Ever read something so honest, it makes your heart hurt?

Once upon a time while roaming the great wilds of the internets, I found this blog. And the voice sounded real to me. Real in a way that not too many writers can convince me of. I can’t quantify it, can barely qualify it, but I knew it when I read it. This person is speaking to me and they don’t even know it. That was over a year ago now.

The blog is Boothism, the writer is Kwan, and one of his most recent posts lives up to the standard I’ve set for myself when it comes to honesty in my own writing. This quote comes from: Happy New Year! Fuck Depression!

It’s almost three years later and the suggestion sounds a bit less alien. But still, if I’m honest, given a choice between corpse fucking and having an open conversation around this issue? I mean, well, hell. They’re already dead,right?

I’ve written about my experiences loving people with depression. My mother especially. I’ve often wished I could hear their interior dialogue. It’s hard always being on the deciphering end. Is it really as bad as I think it is for them? His post showed me that, yes…and it’s even worse.

I wrote last August that I had always wondered how different my life would have been if my mother had been able to get treatment for her depression. Part of that was also a longing for her own story to be out in the open. For it not to be just my experience that is recollected and processed over and over again me attempting to make sense of how a parent could be so detached from her children.

I concluded that post with:

Untreated depression kills people, destroys families and has long lasting consequences. The fact that mental illness disproportionally affects those in poverty should not be surprising to anybody. The fact that people opposed to socialized healthcare don’t really give a shit should be more disturbing, and it pisses me off.

I’m really grateful Kwan wrote what he did. In realtime, this moment, he’s recorded the struggle. It gives me hope. Check out Boothism.