By the time she [Rebecca] was sixteen, she herself was wrestling with depression, brought on largely by medical treatments and not being able to compete athletically. She received a series of active interventions, including medication and therapy for her depression, and she talked with many people about what she was going through. As she gradually recovered from her depression, she struggled to make sense of it. And her understanding of herself and her own depression further helped her understand her parents’ experience.

A year later, at seventeen, she could begin to reflect about who she was in relation to her parents. She said that her father was very insecure and, "It’s not up to me to fix it. That’s a dangerous place to be. It sets me up for failure. I do the little things I can."

At eighteen, she observed, "I’m not so judgmental about my parents. I know what it’s like to be depressed. I’ve learned something about the self-hatred that goes along with it."

As she prepared to go to college, she reflected that she needed to put depression behind her. She said, "It’s no one’s fault. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know. It’s partly chemical and it’s partly who they are."

After a year of some success at college, a gradual recovery from her illness, and an awareness that she had undergone a depression, she was more empathetic. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend, and that enabled her to say, "I know what it’s like to be really sad. I’ve had such feelings myself and I can talk more easily about it."

For Rebecca, understanding herself, particularly in relation to her own depression and the risks she faced, left her reflective, mature, and able to move on. (193)

This passage was taken from When a Parent is Depressed, a book written for families facing depression. When a Parent is Depressed is published by Little, Brown, and Company and can be purchased at your local bookstore, through the publisher’s website (www.twbookmark.com), or at any major online book retailer.