My grandmother was and she encouraged me a lot to go get help. She didn’t think, she’s like, old, really, not really old ,but she’s not used to seeing a therapist and go do this and she didn’t bring her kids to do all that kind of stuff. She was new to it, but she listened to what I had to say. She didn’t understand what I was going through, but she was there to support me and that was, that was a big help. My grandmother was a really big help with all of my depression, especially my postpartum depression with my daughter. She was, without her I don’t know where I would be.

So it put a huge strain on the relationship with my mom which is totally regrettable, but in a lot of ways I think it was sort of my relationship with her that lead to a lot of the feelings that sort of fed into my, my depressive personality and my self-injury. And then on the other hand my dad has always been like, my number one advocate so it was really nice just having a lot of support from him and just having support from him as somebody who was willing to say, I have no idea what, where this is coming from, I have no background in this I can’t comprehend it, but I really want to be here to support you through whatever you’re going through. So that was invaluable to me.

I think one of the reasons why I haven’t felt suicidal, for example, like, I know people who’ve been unfortunate to feel those ways. I think I’m very close to my family, so I feel like the hurt that I think it’s going to cause them, you know, has basically precluded this possibility, at least for me. But I think on the, on the negative side, I think not being able to share with them. I mean, first of all, you’re always hiding something, right? And I think they don’t understand you enough. So, let’s say when I remember I told you that I, at the end of last year was when I was very depressed. Then I went back home. So, when I stayed with and quarreled my parents, you know, I think a lot of it was I was still depressed and in a bad state. But then, I can be telling them, you know, Leave me alone. Like, you know, You’re making me really. Whatever you say is causing me a lot of distress. Not because I’m, you know, antsy. I’m being unreasonable. But, you know, I think it’s because I’m depressed. And it’s, you know, it’s hard right. You can’t tell them. For me, I choose not to tell them and I suffer as well.

My depression has affected my relationships with other members of my family for sure. My specifically my mother and my sister because there are periods of time especially in high school when I was using drugs that my mood swings were all over the place, it was very unpredictable and I’m pretty sure I was actually probably nasty. I was just very, I was angry, I was mean, I couldn’t see anyone else’s point of view, I was probably very selfish. So I am sure that my depression and mental instability, contributed to that and I’m sure that them not knowing really what was going on, you know I’m sure they blame me for that. Our relationship has severely deteriorated over the years my sister and I don’t speak what-so-ever anymore.

My mom and I do still speak but I think there’s a lot of grudge there. You know I don’t know if we’ll ever truly forgive each other for you know things that were said, you know. And I do think that that boils down to the fact that I was miserable and I wasn’t getting help and I didn’t really know what was going on.

The depression had an unbelievably deep and strong impact on every single relationship in my life. My relationship with my mother at the time was awful, embarrassing, terrible. We would scream at each other constantly she would say black I would say white, it was one of those relationships. And she was going through some of her own issues at the time, she was going through menopause at the time too so I was dealing with some hormonal issues and so was she, so we didn’t get along that great. Yeah it was actually really terrible.

Well with my nephew and niece specifically, the love that they have for me is unconditional and it’s shown every time I see them how much I am needed by them, how much they love me, how much they want me to be around them, how they get when I’m leaving and they get upset. Like being around them and being known that I am so important to them makes me feel better about myself. It makes me feel like I am not as bad of a person as I think.

With my mother our relationship became very, we used to have a good relationship and being home and her being worried about me made it a lot rockier. She was very worried about me all the time and would just, we couldn’t have any normal conversations anymore, like we used to, it would all be, like. That’s another thing I have described in therapy like with my mom, she would ask like, How I am doing? And like, Are you ok? But every time I would try to give a legitimate answer, she would just change the subject, like she didn’t want to hear it, she was just. If I told her I was feeling, how bad I was feeling I think I remember one time I specifically told her how depressed I actually was. After that instead of asking me more often, she actually just stopped asking how I was, because I think she was scared. Our relationship became really really weakened by it actually. It’s a lot better now though.

I still don’t have a lot of friends, like I cut everybody out and you know I’m so far behind a lot people. It’s embarrassing to go out with other people because I don’t have the money. I don’t have a house, I don’t, not always able to afford things. So it’s hard for me I mean I feel like everybody just looks down on me, so I just stay home and hide away. And there’s a lot of my friends who have actually been accepting of my issues.

Many of my friends at the time didn’t have a clear grasp on what I was going through, they definitely knew that something was not quite right, but I never really talked about it or opened up about it because I was embarrassed and thought I would lose them as friends so I didn’t really speak about it much.

Oh that’s too bad. OK, now this is becoming awkward. OK now you need to go on medication because it’s making me uncomfortable.” And-and so like one of my best friends in college — we’re not friends anymore but, like she– like often pressured me to get on medication because I made- it made her uncomfortable for me to sad in front of her. Not projecting but sad in front of her. And I understand that’s really hard. It’s really hard to be around someone that you’re not sure how to help.

I sort of hung out with the, sort of like, the free thinker, misfit, creator types. There’s actually just like a dorm where it’s sort of like all of those kids, so you just take all of like the musicians and the drama kids and the gay kids and we’re just like one dorm [laughter]. And I hung out with mostly kids that just hung out in that dorm. So I want to say that mental health issues is almost a given with almost everybody I know, the severity and the variety is very different. A lot of people just have, I don’t want to say just have, because it can be debilitating, but a lot of people have like a couple things like OCD, but it doesn’t seriously impair their function, they’re just kind of quirky. Other people have had very serious psychotic breaks that have seriously impaired their lives. I have many friends who have been hospitalized for mental health reasons many times. So I don’t imagine that anyone didn’t know I had depressions, it’s just something that all of us dealt with. In fact, I have had conversations with people who are like, You know, I don’t really trust anyone who has never been through really dark periods.

