Depression has such a negative aura attached to it, and I mean… it is depressing. When we think of depression we think of failure, heartbreak, just pure defeat. My personal idea of depression takes me right back to the fact I was in therapy in 5th grade. My dad had placed me in it so that way I would have somebody to talk to about my feelings in regards to not having a relationship with my mom. When in reality, I needed therapy for way deeper rooted issues that surpassed my mother and I.

In hindsight, me and my mom having an estranged relationship was the easiest thing I as a child could process. I knew she loved me, I loved her, and that was all I needed. My first therapist was an older Black lady who was underwhelming to say the least, I don’t even remember her name. I just knew her office was dim, there was no color, and if anything, every time I went there if I wasn’t depressed before arriving, I was definitely depressed when I left. Like, ma’am, I came in for healing, not to sit in the waiting room of the afterlife.

She was nothing but my dad in a woman’s body. I could tell she was given a script to follow to get me to talk, and I did nothing but mock her. When she’d ask me how I felt, I would counter with, “How do you think I feel?” or “Do you think I miss my mom?” or “Do you think I’m a strain on my dad’s marriage because I don’t talk to him or my stepmom? You tell me!” It got to the point she was frustrated and clearly voiced the frustration back to my dad.

I remember vividly how mad he was, yelling about how I was ungrateful, mad at the world, manipulative, everything under the sun. Meanwhile, I was in my head thinking about how the other girls I knew, who were 10 just like me, were doing fun things after school, getting their nails done with their moms, hanging out at the mall, or simply going home and being allowed to exist in peace. Meanwhile, I was getting screamed at because I wasn’t expressing feelings I was experiencing for the very first time in a way he could tolerate. Like sorry, sir, I don’t have the vocabulary of Oprah yet.

It’s like my silence was cancerous to him, yet ironically, my silence was what kept me sane.

Fast forward: me sitting in the room blankly staring at The Lincoln Lawyer playing on TV and realizing, here I am at 28, feeling exactly how I felt at 10, forced to be digestible for people who simply lacked the ability and capacity to meet me at a comprehension level clearly above their heads.

The irony? Everybody growing up thought I was depressed because of my mom. But if anything, my mom was the only person I vividly remember communicating with. Now was I always perfect and nice? Absolutely not. I definitely got popped in the mouth a few times. But I can say I never went to bed with words left on my chest.

My dad was different. Anything that went against him was “disrespect.” And he did not tolerate disrespect. There was never a year of my childhood that me and him knew peace. He was cemented on his high horse, and I was determined to overthrow his Game of Thrones level thirst for total control.

As I got older, I just stopped caring. I was willing to die on the hill that he could control anything and everything, just not me.

Then one day, in family therapy (me, him, my stepmom, and therapist), in the middle of his usual rant about me being ungrateful, I realized something: my mom wasn’t escaping me, she was escaping him. And I immediately burst out laughing. Between his infamous crazy look, the therapist staring in disbelief, and my stepmom asking if I was serious, I realized all his constant comparisons of me to his mother and my mother were just his own insecurities and trauma projected onto me.

That’s when it clicked: those women spared him. I took it to him every time. So yes, I was worse. And once I realized he was just another human I could read like a freshly cleaned glass door, I promised myself I would never let a man bully me again. And I didn’t.

I also learned this: people love to say, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” but they never account for “Hell hath no fury like a man who can’t fathom accountability.” Whew.

Then I started analyzing my friendships. I realized nobody knows how to “save face” like me. I’ll tell people the bare minimum of what somebody did to me because if I shared the whole timeline, folks would realize you only know the version of somebody they want you to know.

I decided I was either going to be depressed and go back to who I was at 10, or I was going to be who I was with my mom: a true tyrant. Between the books Unfuck Yourself, It Didn’t Start With You, and Children of Emotionally Unintelligent Parents, I realized the age I remembered most was 10. The rest? A blur.

So I merged two versions of me into one: the 5 year old who questioned everything because I wanted to know exactly what was expected of me, and the 10 year old who said, “Yeah, I hear you, but I’m still doing what I want.”

I got back into writing short stories, poetry, journaling. I started asking everyone in my life real questions: “How are you?” “What were your dreams?” “Am I a good friend/sister/daughter?” I became obsessed with community again because that’s what I loved as a kid.

I went back to acting, modeling, replying to auditions. I even went outside and took walks without planting my face in my phone. I looked at trees, the sky, and realized all the blurred years had led me to NYC. And honestly? If I hadn’t been headstrong, I don’t even know if I’d still be alive.

With time, the weight got lighter. What made me cry started to make me laugh. And the men I used to go to war over? Me and my girls were tossing them to the wolves like free samples.

Like I do at the gym, I saw a little progress and said: “Fuck it, I ball.” I decided I was so healed, so powerful, that phase one would be taking on Boston.

Now before you laugh and ask, “Boston? What the fuck is in Boston?” let me tell you a lot. From the best lobster, the world’s first library, the Freedom Trail tour, and Club Loco by Fenway. I’d been saying since 2019 I wanted to go. Plus, growing up watching Tom Brady dominate, having family there, and the Yankees playing the Red Sox at Fenway that weekend say less.

So I said, “Fuck it, I ball,” and I went.

And I finally understood why my grandpa always questioned if I was fully there in the head. Because I arrived in Boston with the brightest aura of love and light, and left promising, guaranteeing to bring shame down on Boston and terrorize it like I was Green Goblin and Boston was my Spider-Man.

Not in a “wow, she blew all her healing progress” way, but in a “I know exactly who I am and over my dead body will anyone ever make me question myself again” way. And I say nothing tops learning acceptance the way you learn it in Boston.