vanesha.mcgee

I have depression. depression: a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life 2008. diagnosis.  My doctor recommended medication. Antidepressants were not something I wanted to try, so I opted instead for an upgrade in 'talk therapy'.  Talk therapy was a game changer. I began to find myself again, to reach out from underneath the void, the weight, the quicksand.  Over the years I have learned that depression, the mental health disorder, is not something to 'get over'. I have learned that although I have depression, I am not always depressed. I do not always feel that my mood is depressed. I am not always at a loss for interest in activity.  I am not without joy.  anxiety: a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one's daily activities 2012. additions.  My first panic

My father died last week. Or the week before. Maybe he died awhile ago, I suppose I'm not sure. August 4th was the date, but the feeling has been alive in me for an endless and unknown amount of time. I sit in the wake of my father's death, the most unsettled feeling cascading over me, with an inability to move. My father passed that on to me-the inability to move. My father's inability to move was strong enough to shift tectonic plates, to force oceanic surges. He moved so little that even when he moved he was unseen. Allow me to explain... when i see a black man i see my father. tall. big belly. bald head.  i smell whiskey and disgust.  anger clenches my jaw tight i feel my breath catch in a decade of elapsed time.  unseen. and all around me.  in every drink. in every moment of fury. when i see a black man i feel the worsts in me shadow out the sun. regret yields to anger, opens to pain Back in college, when the surges really began to rise, my f