A lot of the people that I live with also the same illness, and the people that I’m friends with have the same illness. So I am also dealing with them trying to push me away, as-as I’m doing my own pushing other people away as well. And it’s hard to sometimes even take into account, okay this person is struggling in a very similar way that I am. I’ve got to give them a break. And it’s hard for others to give me a break because I am so consistently, you know, positive and supportive and all that. And then when I’m not, it’s kind of a shock. And it’s frustrating or-or exhausting to feel responsible in that way. To-to have to consistently be that way because I’m not a lot of the time.

A big, big factor in that relationship ending was the fact that I was so depressed and I couldn’t talk about it at all. And I remember one day going to his house and laying on the bed and I was just sobbing, uncontrollably crying, and I remember him rubbing my back and like, begging me to tell him what was wrong and I just couldn’t talk and you don’t get too far in life when you don’t talk about things, so that was difficult because I felt like it was my fault like I ruined the relationship, like I pushed him away.

I remember when me and my boyfriend first started dating. God, it was a long time ago, it was like 4 years ago now. I was like feeling, I, I just finished college and everything was like so great. You know college was so crazy busy and I was always doing something like every day, every hour just so busy and I graduated and I had a line up for a job, but I didn’t start for like another month. So I just went from like super busy to just absolutely nothing and I got so depressed just like didn’t want to do anything, just stayed in the house all day and like I couldn’t do anything because I didn’t have any money, and like, I lost interest in like, sexual activity and I didn’t want really. I wanted him around but I didn’t really know what to say and I was just very distant. And he like got to the point of almost leaving me because he had no idea why I was like, all of a sudden so distant and like changed my attitude toward him and he said like, I can’t remember what like the wording he said it was something about like You’re a different person now. Like what happened, what did I do? Stuff like that. I remember like, we would, you know like have sex and stuff and I would just be there, but not really there. It was kind of just very bland and I was kind of just like dead with no emotion at all and like he would notice obviously. It’s not something that you know, you just see someone and they’re normally one way and then all of a sudden like snap your fingers and they are completely opposite but. So we got into like a lot of issues about that at the time and so he almost left. So like, that would have been horrible and now four years later we are like, living together. But yeah, so like talking about the symptoms and like things that could happen probably are better to do beforehand rather than have it come up.

And he didn’t know about your depression at all before that?

No, it was too new. You know, it was like, way too personal of a thing to tell someone that. We were dating for, I don’t know, I guess like 2 or 3 months. So yeah, we saw each other most, you know, a few days a week and you know, he would spend the night and stuff, but it was very like new. So it’s not something that you want to like air your, I don’t want to say dirty laundry but like, you know the negative things about yourself to someone you are trying to impress. So, you know, proceed with caution I guess, have to kind of tread lightly with that kind of stuff. That’s kind of where it came from, I guess.

Yeah, so if you were advising someone else you would say, on the one hand, be a little cautious but don’t let it go too far before you tell somebody you were close to?

Yeah, at least like give them some hint or some, I don’t know, anything, say anything about it but don’t just leave it in the air, just act like you’re perfect. Because no one is perfect and like, you know, if you have diabetes you wouldn’t be embarrassed about it, but you know, everyone is a more of a stigma with depression but you know, you definitely have to say something if you’re the type of person that can switch from normal and everything’s great and then all of a sudden you have no desire what so-ever.

I told him about that shortly like before we got engaged. I just let him know like I have these mood swings, I have these, you know, certain things about me that if you’re going, if we’re going to be married and we’re going to live together, you’re going to need to know this. We’re probably going to have some problems here and there that we’re going to have to work through and he understands. He actually has PTSD too, but from, from Afghanistan, so it’s a different. It’s a whole different. We actually help each other. In a way you think that wouldn’t work out, it would be like, too like butting heads and stuff but we actually find a way to help each other out with it and work through it together because we can tell when we’re triggering each other and that’s when we just leave each other alone, let it cool down and stuff and work through it together.

I was dating this girl who was extremely visibly broken from the abusive environment in which she was raised. So, I would think to myself, yes, of course, I do need to be there for her six, seven hours a day on Skype because, like, otherwise, how is she going to function in the world? Which stemmed from another way it could have manifested itself, which is the sense of I need to give and give and give and give and give because that is what my value in the world is. But it was also, in a way, very controlling. The sense of, like, I am the one who will take care of this person. It is on me, no one else can do it. Which leads to a lot of stress because that is not a stable way to have a relationship. It leads to feelings of anger and resentment that you are being taken advantage of even if you put yourself in the situation in which you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. It leads to feelings of worry because you’ve made another person’s problems your problems, but, ultimately, it’s on the other person to take care of their problems, and if they’re not doing it, there’s no way you can make them. And it can lead to this, all of those bad feelings and unhealthy ways of viewing oneself can lead to this sense of feeling my depression, feeling like everything is hopeless, feeling like your best efforts are not good enough, feeling like you don’t have any value, feeling like you are worthless.

It really was not good to have two people who were struggling with the very, the same issues the very you know dark, depressing issues, it was not a good thing to have two people together that way. And once I made an effort that I didn’t want that for my life anymore it became even more apparent how dark and deep his own issues were so the contrast of that really pushed me forward, it pushed me into positivity, I could see from a more unbiased standpoint his actions and I said I don’t want to be anything like that, you know I see now how I’ve been treating people I see now how negative I’ve been, how much this does affect me, it does affect my happiness, it does affect my family members.