Depression Comparison by Alli Shoemaker
I thought a lot about The Oregon Trail, the 1990s computer game, when I tried to confront my mental health. Back in the day, 10-year-old me used to set off in my covered wagon, only to have my computer game family (Job, Jeb, Jem, and Patty) ravaged and killed off by explosive dysentery.
And there I was, all alone in my dark basement, left to ponder the great depths of grief, suffering, and loss so many people experienced in history. It sounds ridiculous (and a bit hilarious), but that computer game partly framed my view of mental health, and I grappled with a lot of “depression comparison.”
Throughout my own experience with general anxiety, grief, and postpartum depression, I often asked myself if I had the right to be this anxious or this sad because people in history used to have it so much worse.
My mom once told me in my contentious adolescent years, “Alli, life is really hard for you, isn’t it?” Yes, yes it is. For some reason, I was put on this planet predisposed to anxiety. So, when in 2009 my brother Zach was diagnosed with a fatal cancer that filled his lungs, I coped pretty horribly. I’m talking about everything from alcohol abuse to dropping angry F-bombs at Jesus in Adoration. (Sorry, Jesus.)
Though Zach’s death wasn’t necessarily peaceful, I was by his side, whispering prayers for the intercession of St. Michael, telling him I loved him and reminding him of the sea turtle he saw when we were together in Mexico. He was conscious enough to console me with a nod so I knew he was listening.
Afterward, I told myself I was not worthy or deserving enough to be this broken, especially since my brother had dealt with his pain and suffering so gracefully. I did not have a terminal illness, I had my whole life ahead of me, and if he could deal with his own death so beautifully, why couldn’t I deal with his death that way? Also, he was JUST my brother and not my child, which seemed so much worse to me.
The trauma manifested as anxiety: losing hair, being hyper-nervous about work tasks, stomach issues, and weeping in the Target parking lot during lunch hours. When I felt especially out of control, I’d seek a therapy session or two or pray, but I still didn’t believe my experience was “that bad.”
Then, I started having children, and things got weird.
One day after having my second baby, I got an Amber Alert text about a little girl who was kidnapped. I locked all the doors, and refused to go outside because I was terrified someone was going to take my kids. After a few days of this, I called my husband panicking and begging him to come home because someone rang the doorbell.
That’s when it really hit me.
Was this how I wanted to live? I was so tired of feeling the presence of mortality in such a palpable and threatening way, and I didn’t want to pass fear of the world down to my kids.
Thankfully, I have a supportive family who is very open about discussing mental health. I shared my experience, and they in turn shared their own experiences with anxiety and medication. That made it so much easier to justify seeking help. Just having someone say, “You shouldn’t have to live this way” propelled me into a better life.
Turns out postpartum depression is definitely a thing for me, and it didn’t look like I thought it would. For me, it manifested as panic.
My midwife explained that as mothers, our brains can perceive things as threats and amplify it. “Even though there aren’t anymore bears coming to eat our kids, our brains can still trigger those responses,” she said. I appreciated that frank example.
She prescribed me sertraline (Zoloft) which is safe while nursing and told me to try therapy in tandem with medication. I did and tried to stay consistent about it.
Sometimes with anxiety medications, doctors say it can tamp down our happy responses as well as our sad responses. For me, it felt like freedom. Like Disney’s- Aladdin-shackles-off-the-genie freedom. I had no idea how much or how long the anxiety had been keeping me down until I tried medication and therapy. If I’m being honest, I wish I would have had access to both as a teenager. I think my quality of life would have been a lot different.
Today, I feel more confident in my decisions, I try new things like painting and writing poetry, and I don’t feel the immense social anxiety I used to.
If it sounds like I’m describing those commercials with people running down verdant grassy hills trailing their white linen scarves behind them, I am. And I’m not afraid to admit it.
Therapy helped me set up boundaries with my family so I didn’t unnecessarily relive my brother’s death and trauma. This included making the difficult decision not to attend the filming of the movie, Clouds, based on my brother’s life.
Now, the more I think about The Oregon Trail and people’s suffering in history, the more I think about how hard it is for mothers to navigate this modern world.
We still have the genetic dispositions our ancestors had. We have personal traumatic experiences like they had, including what they passed down to us. We also have hormones that go out of whack sometimes when we have kids. Then we have the new, very heavy and real collective trauma that is social media. On top of our own suffering, we’re fielding and weighing everyone else’s, even people we don’t know.
There’s no time to rest or process the amount of stressors we are consuming and reacting to. Even if it’s passive consumption, it’s affecting us. And, the village that used to reside offline to support us and connect with us is becoming scarcer, especially for millennials.
One day, I was feeling kind of basic and pathetic about having to be on medication. While talking to my mom I said, “Look at me, typical sad millennial, such a product of my generation.”
She replied that yeah, I am a product of my generation because of how the world is now, and maybe this is what I need to be healthy and thrive.
Such a simple acknowledgement of our generational pain was really helpful to me. I believe that medication and therapy exist in our modern world as a true grace from God.
We are living through experiences that are unique to our generation of motherhood. People in history haven’t had to deal with it on this scale, and it’s time we acknowledged that for the sake of our own mental health and the people we love.
Our pain is real enough for medication and therapy— you don’t have to justify it or compare your experiences, no matter how small they may seem. Sometimes we just very simply were made predisposed to depression or anxiety. I was, and I waited too long to seek help. Like my family told me, I want to tell you that you don’t have to live this way, and you deserve relief.
