Talking About Depression: How Honest Conversations Break the Silence

What difference does it make when families actually talk about depression instead of hiding it?

In this episode, Jesse reflects on growing up in a family where mental illness was openly discussed at home, long before society embraced those conversations. She shares what it was like to watch her mother struggle with depression, how honesty helped reduce shame, and how those early conversations shaped her own lifelong journey with depression and anxiety.

Joined by guest co-host John, who also carries a deep family history of depression and addiction, the discussion explores the healing power of openness, the damage of silence, and how breaking cycles of secrecy can change lives — including the next generation’s.

This is a powerful reminder that talking about depression is not just brave — it’s transformative.

Primary Topics Covered:

• Why “talking about depression” is essential for reducing stigma
• Jesse’s family history of depression and anxiety across generations
• How her parents’ honesty helped her as a child understand mental illness
• The experience of watching her mother live with chronic pain and depression
• How secrecy, silence, and gaslighting fueled shame and confusion in other families
• John’s contrasting story of growing up in a family that denied problems
• The impact of being told “it’s not your fault” as a child
• How honesty creates resilience and helps future generations
• Practical ways families can break cycles of silence about mental health

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction: Why talking about depression matters  
01:00 – Meet Jesse and guest co-host John  
01:27 – Jesse’s lifelong journey with chronic depression and anxiety  
02:05 – Family openness about depression in the 1960s  
03:14 – How honesty shaped Jesse’s understanding as a child  
04:42 – Her parents’ candid conversations about mental illness  
07:15 – Watching her mother’s struggle with depression and chronic pain  
09:10 – The power of being told “it’s not your fault” as a child  
11:38 – Jesse internalizes stress and develops physical symptoms  
12:38 – The complexity of hearing a parent say “I wish I could die”  
15:00 – Jesse’s lifelong daily depression and morning struggles  
15:58 – Her “tripod of support”: medication, diet, and exercise  
16:46 – Daily practices from 12-step recovery and writing letters  
18:18 – Metaphor of the snowball: unpacking depression one piece at a time  
19:32 – Finding functional, self-respectful ways to cope with depression  
20:46 – John’s contrasting family experience: silence, gaslighting, and addiction  
24:10 – How secrecy undermines children’s trust in themselves  
26:41 – Breaking the cycle: creating openness for the next generation  
27:16 – Closing reflections: the healing power of honest conversations  

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Transcript

Ep. 354 What If We Actually Talked About It

Terry [00:00:04] Hello and welcome to the Giving Voice to Depression podcast brought to you by Recovery.com, a free online resource created to make it easier to find addiction and mental health treatment and resources. Each week we profile a guest here who shares intimate details of their mental health journey. They share because they understand that when people don't talk about their depression or other mental health conditions, those of us who struggle with them can feel like we're the only ones, that there is something wrong with us, and that no one understands. We understand. I'm Terry, the creator and co-host of this podcast. You have my promise that we'll keep it real here. Depression is real and we're not going to sugarcoat our discussions about it. Hope is also real and you'll get a dose of that here, too. Thanks for joining us. 

Terry [00:01:00] Hi, this is Terry. So this episode has two guests: Jesse, who will be sharing some of the details of her lifelong mental health journey, and John, who is our guest co-host today. John earned a master's in social work or MSW, and also has a lot of lived experience with depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, and many of the other experiences we discuss here. Welcome, John, and thank you for stepping in. 

John [00:01:27] Thank you so much, Terry. This is really great. I'm really excited about this. And I really enjoyed the interview. There is so much that we have to talk about. Today, we'll be talking with Jesse, a 64-year-old woman whose journey with chronic depression and anxiety is woven into a family history where mental illness wasn't hidden behind closed doors. You know, in a time when most families kept silent about the topic, even amongst themselves, Jesse grew up hearing honest conversations and was given honest information about the struggles, coping, and healing of people in her family who are struggling with mental health issues. 4

Terry [00:02:05] It is easy to forget how much the world has changed when it comes to talking about mental health. According to a 2023 study by the American Psychological Association, nearly 80% of people now believe open conversations about mental health reduce stigma. And that's a sharp contrast to just a few decades ago. Jesse's family was way ahead of its time, proving that speaking openly can be the first step toward healing. 

John [00:02:32] Reminds me of something that I read a while back by the writer Glennon Doyle who once said, the most revolutionary thing a person can do is tell the truth about their life. And that really is powerful. (Yes.) Today, Jessie does just that, reminding us that openness, whether in the 1960s or today, has the power to transform not just individuals, but entire communities. Here now is Jessie giving her voice to depression. 

