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[quote=Anonymous]
Only when I was an adult, and after my mom's death, did I fully realize my mom likely was depressive, at times perhaps extremely so, but she was incredibly good at functioning through it.

Nothing at all like some PPs above describe, though, which might illustrate the very wide range of what depression is and how it manifests differently in different people. I don't think her depressive tendencies were rooted in any early trauma that I ever knew of, and I think I knew a lot about her upbringing. I do believe now that her depressive tendencies were [i]greatly [/i]exacerbated by physical issues she just tried to push through all her life (miscarriages, a lot of gynecological difficulties, what I only now realize was a horrible menopause, and what today would surely be diagnosed as fibromyalgia). She was negative and "down" in many ways yet managed to be supportive of me, and was very intentional about telling me she loved me, and neither permissive nor at all strict. Not perfect but a good mom possibly because she was hard on herself about just keeping going, however she felt physically or mentally.

As for how it affected me, I did grow up being very aware that women were often dismissed if they tried to get medical help for [i]anything[/i] that wasn't clear-cut and extremely obvious to a (usually male) doctor. That was my mom's experience. Better doctors would have spotted many of her physical issues and diagnosed them better (rather than blaming EVERYTHING on "the change") and maybe connected them with depression and helped her not have to just push through everything on her own.

For context, I'm probably older than many on this board, and was raised in an area where there was plenty of medical care but also a lot of misogyny ingrained in everything. And my dad died suddenly when I was in middle school and my sibling was in high school, so my mom had that to deal with (situational depression, I think that's called) and college money to worry about. I truly respect and appreciate her more, the older I get. I just wish I could have known more at that time about depression as part of overall medical issues. But I was a kid and teen. I've raised my own DD to be very proactive about both physical and mental health. [/quote]

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