Figuring out who he really was in the midst of middle school drama was a battle that nearly ended Andy Branham*’s life during seventh grade.
Andy, junior, has been diagnosed with depression since seventh grade after a suicide attempt left him with bleeding wrists on a bathroom floor. According to Andy, he had been struggling with his identity for too long, and he could no longer handle it.
“We were just stunned and speechless,” Cindy Branham, Andy’s mom, said. “My husband is a doctor, and I’m a nurse, so we thought we would be aware of signs concerning this. Yet we were blown away when we heard what happened.”
Andy’s parents took him to St. Anthony’s Hospital, where he stayed for 11 days and went back two more times within a three-month span in 2009. While the anti-depressants and the hospital time helped, the depression never really went away, and it was still life-consuming. The self-harm started again shortly after his hospitalization, because it was a way for Andy to deal with his emotions.
“It really is an addiction. It had been my way of dealing with the stress instead of talking with my parents or therapist,” Andy said. “It was just a lot of self-worth issues, and having thoughts that I wasn’t worth being happy or that my problems weren’t worth troubling my parents with.”
Eventually, Andy’s parents found out he had fallen back into his old pattern of handling emotions. Since then, they try to be as attentive to Andy as they can, and their relationship has improved tenfold, according to Andy’s mom.
“When we found out he was cutting again, I remember him saying, ‘I thought you knew and didn’t care,’ and that absolutely broke my heart,” Cindy said. “It really made me tune into his feelings more, and it’s made us much closer.”
While relapses of sadness have occurred, Andy knows he can always turn to his parents when he finds himself struggling. At KHS, he found another support system in his friends, who not only make him happy, but who listen when he needs them to.
“I don’t think about [my depression] as often as I would anymore,” Andy said. “There are a lot of things you can talk to about with friends that I wouldn’t normally tell an adult, and that’s really great to have.”
While family, friends and the administration have helped and comforted Andy, he knows the depression never truly goes away. He has also come to the realization that time helped fix most of the wounds.
“I know it sounds cheesy, but it does really get better, and too often kids don’t realize that and it ends badly for them or their families,” Andy said. “It gets easier and you really just have to stick with it.”