Terry [00:03:06] Start with where you start when you think about your story and your journey with depression. 

Jessie [00:03:14] Okay. When my husband was in the military and I needed to check in with a new psychiatrist each time we moved, I would have to fill out a form that said list your relatives that deal with mental illness. And I would do that dutifully once or twice. And after that I would just say there are too many to list. (Wow.) Yeah. So it comes from both sides of the family and I grew up surrounded by it — both in the nuclear family and in extended families, on both sides. 

Terry [00:03:56] Were you aware of that in the moment, or is that something that now, when you reflect back, you realize there were a lot of people experiencing depression? 

Jessie [00:04:09] My parents were very open talking about it, and both my father and mother had experienced mental illness in their families up close. So they were amateur professionals and very honest. They were very honest about it and would explain when we asked questions about it, even as little children. So we would see an uncle go through a hard time, or a cousin, or a sibling and my parents would explain. 

Terry [00:04:42] What were those conversations like? 

Jessie [00:04:44] I'm in the middle of a family of five. So when we were small and we were fairly close together, I think my mother was too tired to communicate what was actually going on with family members. But as I got older, she slipped into a more serious depression. And so my father started to talk more about it and he would also be honest about his struggles at the same time. So it was not, it was not a secret. It was not confusing. It wasn't vague. It was very plain. 

Terry [00:05:31] Hm. Oh, I have so many questions. So while they were honest and disclosing, was there an expectation that those truths would stay in the four walls of your home? I mean, could you say it to a teacher or a friend or somebody outside of your family without getting in trouble? 

Jessie [00:05:50] That's a great question. Both sides of my family were very conscientious, kind, upstanding people, who in most cases were shackled by the struggles with a lifetime genetic problem with depression. And they did not complain. They did not voice their pain to us as children. If we asked them a question or we saw someone in obvious pain that was a relative, they would explain all we wanted to know, but they wouldn't ever — not until we were teenagers  — did they ever talk about their experiences and say, me too, or don't be afraid, I felt like that, or I feel like that this month, or something. They got more personally open as we got older and as it was more necessary as the sibling, my siblings and I started to struggle with it ourselves actively. 

Terry [00:07:15] Paint me a picture of a time that you would have had that conversation when you were young inside your home about somebody's experience of depression at that moment. 

Jessie [00:07:26] Well, it's easiest to talk about my mother who slipped more and more into depression and anxiety and developed a pain disorder, which I didn't know until I researched it as an adult. And she developed chronic pain and would just, she was debilitated. She would lie in bed pretty much just crying. She could not take the pain and of course at that time pain medications weren't really seen as helpful. And I've got to say she may not, she was a lip-biter. She would rather bite her lip than say that she needed professional help of any kind, whether it was medical or psychiatric. So as my mom would lie there, my father would say — depending on how young I was, maybe eight — he would say, Mom is sad. It's not your fault. She has a sickness. We're going to take her to the doctor and a specialist will talk with her and get her all the help she needs. She may need to go to the hospital for a few weeks, but we're gonna get the help for her that she needs and there are lots of nice families that you can stay with while she goes and I'll come visit you while you're there. 

Terry [00:09:10] I want to ask one more question about your parents and then I want to get into your experience. But when you said that your father said to you, it's not your fault. Your mom's sick and none of this is your fault. As a young daughter who was not told that, I would have loved to have been told that. Is it ... Was it as much of a relief as I suspect it would be or is it only really a big relief looking back? Or was it no big deal or what was it for you? 

Jessie [00:09:40] I think it was ... tI think it was a good thing to put in the filing cabinet of my mind. I knew my father told the truth, so I knew he meant it, that it was an illness, not caused by ... I didn't cause it. I couldn't control it. 

Terry [00:10:07] Did that make it less scary for you? 

Jessie [00:10:11] I think all of us developed, well, all of us developed stiff upper lips. It was something we knew we couldn't control and that she did need the help. We never felt like any of our families were wimps. We always felt like they were strong, good people, who were sick ... who had an illness. Whether or not it could be treated properly, we were concerned about that. But I internalized it. I learned — I was thinking today — I learned not to cry because she was crying. So it wasn't that I didn't want to add to it. It was that I was caught up in it. I was going to take care. We were all going to take care of her. And so I internalized it, meaning I developed lots of problems with my body, and I got anxious, and my chest would get tight, and I got insomnia, and I became very much of a ultra-high achiever, and my stomach developed problems, and — you name it, my body told the tale. 

