Kick Her When She's Down

I thought about not answering the phone when I saw the number come up on Caller ID. I didn’t want to talk to my mom. But I thought it could be my husband, calling to make sure I was okay. He was still out there at my parents’ house, with our daughter, and I know he was worried about me.

He had reason to be worried about me. I was clinically depressed, had been fighting this depression unsuccessfully for 5 months. I was supposed to be back in Tennessee with our daughter, while he came back home to work, but then my meds stopped working again, and I began to crash.

Sending me back early, even though it meant I would be at home alone, seemed safer. In the best of situations, with much to distract us and all my wits around me, spending a week with my mother is a challenge. Spending a week with her when I was spiraling back down into the pit of a horrendous depression, out in the middle of nowhere where they lived, was probably more than I could handle.

So he put me on the plane, and stayed there so our daughter could have some time with her grandparents. And I wouldn’t totally be alone; I had friends who would check on me, and I made an appointment with both the therapist and the psychiatrist. But I knew he was worried.

I answered the phone. It wasn’t my husband; in fact, he and my daughter were out of the house, off playing miniature golf. It was my mother. She wanted to talk about my depression.

She didn’t understand. Why was I depressed? What had happened? “You’re a strong person, you’re not like Granny.” Granny, her mother-in-law, had twice been committed for depression. “You’re too strong to be depressed. It doesn’t make any sense.” She started getting angry. She demanded an explanation, but I didn’t have any to give her. Soon, it became clear to me what was really behind this harsh interrogation: she was afraid that I blamed her for my depression. Her best defense had always been a strong offense, so in her fear, she attacked.

I was devastated. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, and I did as soon as I got off the phone. All the tears that had been dammed up inside me for the last few months came gushing out. I cried for all the times she had yelled at me, for all the times I had felt not enough, yet too much at the same time. I cried for letting her do it to me again.

This attack hurt more than the others. I was already wounded, and she kicked me when I was down. This wasn’t about some offense I had committed. I hadn’t gotten depressed to hurt her or embarrass her. I was suffering from an illness; that it was a mental illness didn’t make it my fault.

If this attack wasn’t really about me being a bad daughter, then maybe the others weren’t, either.