Those of us with the types of depression that ebb and flow, insidiously creeping up when we least expect it, might not have our shields up and ready when the tide comes in. But a few months ago I happened to feel another bout of depression looming before it knocked me off my feet and accidentally discovered a strategy for fighting it.
I had been taking Citalopram for ten years when I decided to take a break. At 18, I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, a constant and persistent sense of worry about everyday things. I think of GAD as inchoate and needy, willing to attach itself to any normal set of circumstances regardless of whether there is actually a threat.
I’ve always had the belief that all of this is my fault, everything that I’ve experienced while at the mercy of my own brain. I believe in a sort of Old Testament karma, only as it applies to me.
Postpartum depression is the moon landing, because even though you are like 99% sure people have walked around up there (I mean, we have dirt, right? Moon rocks? Why would science lie about this?), one day some person will come up to you and tell you that it's not real, which means that it never happened to anybody, least of all you.
This week was the full feelings buffet. Remember, you can always come back for more:
Celeste Ng called How to Make Yogurt in Manila by Grace Talusan ‘beautiful and moving’ (on the Twitter machine) so you don’t have to take our word for its awesomeness.
“Things That Are Meant To Make You Feel Safe And Comfortable In A Psych Ward That Just Make You Feel Crazier.” Episode by Naadeyah Haseeb will tear
Things That Are Meant To Make You Feel Safe And Comfortable In A Psych Ward That Just Make You Feel Crazier: Writing in crayons Eating meat with a spoon Measuring time in meals and snacks The conspicuous lack of plastic I predicted this would happen. This is not impressive in the slightest, as this outcome was obvious given my history. Yet I was still left shaky and confused by just how accurate my precognition was,…
Ashley Ford's previous Disrupting Domesticity posts for The Butter can be found here. Every year since 2011, on the first Monday of July, poet and advocate Bassey Ikpi holds a #NoShameDay on Twitter. People living with mental illnesses or mental health issues—people like me—are asked to share their stories in a safe and supportive way. It’s an opportunity to connect. I try to participate on Twitter each year, but this year I thought I’d…
Go to support groups. Sit in circles and think about how much you fucking hate support groups. Listen to people cry for their own ill family members. Feel your chest tighten with anger toward them, toward their raw displays of sadness, their easy tears. Fantasize about screaming, one long, terrifying scream like your brother’s screams, the ones that summon cops and ambulances and nervous neighbors who pretend to be working inside their garages, who pretend…
AXIS 1 Anxiety as Birthright So Jesus asked [the mute boy’s] father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.” —Mark 9:21 For Maren and Nathaniel—may you be spared. —Scott Stossel’s dedication to his children, My Age of Anxiety We entered in together. Not like a man and woman in marriage. Nor a boy and his saw at the base of a tree. I’m convinced that even as my head…
I’m at a hospital in Houston, Texas, spooning puréed carrots into my mother’s mouth and catching the dribbles at the corners with a plastic spoon. She’s beginning to come around after overdosing on what one of the doctors called “a dangerous cocktail of marijuana and benzos.” The ziplock bag of prescription medications that traveled with her to the hospital sits on a shelf across the room. The orange plastic bottles, now empty, once contained an…
What does it mean to have a crazy mom? In the Feb. 2015 issue of JAMA Psychiatry, researchers published their findings from an extraordinary longitudinal study. “Familial Pathways to Early-Onset Suicide Attempt: A 5.6-Year Prospective Study” followed 701 children of 334 parents who had attempted suicide. This study is unique in both its scope and its duration. Its findings show that having a parent who attempted suicide, even controlling for other factors, “conveys a…
Previously by Rachel Brownson: Sunday at the Children's Hospital. My grandparents’ living room was almost too warm after the cutting December wind outside, and the Christmas tree blinked pink and gold, ringed with piles of boxes. My cousins and their parents could be heard laughing and bickering in the den downstairs, and as we shed our chilly coats and exchanged the usual hugs, I looked around for my uncle Dave, wondering which version of…
B.N. Harrison's previous work for The Toast can be found here. When I was nineteen, I made an astonishing discovery that was going to revolutionize the field of Shakespeare scholarship: Ophelia is the unsung hero of Hamlet. I was so certain that I understood Ophelia better than anyone else who had written about her in the last 400 years that I wrote a purely elective research paper about my theory. It wasn’t for a…
My son was a planned surprise, which means I wanted him but didn’t think he could ever happen. What was even more unexpected were the feelings that arose around my ability to care for him. It took years for me to figure out that a lot of my struggles as a new mother were directly related to my history as a sexual assault survivor.
One of the unanticipated difficulties was breastfeeding.
