I’m young. Twenty-three to be exact. And I’m white, skinny, and even confident enough to go so far as to say that I’m cute. I’m married with a kid. I have a good job doing something I love, and all with the extra perk of being able to do it from my comfy home. I make decent money. We’re not rich, by any means, but we’re certainly comfortable; definitely not left needing for anything, and usually not wanting for much.
I live in a safe town with very little crime, in a decent apartment that may not be my favorite, but definitely surpasses a lot of other options. My child is well behaved and happy. We’re all generally healthy with the exception of the occasional colds, some allergies, and asthma in my daughter. I have a lot to be grateful and happy about. Yet, I also struggle with anxiety and depression every day of my life.
Evidently, according to some friends and family, as well as several medical professionals, based on my circumstances in life I just don’t have a right to be depressed. I have it too good in life. My life is not exploding in front of my face. I’m not completely broke and jobless. I’m not a single mother and I “don’t have a lot to worry about.” This is bullshit.
I remember sitting on the exam table in my doctor’s office, tears streaming down my face as I tried to tell her how miserable I was. I couldn’t sleep. I was having trouble eating and concentrating and all of this was causing a serious rift in my household. I was lashing out at my husband, and while I’ve always taken good care of my daughter, I wasn’t showing her the attention and support that I felt I should be.
I was doing just what I had to do to get by. I had stopped getting on the floor to color with her, or playing dress up and dolls. It’s not that I didn’t want to, because I so desperately wanted to. I just couldn’t. It was taking every ounce of everything in me just to get through the day. I spent as much time as I could get away with lying in my bed. Yet, I could never sleep.
“Depression does not discriminate. It creeps in like a parasite and feeds off of your happiness until you have nothing left to give.”
My house went to shit because I couldn’t get up and clean it. I don’t mean that I didn’t want to. No one ever wants to clean house. I mean I couldn’t. I mean, the moment I thought about all of the things I needed to do, I felt my chest caving in. My legs wouldn’t cooperate to drag my ass out of bed and accomplish anything. I wanted my house clean. I wanted to play with my kid. I wanted to be happy. But I couldn’t.
It took everything I had to haul my ass to the doctor and confess this to her. I knew what the problem was, because I’d struggled with it most of my life. But that didn’t lessen the embarrassment. That didn’t take away that sinking feeling of inadequacy. It didn’t change the nagging voice in the back of my head saying that I was a shitty mother. Just because I knew the problem, I recognized that end-all feeling, it didn’t make it any easier to sit in front of another human being and confess what I felt were my downfalls: to admit defeat and ask for help. No matter how long I’ve battled depression, that never gets any easier.
So I sat on that table and between the sobs, laid everything out as quickly as I could, resisting the urge to run like hell. I expected her to do what the other doctors had done when I was a child and teenager; set me up with some therapy, send me home with a prescription for anti-depressants and a follow-up appointment in two weeks. Instead, she looked at me and said, “Andrea, I don’t understand why you’re having this problem.” I glared back at her with the stupidest, most confused expression on my face. What the fuck does she mean, she doesn’t understand? How in the hell can she not understand? My records show that this has been a life-long struggle for me. I’ve relapsed, so to speak. I have depression, and it’s running me into the damn ground. What is there to not understand?
She proceeded to lay out for me everything I just laid out for you. I was young. I was white and married. I was thin and pretty. I had a nice place to live and a good job and a happy, healthy kid. Yes, my childhood was shitty at best, and she knew that. Yes, I lost my father to suicide after a long, harrowing battle with depression and addiction. But all of that was over now. I had a good life. What did I have to be depressed out?
Instead of leaving the office with a treatment plan, I left and was told to get some sunshine and exercise; try some yoga and calm breathing. This would all pass soon. No medication. No therapy. No treatment plan. According to her, I was being a selfish crybaby, because so many people out there have it so much worse than I do.
I went through this with two more doctors before I finally found someone that would take me seriously. Someone who finally treated me rather than scoff at me and tell me I needed to suck it up. Someone who listened and absorbed what I had to say and tried to help me. It took four months. Four extra, unnecessary months of misery and bullshit, and all because I was too pretty to be upset.
Now you’re damn right, there are millions of people on this earth that have it “worse” than I do. There are people starving to death. There are people that have no home, that are suffering abuse. There are people that have lost their jobs or their children. There is always someone out there who has it worse. That doesn’t matter. Because depression gives zero fucks where you’re at in life. Depression doesn’t care where you live or how much money you have in the bank. Depression doesn’t give a damn if you’re skinny and pretty. Depression does not discriminate. It creeps in like a parasite and feeds off of your happiness until you have nothing left to give. It crawls through the folds of your brain and leaves behind a broken self-worth; a shell of the person that once was. No matter how much you have in life, it convinces you that you don’t deserve it. Depression doesn’t care what you have or don’t have. It will take you for what you’re worth, without prejudice.
So what is depression supposed to look like? What are the standards of depression? Just how shitty does your life have to look before you’re allowed to have this disease? At what level of shambles do people start to take you seriously?
Depression is a disease. It is a disease the same way that cancer is a disease. And without proper treatment, it can kill you just the same. No one would ever look at you and say, “You’re too pretty to have cancer. You have too much money and your home is too nice. People like you don’t get cancer.” So why does depression get its own special set of requirements?
Mental illness already has this huge stigma around it as it is. Approximately 121 Americans commit suicide every day. That’s one person roughly every 11 minutes. Someone takes their own life every ten fucking minutes in this country and we have medical professionals out here telling people that they’re too fucking pretty to be depressed.
If we ever want to get past this stigma, we have to stop pretending that depression is some kind of dirty issue that can be solved with a better attitude and a walk through the park. We have to stop pretending like there are standards and qualifications for being depressed. We have to get rid of the mentality that depression doesn’t strike the pretty folks. We have to understand that depression doesn’t have a “look.” It strikes the best and the worst of people. It’s strong and it’s deadly. Depression and mental illness is killing almost 50,000 people, just in America, every year. And it doesn’t give a damn if they’re pretty or not.
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or seek immediate emergency medical attention.
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Andrea is a freelance writer based out of Kentucky. She is the mother to a 3 year old little girl and step-mother to a 6 year old boy. She’s been married to her husband and best friend for 5 years. She enjoys fishing, camping, hiking and the occasional glass of wine by a bonfire.