The Cost of Hiding & The Power of Sharing

March 24 was the Depression Awareness Day, and May will be the Mental Health Awareness Month.

And while I’ve been a consistent advocate for mental & emotional health over the past years, I don’t often get to openly discuss my own experience with the subject matter. In fact, I wrote and published an entire book - Ode to Hope and Despair (OtHaD) - as a preamble to this conversation as I wasn’t sure how to approach it. How does one casually share that she’s been living with regular bouts of depression (and other stuff) for the majority of her life? (Actually, huge news here - I’ve been depression-free for almost a year now, a personal record and a result of a lot of hard work!)

Or maybe it’s not the question of How but rather Why? Why share something like that? Shouldn’t darkness be kept in the dark? Wouldn’t people look at me differently? Or would it feel worse if they didn’t because nobody actually cared?

Yet here’s the thing - secrecy begets shame and the best way to dissipate shame is to bring it to light. So writing and publishing OtHaD became my way of blasting a beam of healing light onto a part of me I kept hidden for years.

Someone asked me once, why I even wanted to invest my energy into this book, into something that focused so heavily on the old negative feelings that I should have long left behind. They suggested that maybe instead of keeping myself in that old rug, I should be focusing more on where I am now. Their words made me feel sad, lonely, and defensive at first, because I recognized that they thought that depression was a thing of my past and also because it felt like they wanted it to be in my past (even if for good reasons), which in turn seemed to pose rejection to my present depressed self. It made me feel not only rejected, but also undesired and rightfully hidden. I could absolutely understand their preference for the light and enthusiastic version of me, but it still hurt that no space was allowed to the version I kept in the dark, away from such rejections. I took a deep breath and explained that the old feelings they referred to were unpleasant but not negative, because there aren’t negative feelings to begin with. Then I shared that what they said in their suggestion was exactly the reason I wanted this book to exist: this book is both for those dealing with depression and for their loved ones - to provide hope to the former and insight to the latter, helping them better understand one another and thus reducing accidental rejection in interactions. After all, depression doesn’t always grow old - it tends to revive itself regularly and stays present quite a bit of the time.

It’s not that I deliberately keep myself in “that old rug” but rather that I learned that the rug was a part of me and denying its existence stood in the way of true self-acceptance.

There are some poems in this book that make me wonder - “Am I really the person that wrote them? How could that be?” Because the me of my good days doesn’t really know the me of my bad days - they never met except through that sort of a book journal. It’s almost like two minds in one body exchanging notes (yes, I refer to the movie “Your Name”:)).

Still, some of you might ask “Why would you want to hold on to this dark part of you?” The answer is simple - she’s still and will forever be me. She’s that part of me that survived through a lot of hurt and struggles and showed such strength to do that - she’s absolutely worth remembering and celebrating. I can’t and don’t want to erase this part of me - she helped me become who I am now and I happen to like this person.

So OtHaD is important to me as a testament to the big lesson I learned - rejecting any my part stands in the way of true self-acceptance. Ever since I’ve gone on the path of accepting all of me and embracing depression, its bouts have gotten softer and kinder and who knows soon enough I might have less of me in my head and more room for the rest of the world. So, in a way, this book is my declaration of peace - peace amidst all my selves, after decades of brutal inner wars.

Anyways, in the US, annually, about 8% of adults are affected by depression. So let me remove any and all ambiguity with a straightforward declaration (in the Swifty style) - “It’s me, hi, I’m the statistic, it’s me” - that person in your social circles that regularly got quite intimate with depression. I know this shit, so let’s get the conversation going.

My hope is that by sharing my experience with others through this book, in addition to helping myself, I’ll also help those going through dark days know that they are not alone and become more familiar with their own mind in order to better articulate, understand, and navigate their own experiences.

As part of my contribution to #mentalhealthawareness, I’d like to offer a free download of the Book Discussion Guide for my book (Ode to Hope and Despair) as a conduit for discussion and reflection in a mental health group or book club gathering.

Books can be a great way to promote discussions and reflections on relevant topics. As I don’t tire of noting, Ode to Hope and Despair isn’t your standard poetry collection - rather it could be described as an illustrated conversation with the subconscious, as it allows the reader to sneak past their overthinking brain and go straight to the part that actually feels. This makes it quite a good fit for book club and mental health group discussions, especially in the month of May, the Mental Health Awareness Month.

When trying to describe your feelings (especially when you’re not used to talking about feelings), it might be easier to leverage another’s words as initial markers for your own. Or better yet - you can invite your feelings to resonate with illustrations in the book and see what kind of insight those resonances might provide. This book, with its literal and figurative images, slips right past the rational filters of the mind and taps into emotion in a way that allows for a more honest conversation about some of the toughest feelings.

So here are three reasons to bring OtHaD to your book club (or therapy group):

Multiple interpretations - no one “right” answer/meaning, which means richer discussions.

Metaphors as mirrors - poetry makes it easier to reflect on your own story.

Art as access point - images give people emotional shorthand when words feel lacking.

To get a better idea, try this simple exercise with the image above or below (both are from the book). You don’t even need to read the poems associated with them. Just sit with the image.

What calls to you?

What does it stir up?

What do you think the writing might be about?

Write a few lines of your own inspired by it.

Now, if you want, you can check the ebook preview of the book and read the poem. Did your interpretation change? How does it compare to your expectations?

That’s the beauty of OtHaD - it opens doors you didn’t realize were there. And when those doors are opened in a group, the conversations that follow tend to surprise people - in the best way.

About the book:

Ode to Hope and Despair is an illustrated collection of literary and visual artworks, traveling from darkness to light in a literal epitome of an illustrated journey from despair to hope to despair to hope, in a looped circle, which sometimes also manifests as a spiral. After all, what is Despair if not Hope through the looking glass, and what is Hope if not Despair reflected in a funhouse mirror? This book is both for those going through dark days (and seeking light in that darkness) and for their loved ones - to provide hope to the former and insight to the latter.

P.S. The exercise above is from the Book Discussion Guide that I developed on the basis of my coaching background - download the full guide for free at the link in bio. The images are from the same book.

AI disclosure: ChatGPT was leveraged to check grammar/spelling/punctuation and brainstorm title and subtitle ideas.