Terry [00:11:38] Even decades later, in some ways, it still does. 

Jessie [00:11:42] Right. I'm in Al-Anon now because my mom did have the good fortune that a doctor finally in her late life prescribed pain medication for her. She always took it as prescribed, but it did alter her behavior. It also took away all her chronic pain. She didn't cry. She could function. She could have friends over for tea. She didn't tell me any more that she wanted to die. So ... and I'm just a regular person. I was happy for her, but I struggled with her changes of personality and how they affected me. 

Terry [00:12:38] So on the one hand, when I hear — especially in the 60s — parents saying, speaking candidly, speaking honestly about mental illness, you know, my insides cheer. When I hear honest to the degree that a mother says to her young daughter, I wish I was dead, which I understand — I believe it is a symptom of depression. What was that like? 

Jessie [00:13:06] Yeah, and I think I reacted as a young teen would. On the one hand, I was sitting next to her on the couch and she was sitting up, quite, you know, debilitated, but sitting up, and she said, I just wish I could die. And I remember thinking, oh, come on, you know, let's just get beyond, oh, come on, let's, you know, I wanna go get a soda. That was sort of, but on the other hand, I knew that she wasn't making it up. It was for real. 

Terry [00:13:44] I hear you say that you kind of said, like, Mom, you know, that's a lot. I just want to go on with my teenage life. But in your mid-60s, that recollection of her, you know, down to where you were sitting together is still vivid. 

Jessie [00:14:04] Oh yeah, yeah, I ... I've had to work with, you know, my sponsor on living in the present, living in the present, not going back, you know, looking back but not staring. You know. And I got lucky, I got lucky. I went through all the ... enough depression for all through my years that I think I felt almost every difficult sensation ... suffering feeling that I needed to feel to come to this age and say oh I totally get how she felt or I totally get why they did that or I totally, totally understand now. 

Terry [00:15:00] That understanding of the past fuels Jesse's practices and commitment to self-care in the present. To be clear, she hasn't developed these tools to get her out of depression, but to help her manage while in it. 

Jessie [00:15:14] I'm lucky because I don't have swings in mood and it doesn't, it hasn't ever gone away. I have it every day. It's very regular. It's worse as soon as I wake up, whether I would wake up at one in the morning or whether I'd wake up at eight. And then biologically by 10 o'clock, magically, the clouds just start receding, literally. It's like being at the beach and watching clouds just ebb away, and then the day comes out sunny, not without symptoms, but not as hard to handle. 

Terry [00:15:58] Jessie has developed what she calls a tripod of support for herself. One is medications. I'm on medications — psychiatric medications —and under the care of a psychiatrist. And the other is eating carefully a high protein, low carbohydrate diet, just to keep a level of usefulness and function rather than swinging a bit. And along with that, exercise. Not harsh exercise like I used to do when I was a teenager, but, you know, yep, gotta go swimming every morning or yep gotta walk the dog, for sure. I need a dog so I can walk, you know. 

Terry [00:16:46] Over the years, Jessie says she's been in a lot of 12-step programs and has gotten a lot out of them. After her sister's death by suicide, she found a sponsor and started a daily practice that includes writing a three-page letter to her higher power. 

Jessie [00:17:04] So every day at 10 to 7, I call her and we go through the letter I've written and she is doing the same thing with her sponsor who's doing the same thing with her sponsor. I knew she would push me around and I kind of needed that, you know, I was, I've been sick enough that I needed some, I needed some structure and that's helped a lot. I mean, you know, depression is, well, I guess any mental illness is kind of like a snowball ... a really slushy icy snowball with a lot of little pebbles and grit in it and it's really nice to have somebody, you know, come and you look at the snowball and she'll pick out one of the pieces of gravel and we'll talk about it you know do you want to keep this piece of gravel and a lot of times I'll just nod and she'll put it back in the snowball, but sometimes I'll say, okay, okay, you know, yeah, I'll try it, just for one day, all right. 

Terry [00:18:12] Give me an example of what a pebble might be so I understand your metaphor. 

Jessie [00:18:18] Right. Having problems with self-worth, you know, the mental illness there's ... There's so much ... So many messages that fly through my head about not being worthy, not being worthwhile, not being, you know, it's not worth me trying. That activity isn't worth going to. Just a lot of self-worth issues. And so we'll talk that through. And then at the end of the letter, I would say, they're called the give-ups. And I would say, I give up low self-worth or unworthiness. And then you go through day and all you're paying attention to is what your higher power drops into your day. And then you just try, if something about worth comes up, you try and be more open to a functional way of ... a useful way of dealing with it, rather than always beating yourself up. 

