This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.
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“What can I say? I’m depressed. You gotta do what you gotta do.” This was the first joke I made about my depression. It was also the first time that I self-identified, out loud, as a person with this disorder, and if doing so wasn’t actually a treatment attempt, it was at least one step closer to one.
I made the comment on a Saturday afternoon during the eighth grade after bringing a large stack of Peanuts comic books home from the library. Comics weren’t usually my thing, but recently, I’d branched out. While stacking the books next to the bath, preparing for a bit of escapism, my mother commented good-naturedly on my odd reading selection. Feeling a bit defensive, I spontaneously divulged this painful fact of my inner experience.
For the first time, I told someone I was depressed.
Recalling her reaction now, it seems a bit … inadequate. She laughed. Not a mean laugh, just a shoulder-shrugging kind. And there was something else, too, in her reaction that day. Was it helplessness? Or fear? Maybe, too–yes, definitely–there was relief.
Of course, looking back, I see that she could have done more for me that day than to simply acknowledge and reinforce my acceptance of the pain I was experiencing. Some follow-up, at least, would have been helpful, but alas, this was not to be. Due in part to her spiritual beliefs, and in part to her make-do small-town upbringing, she didn’t believe in counseling or medication; she believed in God’s power to heal, and in our power to believe harder and do better.
Mom wasn’t skilled at confrontation or open dialogue, either–any uncomfortable conversation was almost palpably painful for her. She embarrassed easily and passed on this trait. Which is why I sensed that my newfound ability to joke about my problem brought her some relief.
She wouldn’t have to be the one to say it first.
Her laugh told me something else, too: she already knew what I was going through. How long had she known? Who can say? But one thing is certain: the fact of my depression did not surprise her that day. Only my admission of it did.
So now, I knew that Mom knew I was depressed, and she knew that I knew that she knew. The knowing didn’t help, though; it contained no hint at next steps for either of us. Maybe she talked to a friend.
Maybe she prayed.
I never felt resentment of my mom for her seeming helplessness in this difficult parenting situation, though. During my bath that day, I even noticed some relief of my own. A joke. A joke helped. Note to self: this isn’t a disaster. Mom’s laugh told me that she understood, at least.
And that was something.
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“Remember that you are an actor in a play, of such a kind as the playwright chooses … If it be his pleasure to have you act a poor man, a cripple, a ruler, a private citizen, play it naturally.” Epictetus.
“Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.” William Shakespeare.
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