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A Treatment for Depression

Like Magic

By Desi LoganPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Depression is a fairly common ailment and ways of treating it range from medication to therapy or a combination of many things, including support from loved ones. I have many friends that share their stories on social media, the medications they take and simple posts talking through it all. I read, click the heart emoji, and will often private message them and let them know that I am open to talk, if they should need it.

However, as common as depression is, I find it very hard to seek help or comfort on social media myself. I will often not tell friends, even if they ask, about how I'm doing, and being from a religious family that looks down on medication for mental illnesses like depression, I feel guilty for thinking about talking to my doctor.

Throughout the course of my life, I find that everyone has a battle to fight, something they must live with, find peace with. Depression is my battle. My weapon? As aforementioned, I do not take medication or talk very much about it. Before leaving home for college, I would simply cry or write out my feelings and then burn the pages so no one would find them.

College, or rather the major setting change, presented a new challenge to cope with my depression. Living in closer quarters than that of home, I couldn't easily hide. I had to go to class and speak with RAs and a roommate, who would stay in all day and watch Criminal Minds. I had nowhere to run, except into the kitchen.

Before leaving home, I used to cook very simple things, enough to get by without having to eat out every night. I would later use these simple skills and then build upon them, as a method of treatment. One of the RAs learned I could make chocolate chip cookies and since the kitchen area was always very populated, the entire floor would smell like a bakery, drawing people from all over the place to have one.

They would express gratitude and ask for more. One person drove me to the store when my money was running thin and bought me what I needed to get to make a cake, another popular item of mine. I got to teach a small baking class and soon enough, made many new friends, who supported me through a few emotional riffs.

I find it funny that I wouldn't eat much of the sweets, maybe a small amount, but mainly I baked for the joy of seeing other people happy. It was therapeutic to see smiles made from my sweets.

It has been two years since I graduated college. I have since moved back home and found that my new treatment has begun to wane quite a bit. As there are not as many people living at home than at the dorm, there are fewer people to cook for, which also affects the reactions, which come from the same three people. However, I refuse to stop cooking, not even for a moment.

This made me question which I wanted more: the praise or the outlet. Back in college, the praise was numerous and honest, coming from strangers, but would wear off quickly and, thus, I’d have to make more food to generate more praise. However, more often than not, I often cooked for myself, going back to my simple dinners. I enjoyed those moments more, as it gave me the space to daydream and not worry too much about how little seasoning the chicken had or whether or not someone was going to like the food.

Overall, I think the therapy of my depression was the goal of changing the negative to a positive, whether it was changing a group of foods into one, filling an empty page with words, or changing a bundle of yarn into a stuffed animal (more on that later).

coping
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