the subject in my head. I thought of ways and what would be the aftermath of such a task. This, was the first time I didn't feel like living, was worth it.

One time it got so bad that a sat on the floor screaming into a pillow. Yelling at god and begging for something to change. I couldn't take this and I was done. 15 years old and I wanted nothing more then to be free of the prison. And I would have done it too, but I couldn't. I did not allow myself to leave my family like that, I couldn't handle my little sister growing up thinking why I did what I did or how she wasn't strong enough either.

So I played a game. I'm stubborn and so I told myself, as bluntly as it sounds, that I had two options; tough it out until it gets better and have one heck of a story or die by giving up and showing weaknesses.

So, I made my choice. I told my mother about it since she dealt with them before and got me some help. I was put into counseling which did help me and I was put on a higher dose of meds and added some more, trying to figure out what worked best.

This wasn't a fun part.

Some meds made me even more depressed, some more anxious, to energetic or just did nothing. This lasted for a good 6 month's until we finally got it, decent. Not good but decent, where I could handle it. But sometimes I just felt numb, and to me being numb is a lot worse.

You're not happy, sad, or mad. You walk around like a zombie with no interest in anything or anyone. It's basically... Nothing. Your a person with no emotion what so ever.

After a while of that I ended up finding a dance place called CPAC (Christian Performing Art's Center) at this time I was still blocked off from society and saying hi or making friends was out of the question. But for no particular reason, I joined. I don't know why because I never like dancing and I couldn't dance at all! But I did.

The first class everyone was so open and happy and they acted like they knew me for years, it made me feel like I was wanted and it felt like these people actually liked who I was. The dancing was hard and I was behind on everything so it stressed me out. But these two great guys told me after every practice how well I improved and how much they enjoyed having me.

I always tended to blend in so when they did this, I felt that much more special.

I still didn't smile and my dancing was bad but I started to feel like people cared and there was maybe some purpose for me here... Time moved on and it has been over a year since his death. My thoughts were still the same but hope was there. The people at CPAC completely got me to get out of my shy shell and I made friends but it wasn't till I went to my church camp that things changed.

Nothing seemed to changed while I was there but at the last night they said anyone who needed to be set free from something, come to the front and so I did. They prayed over us and we worshiped. I gave it to him and told him I couldn't handle it anymore, I gave him back my life and whatever he wanted to do with it, I'll let him. I didn't feel a change, not until I got home. It had been several weeks and I hadn't been depressed at all. I started to lose we and my insecurity's were replaced with good thoughts about myself. Suicide wasn't at the back of my mind anymore and I began to smile. I heard my chemical romance's song 'The light behind your eyes" for the first time and I cried. It was like it was written for me, I had that light back. I was me again I wasn't a scared depressed girl. I was me. I never felt truly happy until now...

It has been almost 3 years since his death. I still have days that I miss him and I still have issues simply because that's life. But I haven't been depressed in a year now. I'm back down to one prescription and beginning to slowly lower my dose. I'm a 16 year old girl who's proud of herself.

Something I have NEVER been able to say before. When I'm bored, I smile for no reason simply because, I'm happy. I can breathe again. What I went through was a traumatic experience for me. I watched my grandfather be yanked back into the abyss numerous times and wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and not wake up. But Its over now.

My story may not be the worse but the effect it had on me was huge. The outcome was even greater. I saw and felt what it was like to be trapped in the abyss and I came out.




My name is Leslie and I love me.

Sincerely, a girl with a complex mind.