Depression Talk

I live with my Mom but my Dad and my stepmother live in the next town. Dad takes me out for breakfast every couple of weeks. Mom and Dad divorced when I was 16, but both parents were homebodies. They didn’t take business trips, gave up vacations in order to send me to a good school and were basically “there” for me. I always kept in contact with Dad all through my life and now, at 38, I was bent over French Toast and mentioned, “I stayed up until one in the morning watching the election. Wasn’t it great?”

And then discovered that my Dad was and is a conservative Republican.

Whoopsie.

How Didn’t I Know?

After having more or less steady contact with my father for 38 years, you think I would’ve somehow picked up on the fact that he was Republican. But I didn’t. I went through these 38 years being absolutely positive that he was a liberal to moderate Democrat. Why did I assume that?

Part of it was probably due to Dad being somewhat quiet about subjects like religion or politics, although he could be incredibly argumentive about things like unions, saving the whales and helping the environment (of which he is all for). But mostly, I didn’t know because of my depression.

You Get A Little Self Obsessed

With any type of depression, it’s very hard to get the big picture of things. You make assumptions and assume that there can’t be any change to those assumptions. This is one reason why people with depression often don’t go get help — because they are convinced that they can’t be helped.

When I look back on my political inclinations, I just assumed I got them from my parents. They pushed me in one direction and then let me go and I chose to keep toddling down the path of a liberal Democrat. Because depression makes you a tad self-obssessed, you just assume that everyone in your inner circle has the same opinions you do.

In Conclusion

When you have depression — or go to breakfast with a parent — don’t take anything for granted. You’ll still probably put your foot in your mouth, but don’t take anything personally. After a few minutes of staring over the food plates, we laughed, had a bit of a talk and laughed some more.