Surviving divorce taught me how to survive a pandemic
When my 18-year partnership abruptly ended in late 2015, my life completely fell apart. It was a complete shitshow… kind of like this year. Here’s how surviving divorce taught me 9 lessons that are helping me survive 2020.
Why electroconvulsive therapy was the closest thing to a magic bullet I’ve found for my depression
When I requested electroshock (also known as electroconvulsive therapy or ECT) from my psychiatrist, she was shocked that I was actually requesting it. Nearly every medical professional I spoke to on my ECT journey made a concerted effort to sing its praises and try to convince me to stick with it. I didn’t need convincing, and I am incredibly glad that I stuck with it. ECT has helped me in ways that no other treatment has, lifting me out of a 15+ year fog of depression and making me much more capable of functioning like a “normal” adult.
I took my daughter to therapy with me
I try to speak openly about my battle with depression, and it is the time of year where I tend to be at my worst. This season is no different, and the last few weeks have been a struggle to accomplish my day-to-day tasks. Still, even with my attempts to be open and unashamed of my mental health, it was hard to bring my daughter to therapy with me. I never had the intention of bringing her. However, I had my usual therapy session scheduled on one of her approximately 148 snow days this year. My first thought was to cancel the session, but I realized the only reason I was going to do this was some ambiguous sense of discomfort…
Doing everything “right” & changing the world: My mental health and Anthony Bourdain
When I found out Anthony Bourdain took his own life, I was in shock. I still am. I cried all day. I’m crying now. My shock doesn’t come from a place of ignorance; I have clinical depression myself, and I’ve been medicated for a couple of years. I’ve worked hard to change my habits so that they help my mental health. Overall, it’s working. But there are still days, weeks, months when things are bleak…
Motherhood: my most difficult rite of passage yet
Five years ago this happened. I thought, “Oh, fuck. What have I gotten myself into?” The look on my face says it all. The postpartum depression hadn’t yet kicked in and I was trying to wrap my brain around this new reality. What I didn’t know was that I was about to undertake the most arduous and difficult rite of passage of my life. Parenthood.
My mother abandoned me and my life was forever changed
I was just a regular teenage girl one moment and then a wreck the next. All I had to worry about in life was what outfit I would have to wear to school the next day and what grades I got in my classes. But that all changed in just one day.
My mom had been going through a rough patch and her depression had gotten the worst of her. One day she just vanished into thin air…
How to reach out to a friend with social anxiety
I have a friend with severe social anxiety and depression. He lives with his mom now, doesn’t leave the house, and I (and all of our shared friends) haven’t seen him in about two years. All of our attempts to email/call/visit haven’t worked and he won’t reply. I know he’s in therapy, but I’d love to help him if I can.
Is there any way I can reach out in a way that would feel safe for him?
I’m a father and I want to talk about parenting with depression
I’m sure other parents have gone through this, and it’s not a topic we talk about a lot. Postpartum depression has gotten a lot of press in recent years (as it should), but depression impacts dads as well. As men, we tend to avoid these kinds of topics by and large; which is foolish, but that doesn’t make it any less the case.
So let’s talk about parenting with depression…