2014 was the year, when I started to write about my emotions. It wasn't when I started actively processing my mothers death though. At the end of secondary school in 2012/13, we got the task to work on a project, write a paper about it and eventually present it to the class. My topic of choice was "Depression".
I dug out the paper I wrote earlier this evening and read it for the first time since. It was interesting to see the research and the perception of the topic I had then in comparison to what I know today.
It was a really important thing for me to do at the time to try and understand what had happened. Mental diseases are nowhere nearly as well researched as other psychical illnesses and they are very hard to understand. If someone has a broken bone, it is visible to the eye what the problem is and how to solve it. A psychological illness cannot be seen or understood really. Of course there are tests and further research, but how is anybody supposed to know what is going on in someones head and their emotions?
In order to learn about the disease I organized meetings with both my own and my mothers psychologist. They both explained quite a bit to me and my mothers psychologist told me lots of stories about my mother and her health history. She explained to me how my mother used to have extremely high expectations of herself and when she couldn't meet them, it spiraled her many steps backwards. That personality trait is most likely what never allowed her to ever become "healthy" again. The one example that I remember is this:
My mother understandably used to feel really bad that she couldn't be at home and help my father raise my brother and I and support him with household tasks. To try and make her feel better, she agreed with her psychologist that she could come home on Tuesday afternoons, when nobody else was home, and do the washing. If one day she wasn't feeling well enough to come and do that, she would judge herself on an extreme level. To us it may not seem like a big deal, but she would hate herself for it and spiral into an even worse place than she already was.
Another thing I learnt and stuck with me since, was how Depressions develop and how they are partly inheritable. Put into very simple terms, the disease develops when a combination of things overpower how much a person can handle. When a "normal" person is dealing with stress, the body releases a stress-hormone which helps process and overcome the situation. The hormone retracts itself after the situation has passed and the affected person can relax again. People who suffer with a Depression, have an unbalanced stress-hormone which does not pull back and just shoots up. The inheritable part is therefore the way a person can handle stress and their stress-hormones. So in theory, I am at risk to fall into a depression myself one day. It is not a given though, as my hormones could be just fine and "only" difficult times do not result in a depression. It's a disease, not "simply" an after effect of difficult life circumstances.
"It's a disease, not "simply" an after effect of difficult life circumstances."
There was a time when I was worried that the disease would get the best of me too. I worried a lot, because I definitely inherited the high expectations thing and I tend to overthink and spiral in my thoughts. When I am going through a particularly difficult period in my life, I do still wonder and worry, but I do seem to have a fairly good level of fight in myself!
The final thing I did for this project, was putting together a case study about my mother. I spoke to family members to try and piece together her life history and I also interviewed a few of them about how they felt about it all.
I am a person that tries to understand a situation. I also get frustrated when I don't understand what is going on in my own mind. By researching a topic like this, we can build up an understanding, step by step, by learning a little more every time we deal with it. Also, I find, the more I grow older and can add my own live experiences to the pile, the more in depth my understanding can become.
XOXO
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