Are you pregnant? (you can tell me)

A friend once told me that I was depressed because I had didn’t have a good relationship with God. Luckily, God also made the ‘unfriend’ button.

Sharing my experience with others always seemed like a bad idea. Misunderstanding. Judgement. Pity. It was hard enough dealing with personal opinions of myself, without those of other people. So I shed my tears in the bathroom, then put a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. However, when I left school for a six week in-patient program, I knew I had to say something to the classmates who saw me frequently.  I decided that vague was the best approach.

“I need to take care of a health thing…” I told a friend. “I’ve just been putting it off. I’m planning to come back in a month or so.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my god. Are you pregnant?”

Sometimes, the truth isn’t nearly as bad as what people may come up with on their own.

At the Menninger Clinic, a hospital that specializes in mental health for professionals, we had a course called ‘Career and Identity.’ It covered how and when to disclose illness at work. Protections allow workers to keep health information secret, but without an explanation, others will assume lateness and un-answered emails are laziness. The clinic gave us a lovely Pros and Cons list. The pros were accommodations, flexibility, understanding. The cons list didn’t have many tangibles, just bullet points ending in the word ‘stigma.’ They might as well have left a blank space reading ‘insert anxiety here.’

The only person I have ever stigmatized for depression is myself. I admired those who spoke openly. My own doctor shared her story of depression. I trusted her more for it. If Susan Hawk, a district attorney in Dallas, had not gone public about her experience, I would not have found the Menninger Clinic.

I can’t change my physical limitations any more than my skin color. And I shouldn’t pursue a career that would stigmatize me for it. I knew this when I applied to medical school, and wrote about depression and anxiety in my personal statement. If I was going to become a doctor, it would only be at a school that knew about my experience and still thought that I would make a great physician. Ironically, I had not internalized this message.

It has take time to realize that the only person who has ever suggested I wasn’t a fit for the medical profession was myself.

As I discovered with this blog, people are more understanding than I could have realized. I had been missing out on an amazing community by staying silent. I guess I didn’t need to change my relationship with God, but with a support system that I never new I had.