Holiday Depression

Around the holiday I feel sad so I can only paint something dark. This painting is a reflection of how I feel around this time. Holiday was not always a depression time for me. Once I was very happy and celebrate the holidays with my family. However, I no longer have family to celebrate the holiday with so holidays only bring pain to my heart.

This painting is a reflection of the pain of depression and anxiety I feel. The truth be told I am not the only one who deal with depression. Two out of five people have some form of depression and/or anxiety. My depression and anxiety is not what it use to be. I had counselor and have people who support me. I still have time when that pain will come to the surface but that is only normal with the life I have experience. I have learn overtime how to overcome depression and anxiety which my art help with that. I am able to express what I am feeling in a painting and take a step back to reflect and say to myself that it is okay to feel this way. The moment we accept that how we are feeling we can come to terms and move on from that moment.

My own depression is around my divorce. I was marry for 11 years and at the time of separation. I was having trouble with depression and anxiety. My ex-husband took advance of my depression and got the courts to take my children from me. He also twist the stories around and had my parents and sibling rejection me during the worst part of my life. The people I believe that was my friends in the church abandon me. I found myself very much alone and rebuilding my life on my own.If it have not been for me being a veteran and veteran hospital in Richmond, VA helping me during that dark side of my life. I don’t know where I would have end up. My love for anime, hiking, and painting all help. I watch anime that encourage me to not give up. I went hiking to get quiet and to cry in peace. And I painting things that I love such as views from my hiking trips, my kids, and anime fan art of course. I explored new hobbies and new communities. Basically I went soul searching in my own nerd way.

I believe as a society we need to education ourselves in mental health a whole lot more than we have. These days I heard more conversation about mental health such as being rejection from church group because they are a little different from the rest of the church, schools not understand trust issue between students and teacher in early age by doing a random shooting drill without letting the parents know, and human resource in corporation not understand micro manager can be harassment coming from supervisor because it say to the employee that you don’t true me to do my job.

First we need to understand what mental health is and what may cause a person to feel depress. Mental health is define as a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. If we look for keys words then it would be easier to understand that situation can cause someone to feel depression. Keywords such as rejection, scary, hurt, betray, distrust, being accused, and etc. If we heard these words in how a person feel or think it, it could reflection how they view the situation. However, it is not the words along that does it, it is the love they shared with the people who hurt them behind the words. It may mean they trust them first and may have thought they would never hurt me to this extent.

I think the final step would be for us to have more of a open conversation about our feeling and how our actions effects these feeling we are having. This does not just apply to individual but to companies, churches, schools, and government. All of these organizational are run by people so mental health should always be an important part in their policy.