A Quality Life with Clinical Depression: My Mom’s Story
Four decades of wisdom to give hope where it’s needed most.
One day, somewhere in my early teens, I found out my mom was in the hospital. I didn’t understand why she had to go to the hospital for being sad, but at least she looked fine when we visited. She returned home soon after, and life went on as usual.
That was more than two decades ago. During that time, I learned more about depression and my mom learned a lot more about living with it. All that learning paid off. Today, she enjoys an excellent quality of life, despite her depression always lurking in the background. That’s why I decided to ask her some questions about how she managed to pull it off.
Let’s start at the beginning. What exactly is depression?
There are many definitions by professionals, but for me, it basically comes down to feeling utterly miserable when you have no reason even to feel bad. And it goes on and on and on. Naturally, hardship and loss can worsen depression, but it’s not necessarily the source. Feeling like you have nothing to live for when you KNOW you have lots of things to be grateful for adds a layer of guilt, only making the situation worse.
