Here’s the first part of an amazing interview. Thank you so much to martininamerica for this powerful bit.
This is important. Listen to this. This is really, really important.
Also, I’m going to get a bit personal, and reveal something that not a lot of people know. Depression runs in my family. It’s something I’ve been learning overtime and my mother is very, very open about it. There were times growing up where she would be in the hospital. I wouldn’t really understand why she was there, but she was. She also had medication she would take, and also has gone through therapy. I didn’t really know what the pills were for, I just knew she had them. I really learned about the whole thing when my brother died, because when he died she actually flushed all of her pills down the toilet, because, “I don’t need these anymore, there’s nothing worse than this.”
As I got older she went into more detail. "Remember when I was in the hospital that time? It was because of depression. It runs in our family.“ What makes me so upset about depression is that people take it so lightly, they act like its not that serious, and they mock treatment of it. My mom has said time and time again that there is nothing wrong with therapy, there’s no shame with it, but there’s this idea that it is shameful, you know?
Sometimes, I do get depressed. I’m pretty positive all the time, and it may be partly because I prefer smiles over the alternative, but sometimes those days hit and they hit hard. I’ll sit around and do nothing. I’ll feel like a failure. I’ll feel ugly. I’ll feel everything. And sometimes I break down, and it gets bad, like, "Oh god I can’t breathe,” bad, and at first I didn’t really label it as “depression.” Even if I know it runs in my family to the point where my own mother has seen people for it, there’s still that stigma. But, like she’s told me so easily, “It runs in our family, child. I’m depressed. You’re depressed. We’re all depressed. Every single one of us.” And the way she says it reminds me that there’s nothing wrong with it, and to – for the love of god – talk to someone about it. To not try and face it alone.
So finally I started talking to my partner about it. Originally, I would just be quiet, not say anything, push her away when she’d try to comfort me, tell her to leave me alone. Now, I just accept it. If I have a bad day for whatever reason (feeling like I’m getting nowhere with my writing, frustrated over trying to get to conventions to promote our work, wondering if self-employment is the right decision, missing my older brother, take your pick) I tell her. If she’s at work I message her. She’ll bring me home something (for instance, the stuffed Penguin I’ve named “Nagisa”), we’ll go driving, just… anything. It’s important to have someone you can talk to, and if you can’t get that from family or friends, take Martin’s advice here and go online, find like minded people, go on Tumblr, look at pictures, read fic, play video games, meet a new friend via fandoms, whatever it takes.
Depression is serious, and it needs to stop being seen as something that’s not a big deal. My mother was on medication but the thing that really, really got her out of it was the death of my brother. Don’t let it get that far, o.k.? Talk to someone now.
Anonymous
