A moment of self-awareness

Depression Looks Different for Different People...

After my previous post about depression, I have been thinking about how depression appeared very differently even within members of my own immediate family and I don’t think I’ve made enough space for the depressions of my father and my brother.

By that I mean this: It is interesting because when I think about life-long experiences of chronic depression, I immediately think of my mother. Maybe it’s because of my closer relationship with her and since I identify with her as her depression is more similar to my own in my ways. Like, I often tell people that I also have depression, like my mother.

And yet, there’s almost kind of dark humor there…funny, in an almost ironic way, because of how my father and my brother died. I think suicide is often the result of chronic depression and I certainly think that the case with the both of them and their decision to complete suicide.

A colleague of mine/cohort mate in my doctoral program completed suicide a few years ago. I remember that his obituary read: he died following a heroic battle with depression. I was struck by how it was written, portraying him not as some victim but noting that he fought and that he succumbed to a disease, much like cancer. What a way to honor the struggle of depression.

I also recall the very first psychologist I ever went to—when I stopped sleeping in college at 19. He asked me about my family history. I told him my mother had depression and I said my father didn’t but he was an alcoholic. He pushed back on that a bit and asked me what I thought drove him to drink, implying that he didn’t think that alcoholics weren’t not also depression…that it too could be a form of depression, just manifesting differently.

The truth is—While I do think my father and brother had undiagnosed and untreated mental illnesses… I don’t know what they were; they certainly appeared as depression at the end of their life…perhaps alongside other conditions.

But I don’t really know… I didn’t have that kind of relationship with either one of them to be that forthcoming and one where they would be that vulnerable with me…or maybe with one anyone, even themselves, I don’t know. (I am reminded again about the gendered component to depression and emotional pain; I think men can mask their suffering in ways specifically because of the messages that society sends in how they ought to man up and deal with their shit. I think of how their male friends were shocked and deeply disturbed by their deaths…often commenting on how they didn’t know this was forthcoming.)

I guess I also focus more on my mom’s depression because she was very upfront to me and others about her depression. She sought help for it, at least in taking anti-depressants, for my entire life.

I think many of her symptoms I recognize as being more classic symptoms of depression: not sleeping much, having a hard time getting out of bed at points, lethargic, socially isolated, quiet and withdrawn, very sad and serious at points.

And yet, heeding my own words from a previous blog, depression and other mental illnesses and neurological disorders appear outwardly very differently for many individuals.

Between the many, many alcoholics on both sides of my family, all the intergenerational trauma, and the three suicides, I guess I need to consider the very obvious reality that I come from a long line of people with mental illnesses and disorders as well.

I can’t really trace all of them. There are so many stories of my ancestors and relatives that are lost. And, of course, information and diagnoses of mental illnesses was limited back then.

I had a conversation with my cousin about this recently.

It pretty much centered around: Now, what do we do?

An especially and pertinent question for him, since he is a parent and must consider future generations as he is currently raising him/them.

Great question. Not easy answers or solutions to such long-standing problems.

Confronting intergenerational trauma and epigenetics is important. But it is so, so hard. To trace back, to understand, to get other generations and relatives on board with addressing the issues and agreeing to get help.

It’s hard, heavy stuff.

And yet, at one point or another, you are faced—as an adult—with the question of…how do I break this cycle? How do I manage this/deal with it?

Our parents’ stories of childhood and their trauma is hard; I’m sure there were also issues and trauma with their parents (grandparents). It’s not to minimize their pain and suffering.

But I guess at some point, when we’re well into adulthood we must face reality: we’re not kids anymore, so it’s on us. We’ve got to be accountable and responsible for ourselves. So, we’ve got to try to heal, to break the unhealthy cycles, to accept responsibility for our own dysfunction we all bring to the table. To accept that even if we’re victims, if we don’t make efforts, we’ll create new victims.

That’s not fun. At all. But, I think, from my own experience and humbling moments—we have to own our own crap. It’s hard. It’s not pleasant. It’s sobering and humbling.

But truly, what other choice is there if you want things to change for others—your kids or your partners or friends, any others you have relationships with?

It’s on us. The accountability and responsibility of it.

Being an adult is not all it’s cracked up to be.