Clinical Depression Autobiography

An Autoethnography of Clinical Depression During the Formative Years of my Identity My mom and I are sitting silently across from each other at our kitchen table, tears streaming down both of our faces. She finally inhales shakily, and shaking her head, asks
“You used to be such a happy girl, always laughing and smiling. What happened?”
I look at her slightly blurry form through the tears in my eyes, and answer her question with something that will really hurt her: the truth.
“I don’t know, mom. I really wish I did.”
My parents liked to tell me that I came out of the womb smiling. Growing up, my dad used to say that when I was born, I did not cry or fuss or make any noise at all. He said that I just looked at him, and all I did was blink without

However, the effects of puberty on my body did not explain all of the changes in my personality and disposition. Still, nobody became concerned because I was still performing very well in all other aspects of my life. My grades only dropped from A’s to B’s, I went down to one sport but was still MVP, and I was still participating in class, even if I was no longer smiling while doing so. People noticed the difference, but chalked them up to hormonal changes and going through puberty. People would tell my parents that my behavior was something that all teenagers go through and that it was normal. But my behavior really was not normal. It was not until later, after years of confusion and crying and an inability to get out of bed and self-harming and suicide attempts and subsequent therapy visits, that I finally saw a psychiatrist and was given an explanation on why I felt like this: depression. Going through puberty and developing depression around the same time severely influenced the development of my identity as I aged, and contributed to behavioral patterns that were harmful to myself. However, because I was still performing better than average in other areas of my life, including academically,

I had looked at many of the statistics of depression in teenage girls in the midst of my personal downward spiral, and I was confused by what they told me. Most of the symptoms I read about in articles with names like Warning signs you may be depressed, and the results I got from googling questions like “What are the symptoms of depression?” were things I dealt with on a daily basis. Going through them felt like checking items off a grocery list. Depressed mood? Check. Lessened interest in one’s activities? Check. Fatigue, loss of energy, feelings of worthlessness, and suicidal thoughts? Check, check, and check. And then I looked at how likely it was for girls my age to become depressed. As I found out, the occurrence of depression in teenage girls is actually very common, and apparently, the warning signs were pretty