When I was a teenager I was taught that depression is a serious condition, and the words, “I’m depressed,” shouldn’t just roll off your tongue. Clinical depression, I was told, among other things, can result in a person not even being able to pull themselves out of bed in the morning. 

Right after my brother passed away, I filled out my very first routine depression questionnaire at my annual physical. That felt like a completely normal time to have, “Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much.” But, four years later I was still, “Feeling tired or having little energy,” virtually every-single-day. My doctor and I had a conversation. Maybe there’s actually something going on here. Something I couldn’t meditate, pray, diet, exercise, talk, rest, journal, Yoga, personal-inventory, read, podcast, documentary or retreat my way out of. Maybe it was time to open my mind to a solution I had never considered before now.

Here’s the thing though Team, the reason I hadn’t considered another solution was because I was convinced that the reason I had, “Little interest or pleasure in doing things,” was the direct result of the fact that a lot of what I do honestly just sucks. Cleaning, cooking, scheduling, managing, running from fields to rinks, back to fields—not a ton of glory, as every parent knows. So my conclusion was, Yeah, I have little interest or pleasure doing things because most of what I do is neither interesting nor pleasurable. Made sense to me.

As I considered what my doctor was suggesting, a close friend shared this gentle insight with me. She said, “Maybe you’ve been swimming with jeans on and this is just a way to take the jeans off.”

I couldn’t tell you what my hang-ups were about medication as an option for myself. I don’t expect my friends with diabetes to manage their insulin with mantras…or demand that my children fix their broken bones with deep breathing. But somehow I thought my struggle to do everyday tasks was, in some way, my fault. Maybe I’m not meditating enough. Because I got out of bed every morning, because I was doing everything life was asking of me, because I often did it with a smile—I was in complete denial over just how difficult it was for me to do every single task set before me in a day.

Yes, there’s a lot about being a mother-of-four in a pandemic that rots. But it turns out it doesn’t rot nearly as much as I thought. I’m now waking up every morning in the 5’s, emptying the dishwasher, working out…For heaven’s sake, I’M COOKING people! That should’ve tipped us off right there that something fishy was going on. 

As you can imagine, it’s a whole hell of a lot easier to swim without jeans on. But none of this would have happened if it weren’t for the very wise souls who’ve taught me to always remain teachable and open.