By: Ya'el McLoud
April 22, 2022
I took a deep breath and perched myself on the kitchen table. My mother was cooking dinner, a rarity considering she disliked this task. The smell of stir fry was mingling with the warm breeze of summer. My heart was pounding in my chest and I felt nauseous as I took one last breath and announced, “I think I have depression.”
picture by: Heather McLoud, pictured left Ya'el
at age 12 playing chess with her cousin.
While this was a surprise for my mother, a registered nurse specializing in psychiatric care, to hear from her 12-year-old daughter, I had been struggling with this for weeks. My mother paused and without looking at me asked, “What makes you think that?”
Like an attorney arguing a case, I started relaying my evidence to her. My interest in activities I normally enjoyed was lacking. I was lethargic, my eating and sleeping habits were abnormal and my grades in school were declining from high A’s to mid-range A’s or even low A’s. I described feelings of paranoia and disassociation as well.
I explained to her my journey of researching my various symptoms knowing something was amiss and having the internet in all of its glory diagnose me. Then cross-examining this conclusion with many online psychiatric questionnaires. I knew this wasn’t me, but in reality, it was not a shocking revelation. My mother suffered from depressive bipolar, and my older sister was struggling with a burgeoning personality disorder. To say mental illness ran in my family would be putting it mildly.
At 12 I did not want to admit that this could possibly be because of the trauma and emotional turmoil that had defined my family’s life for the past two years. I needed this to be clinical, and I presented it in that manner. Two years prior, I woke up to find my father, the main caregiver, packing his bags not speaking a word as he gathered his things. A life marked by severe PTSD and alcoholism had finally caught up to him.
My mother told my younger sister and me to say goodbye and my father in a most Hallmark-like moment said: “Never look in the mirror and think this is your fault, and if you ever miss me just remember we are both looking at the same moon.” My life would never be the same. In the wake of this, my mother moved us across the country from Liberty, North Carolina, to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where my grandparents could help with childcare.
While we both knew that this was in large part an ugly mix of puberty, trauma, and genetic predisposition, my mother decided to meet me where I was at and ask me what I, with all 12 years of my life experience, thought we should do about my depression. But I knew that the only reason I had told my mother something this vulnerable was because I knew I needed help and my research and introspection had fallen short of a viable solution. That is exactly what I told her, along with my concern for this illness to go unchecked and unnoticed until we were in real trouble.
I knew I did not want talk- therapy, talking about your feelings at 12 is gross, but I also did not want medication. That felt like a defeat for some reason. Again, my mother, who at this time was on a cocktail of approximately three different psychiatric medications and actively in therapy dealing with the fresh separation from her husband, was not convinced I had thought these options through. So, she took a turn playing the attorney to my judge.
“I am really glad you said this, but we need to take action,” my mother said. “My parents never took action, and this was disastrous for me. Medications are necessary in some cases and allow you to move forward.” She wanted to assure me that if we did not address this in some capacity it would get worse, she knew this as she had been through the worst of mental illness. She recounted her own experience to me, a long story of not being given access to the proper help that led to her mental illness causing her to be suicidal and not being able to fulfill her goals like going to college.
She took the time to remind me that “Therapy is a fine place to start but medication can be necessary.” While I logically knew this to be the truth, I still struggled with the stigma of needing a drug to feel okay. So, I fought for therapy first and promised myself that if it did not work, I would be open to medication as my last resort.
As anyone can imagine this was just the start of my struggle with my mental health. The therapy I went through gave me the tools to navigate through life, I did eventually need medication and got through that as well. I would like to say that my logical side made this journey easier but I still had to face issues of suicide and severe anxiety and depression. But I will always be thankful that I had a mother who knew she had to meet me where I was at and support me in any way I let her. I am also thankful for my hyper-logical 12-year-old self who knew depression was not who she was or wanted to be and that she needed to address it before it got worse and knew when to ask for help.
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