Trigger warning for depression and self-injury.
It's really hard to talk to people about feeling depressed. I mean, beyond the hurdles of finding the motivation to talk about it at all and getting the courage to make yourself utterly vulnerable to another person by bringing it up, it can just be plain old hard to explain. Particularly if the person you're talking to has no first-hand experience with depression.
For me, it's cyclical. For as long as I can remember, it's come and gone. The worst points were when I was a teenager and after Thing 2 was born.
Since this time last year up till a few months ago, I've been pretty good. Euphoric even, on occasion. Around April I hit a snag. It'd been a long time coming...when you're paying attention and you've been dealing with depression as long as I have, you learn to read the early signs. Kind of like how when the wind picks up in just such a way that you can see the undersides of leaves on trees and you know a storm's coming? It's little, intuitive things like that. The beginning signs started in January, but the storm didn't start till April.
Ok, I swear there's a point to all of this (besides melodramatic imagery)!
So, not wanting this to fuck up a good thing I have going right now with school, I ventured forth and talked to one of my professors about it one night. He's a really good guy, really easy to talk to. I think he might have missed a promising career as a therapist. But of course he inevitably asked the question, "What are you depressed about?"
In my opinion, that is the most frustrating question to ask a depressed person. I literally never know what or why I'm depressed...when I'm in one of the down swings, I'm depressed about everything.
Did I mention this professor of mine is a seemingly-unwavering optimist? So of course that answer didn't satisfy him. He said (not in a condescending way) I ought to figure it out and channel it into art. Someone (I think it was K) said that that's what professors always say about anything bad - turn it into art. I think they always say it though because it's not a bad idea.
It started with a colored etching. As a recovering cutter (8 years!), self-injury is always a temptation when it gets bad. So instead, I started an etching of my arms (it still needs work, so I won't be posting it any time soon). It actually felt empowering, to confront the urge head on instead of quietly pretending it doesn't exist like I usually do.
As the semester ended, we incoming seniors had a meeting with the professor teaching capstone next year, and she gave us some guidelines for starting our capstone research over the summer. The first step was to sit down and brainstorm possible topics and questions that interest us and might lead to a thesis. I've known for months my capstone would have to have something to do with reproductive rights; that's just a given for me. And I've been mining motherhood and family history for ideas the last year or so. But I still had my professor's advice in the back of my mine while I was brainstorming topics. Everything I listed ended up being some variation on the intersection of motherhood and mental illness in social justice terms.
This leads me to my point, and my super exciting capstone.
Is postpartum depression to narrowly defined? What factors contribute towards the onset of depression after the window for PPD has "passed?" What are the most effective forms of treatment? Why aren't there more non-medicinal treatments available?
I don't have a definitive thesis yet, but this is my capstone! As soon as I scribbled "motherhood and depression" in my sketchbook, I felt electrified about it. It's such a personal topic and something I'm passionate about. I believe strongly in the marriage of art and activism to change the world, and this is a direction that could use more attention and help to it. And simultaneously, I'll be purging my psyche.
I'm not naive enough to think this will magically cure my life-long depression. But I'm already feeling my mood swinging back up. A couple of friends have been teasing me about doing all my research before the fall semester starts; but the research is making me too busy and passionate to feel depressed most days and I can already feel like I'm moving towards an upswing. And hey, I'll have a hell of a lot of work done towards my paper besides.
So the clichés professors say sometimes...they're not always such bad ideas.
