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Depression

Interview 37

Age at interview: 33
Age at diagnosis: 23
Brief Outline: Is currently feeling well after a recent rough patch. Helpful approaches have included talking therapies, Prozac (20mg/day), living in a sunnier climate, and exercise.
Background: Was adopted from the US, grew up in London, currently a single teacher living with her dog. Diagnosed with depression in 1993, and has attempted suicide.

More about me...

 

Family therapy helped her family to communicate better, as well helping her to accept that she...

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Family therapy helped her family to communicate better, as well helping her to accept that she...

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And did going to family therapy change the family dynamics in any way? 

I think so. Not, you know, it doesn't, he, it doesn't solve everything but I think it made us all a lot braver and to kind of remove this, this fa'ade. And also I found it very difficult to accept that I loved these, I loved people very much and we were very close, and we are fairly close but that I didn't actually like them. This, this was the, in many ways and there's ways that I do, but I find that very difficult inside and now I can, I, whatever you realise a lot of people have their... and you just accept but, oh my God, the guilt and all of that. But I think it did help us communicate, yeah, a bit more, yeah.
 
 

She had relationships with other women, and her mother reacted badly to one of her partners who...

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She had relationships with other women, and her mother reacted badly to one of her partners who...

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For me this is not a big issue but it was for my family in, but this was from I think from '92. I decided that I was, I don't know, gay or bisexual or whatever and I had a relationship with somebody, it was fine. You know, it was, you know, it was kind of like a friendship that, yeah, it was good. It gave us both energy I.... I hope, well for me. No, then I started to go with somebody else who was, oh poor woman, extremely androgynous, rather, and my mother had a problem with this. I, I thought it was clear, obvious because I'd been with this other woman but she was very feminine and, and all this stuff.

And then I guessed, well from her era, from all her.... it, and to me, actually, it was a terrible shock because they are intelligent people, they're open-minded, blah, blah, blah. And then to be so awful to me and we had some sort of family gathering which then after then, thereafter she cancelled because she said she felt rage and ashamed and all this stuff.

Because I took, always.... I had taken the feminine woman and then I took this androgynous woman to this family gathering and that was when all hell broke loose because she said she felt embarrassed. I just wanted to fit in, I wanted to be like everyone else, it was like a family thing with other families and everyone takes their partner and all this. I just wanted to be normal. Anyway, she didn't like it, she didn't like her particularly.
 
 

As when an over-loaded fuse blows, she feels that depression has come for a reason, making her...

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As when an over-loaded fuse blows, she feels that depression has come for a reason, making her...

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I think it's (depression) definitely made me stronger, definitely, definitely. Because I have been a bit perfectionist in the past but I'm, also I'm very honest, I can't kind of, I can't handle false, so I feel like I've been honest in that I've kind of gone with the flow and tried to... tried to deal with it, you know. I'm not... I definitely learned a lot from it. I think, I think it was almost like, what's, what's the thing when you know, like a fuse going, like a fuse going when, when there's overload or whatever. It's like a fuse going, it's for a reason, it's like you're body is telling you, stop, hang on, maybe you need to go, turn around, go in another direction. So, I think I've learned a lot and it's, it's been very useful, yeah.
 
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