I have suffered from depression for as long as I can remember. When I was a child, I thought I was just a serious person. I came to realize early on that it was more than that. Most 9 year olds, for instance, don’t contemplate suicide. My parents didn’t understand my difficulties initially. My mother would sometimes say I was “crazy” (boy, that’s a confidence booster) and my Dad would gently try to pry me out of my shell by encouraging me to be more sociable. Over the years as I got therapy and learned more, I talked to them and they listened. They learned, as I did, that depression has a physical cause and that helped them (and me) accept that it wasn’t a character defect.
Yesterday was World Mental Health Day, and a fellow depression sufferer’s article was posted to commemorate the occasion. I read it on Hello Giggles (weird place to read about depression, eh?) and it tells the story of a woman with depression and her mother’s reaction. Here’s where to read more.
THE DEPRESSIVE DIVA 