Have Yourself a Depression-free Christmas
Depression, anxiety, suicide, and mental illness , in general, are not popular topics of conversation in black families. So when you're black and sharing a life with one of these mother f-ers, it can be a very lonely world. And with the way we tend to avoid these topics as a country, it can be a few steps past lonely, a leap across overwhelming, and just plain unbearable. And holiday season can add a little salt to your hidden wound(s). Personal Struggle My family is filled with mental illnesses - from bipolar disorder to drug addiction to ptsd - but we don't discuss it much. So fittingly, I've struggled with depression since I was very young (due to unexpected, unfortunate events), never really brought it up, and didn't handle it well. Fast forward to middle school, I started testing the alcoholic waters, thinking my friends and I were fun and cool. I went to a park with a couple friends and drank probably two-thirds of a bottle of flavored-vodka in less t...