Weekly Prompt #36: How does your cultural background or upbringing influence your experience with depression?
Hello all, I hope you are all being easy on yourself this week.
Last week we discussed: How hard is it for you to set boundaries in your relationships? Thank you to all who participated and shared their thoughts and questions for discussion. They were thought-provoking questions and thoughts. I hope you all did too. If you didn't share yours, please share them here and I look forward to reading and discussing them with you
Growing up in a specific culture can have a profound impact on one's experience with depression. Cultural background and upbringing can shape the way one perceives and navigates mental health challenges. It can influence one's understanding of depression, the stigma attached to it, and the coping mechanisms one may have developed over the years.
This week's prompt: How does your cultural background or upbringing influence your experience with depression?
I want us to acknowledge the culture and influence of one's upbringing on their mental health journey to share their experiences and emotions. Let's get started
My mother is an overthinker who always thinks she's right about everything and tries to enforce her thinking to everyone around her. My father is usually out from work when I was a kid. Who influenced me the most should be obvious. But over the years, only the overthink part of her is still a part of me which brings me here. I'm a science major and not really religious compared to the rest of my family. So I guess my "cultural" background + my overthinking= trying to find logic and reason behind everything. So whenever something happens, I sort of find a logical reason to explain it in my head which includes of me getting depressed. Sometimes I even analyse myself and ask myself questions like am I depressed or do I want to think that I'm depressed lol.
@Jackyboi0516 I am sorry to hear that you have grown up in an environment where there were certain expectations and ways of thinking that did not align with you. This can be difficult to navigate. What has been the impact of this on you?
@Jackyboi0516 I am sorry to hear that your home life was not the best. If you could go back in time, and change things, with your family what would you change? What did you miss the most growing up? Do you think your up bring might have caused some of your depressive symptoms?
@calmMango9611 bringing correction on spelling.
@ASilentObserver
As depression runs in my family genes I am quite happy to say that my parents are quite aware of it, my grandmother had depression and then my father (he was really suicidal after he had lost his job, he wasn't sure if he could even pay for my education). That was few years back and he got out of it, I'm really proud of him but also during those times I could see my whole family crumble and fall apart so yes that affected me a lot as well and my parents do get worried now and then and ask me if I am depressed or not so they could take me to a proper doctor but thankfully I never reached that stage. Love you dad!
@ASilentObserver
How does your cultural background or upbringing influence your experience with depression?
I could write a book about it lol. However, the short version - history of mental illness in the family, lack of coping skills by parents (due to undiagnosed mental health issues), old traditional values, relying on government to 'support' any issue, ignoring/denying or using laughter to cover/ignore addressing issues. No serious talks in my mother ever. Anything that came up was either met with defensiveness, yelling, or biased laughter.
I could go on. However, like I said in the beginning of this post, I could write a book about it.
@CaringSub It feels like you have a lot of thoughts and feelings about how your culture and upbringing may have contributed to your experiences with depression. It is understandable that these factors can play a big role in shaping our perspectives on mental health. What do you think are some ways that these influences have impacted you?