 My
name is Lynn, and I'm so pleased you've come to visit my page. Here's a
story that's sad but true. When I was in junior high and high school, I
felt like I was a space alien dropped into the world and left there. It
was awful. I had an illness that was invisible. You couldn't see it, couldn't
hear it, in fact, my teachers and the other kids didn't even guess that
what I had was an illness that might have a name. Instead, they saw
it a personality flaw. It wasn't, though. Much later I discovered my illness
was called Major Depression.
My
parents were both very ill themselves, so they couldn’t help me. I was
an only child and most of my parents’ relatives had died. But an older
woman named T Ella gave me love and hope every chance she got. She lived
too far away to visit more than twice a year, but she wrote kind letters
I’ve saved all these years. She was a strong Black woman, orphaned at birth
in Mississippi then starved and beaten by cruel foster parents. Yet somehow
T Ella had grown into a kind and generous woman who was everybody’s friend.
I felt like a little gray creature looking up into a tree where rainbow-colored
birds chirped and sang. I wondered why they hated me for being small and
gray and voiceless, as if I wouldn’t fly and sing if only I could! It was
so hard for me that for much of 9th grade I considered suicide. Luckily,
though, I was smart, and I found that my overwhelmingly sad thoughts were
softened a bit when I was reading. I especially enjoyed books about people
who triumphed over their problems and made their world a better place.
Unfortunately,
the culture of my school seemed to be anti-learning, so this strength took
me even farther from the other kids. They seemed to think I got good grades
just to make them feel bad. I tried hard to keep my chin up--but when your
chin's up your nose is up too, and people thought I was "looking down my
nose" at them. Someone took a photo of me studying and put it in the yearbook
with the caption “Alas, what fools these mortals be!”
I couldn’t explain what was going on, since I didn’t know myself. Teachers
said being teased was my fault for not being strong enough to fight back.
It’s true that if I’d been stronger I might have just laughed off the kids
who teased and maybe made friends. But I felt like I had no skin. Everything
hurt me to the core, so I was always on guard for attacks. Instead of comforting
myself I turned the pain inward, figuring that if I was being treated like
a social leper I probably was one. I felt so frustrated. I just didn't
know how to change things.
In
our small country school, all the kids walked down a long hill to get to
the gym. At the beginning of 10th grade a girl named Fredda suddenly stopped,
turned to me, and announced that I was no longer welcome in the group.
Nobody stood up for me. For the rest of the year I walked that long road
alone, behind the clustered kids.
On
those lonely walks I had plenty of time to look at the hayfields and sky
and flowers that the brightly chattering girls didn’t seem to see. I thought
of how T Ella was never bitter but always kind in spite of going through
a lot worse problems than mine. By summer I knew two things: I was a very
strong person--a survivor--and I could surely figure out a way around this
problem.
At
the start of 11th grade I befriended a couple of “unpopular” girls in other
classes. After that, none of us had to be alone all the time. Talking with
them didn’t banish my depression, because that came from my body chemistry.
But it did help me feel less isolated.
Freshman
year of college I tried out some of the "normal" behaviors I'd been silently
memorizing and managed to fit in a little better. But I was so used to
being socially ostracized that sometimes I worried that I might suddenly
be exposed as an actress--an imposter!
Just
before my second year of college my parents died and my depression deepened.
Nobody in my little college had ever faced such a problem, as far as I
could tell. Or if they did, they didn’t talk about it. I felt cruelly alone
all over again. Then one day T Ella called.
She
had always longed for a daughter, and I certainly needed a mother. “T”
and her husband took me into their home. As I became an adult and got to
know their wide range of friends, I gradually realized that feeling “different”
is normal. It can happen to people because of race, culture, family history,
an illness--many things. I stopped feeling like an imposter. I was simply
a person who, like T Ella, had to face and overcome some very real problems.
I lived with her five years, until I married.
Many
years after the onset of my depression, thanks to a dogged search forhelp,
I found a wonderful therapist and some useful medication. What a difference.
I’ve been happily married a long time, and we have two children with joys
and problems all their own.
As
I began to feel better, I acquired a thirst for the knowledge that would
help other people with depression. I had learned lessons through the pain
of my experiences, and I wanted to share. So now I'm a doctoral student
in clinical psychology, working mostly with adolescents and adults who
have depression and anxiety disorders. It's so sad that people with symptoms
of psychiatric illness are still widely seen as having "behavior" or "personality"
problems that they could fix if they were just motivated and would give
up their quest for "attention."
In psychology classes I learned about something called “the fundamental
error of attribution.” When we observe our own behavior, we “attribute”
it to our situation-- we know why we have to be that way. But when we observe
other people’s behavior, we don’t really know their situation, so we “attribute”
it to their personality. When we really get to know people who have depression
or other psychiatric illnesses, we understand that they're searching for
attention because they need it!
Depressed
children and adolescents need empathic and resourceful parents and teachers
who can help them learn to stop hating themselves and start healing from
this painful illness. They also need classmates who try to understand.
Most of all, they must dare to have hope.
Though
it’s invisible, this is a very painful illness. It can have many causes,
from body chemistry (such as a thyroid problem) to difficult life situations.
And it can have all sorts of cures, from psychotherapy to medication. Sometimes
it takes a long time to get better. But now--at last--this illness has
a name. And the name is not “space alien” or “worthless person” or “social
leper.” It’s
just Depression. |
