Tuesday, September 18, 2018

English 101 - "This I Believe" essay


I believe that I am never “too depressed” to give up
            Growing up as the only child of a twenty-year-old single-mother-by-choice I was lavished with attention and affection from a young age because I was the first grandchild.  From a young age, I knew that my mother had challenges.  She was severely depressed, and often suffered migraine attacks. At the tender age of two, I knew that my mother struggled just to get out of bed in the morning, and that there was little to nothing that I could do about it because of my age. 
When I became a teenager, one of my uncle’s girlfriends (Anna) had gotten on disability for depression.  This irritated my mother.  She had spent most of my life just struggling to provide for me.  The idea that one could just stop working to provide for their family and languish on disability for the rest of their lives upset her strong work ethic.  One day, while talking about Anna to me, she brazenly stated, “You’re never too depressed to go to work.”  As a teenager, this meant nothing to me.  However, when I entered the work force, haunted by my own worsening (and then untreated) Bipolar Disorder, the statement suddenly became a motto.  I would wake up on difficult mornings, hearing her voice in my head, reminding me that I was never too depressed to go to work.  Slowly, I would put one foot on the floor, and force myself to go to work.  That off-hand comment suddenly changed my entire work ethic.  More than that, it changed how I viewed myself in relation to the world around me.
My mother struggled her entire life, just to function and be a productive member of society while raising her children.  In my 20’s, I started experiencing a little bit of her life, though with different problems.  I was struggling at school.  I was struggling at work.  I was struggling at life.  My illnesses were ravaging my life. 
Yet, her voice in my head, demanding that I was never too depressed (or too manic, or too whatever) to work, made me rise to the occasion.  I learned that what she had said in an off-hand comment had begun to affect me on a different level.  What she had meant to say was that one should never give up and lay down in bed with their illnesses.  There’s no reason for it. You have to keep fighting.  Dylan Thomas has a famous poem that says “Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.”  My mother stating that one is “never too depressed to go to work” was less about Anna and more about her own struggles, her own fight to rage against the dying of the light.  It later became mine.
I never gave up.  I am still fighting through my illnesses.  I eventually got professional help, which was a lift raft in the storm.  I began to fight the darkness.  I found that I could get out of any hole I found myself in, even if I had to break my nails crawling out.  I was never going to be too depressed to call it quits.  I won’t say that it’s been an easy battle; It hasn’t been.  But my mother’s voice in my head reminds me that I can do literally anything that I put my mind to, be that overcoming illnesses and challenges, to excelling at work (or school, in this case).  I believe that I’m never too depressed to quit on life.  I believe that I am strong and that I am capable.  With the help of a great medical team, I was able to be successfully treated and stabilized.  Now I am able to do anything.  I have a great life and I am a successful person.  All that I have done in my life is because of my mother’s offhand comment.  Never being “too depressed to go to work” has pulled me through some very dark times.  However, I am a success because of this offhand comment.  It motivates me to keep going.


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Grade: 98/100
Professor comments: MLA date. Font should be the same throughout - no bold or underline

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