Terry [00:19:32] More functional and self-respectful ways of dealing with depression. And they make a difference. 

Jessie [00:19:39] It's almost like it's always the same as it has been since third grade. It's just now I'm wearing a tool belt that I can bring out a tool and apply the tool. The progress I've made is I'm not always living in fear of fear. I'm not living with the terror of wondering how I'm gonna bear it tomorrow. I just know I can go through my day and when I make lots of mistakes, I can function. Or if I can't function, I can love myself by unplugging for a little while. Before, I would have unplugged, but no, I would have just hid. I wouldn't have loved myself. 

Terry [00:20:34] Right, big difference. 

Terry [00:20:46] So John, what difference do you think it would have made in your life? And I certainly have a list of answers for this one. Had we grown up in houses where people said like, so this thing that a bunch of us are gonna have because it's in our genes and because of the traumatic and unpredictable environment we have created and are living in, you know, what would have been different for you if you had grown up in that culture, being able to say, you know, what's going on with mom or what's going on with me. 

John [00:21:21] Oh my gosh, what a different, whole different experience that would have been. My depression was linked to things that were happening in my family. Just like Jesse, I also have a long family history on both sides of the family of depression and alcoholism and addiction and those sorts of things. So just to be able to go to somebody and be able to trust what they're telling me. (Yes.) Because I was gaslit all the time growing up. I was made to believe that silence was the way to deal with these things, and I either got shut down or somebody told me, hey, don't worry, everything's gonna be okay. I always use the example that my father — who really suffered from alcoholism, but was sober the last 23 years of his life — I remember waking up when I was a kid, I was probably six or seven, and I walked, and we lived in a big house in a really nice neighborhood. and I walked into the bathroom and I looked out on the front lawn and my father's car was totaled on the front lawn and then I walked into his bedroom and he's laying in his business suit because he's a very prominent functioning alcoholic who's got a really good reputation and good job. He's laying in a pool of his vomit and blood and then I went and found my mom who was sleeping in the den and … I was crying and I was in hysterics and she's telling me everything's okay. There's nothing wrong. Don't worry. Nothing's wrong. Everything's okay. It's going to be okay. So I was being told everything was okay when I woke up to disaster. And so I couldn't tell anybody because if your own family's not having those conversations ... If there's not a green light that says, hey, we could talk about this, then I'm not going to be talking to my friends about it. I'm not going to be talking to my teachers about it. I'm going to feel much more isolated. For me, I went to school worried all day long about what was really happening, trying to guess, knowing that there were a lot of problems, wondering how much of that was my fault, wondering what I was doing to create that environment. Because that's what kids do, just like you said before. Children, when they're not given the right information, tend to believe that it's something they've done to create this mess in their universe. And that's what I was left with. And self-esteem issues are a big driver in depression. And I've able to reach out and have been guided and loved and supported. and encouraged during those times to communicate how different I would have approached life. 

Terry [00:24:10] Yes, yes. And how much more we'd have trusted ourselves because when we're being told that — not just what we feel and like our intuition is being completely negated and voided and ignored —  but our own eyes, we're seeing it. There was a car on the lawn and it was trashed and dad's sleeping in his suit passed out. You know, when you're told that's normal and that's fine, where do you go from there? It's like your ... Is gyroscope the right word? It's like everything's off. I don't know how, you know, we even went to our little schools and, you know, sat there all day and came home to who knew what, who knew what. And, and any behavioral issues that we had in school were certainly conceived and considered to be ours, as opposed to a response to, again, who knows what was going on in the house. 

John [00:25:01] Well I couldn't go to sleep until my father came home. And when he was on his binges, that would often be 2:30, three o'clock in the morning. But then I would be expected to get dressed and go to school and perform and focus and give my attention to school and to be able to build relationships with other kids when I'm thinking disaster has befallen us. But I'm also being told that I'm not going to be able to talk about it, and it's all okay. And so I was really left alone. And that loneliness is the breeding ground of depression, at least it was for me. So I think, you know, we don't get a chance to go back, but boy, I sure would have liked to have an opportunity for my parents to sit down with me and say, this is what we're dealing with. We want you to know it's not your fault. What you're seeing is real. We're trying to manage this, and we want you to be able to come to us and talk about how you're feeling. I don't even know. That's like an alternate universe. (Absolutely.) I will say this, Terry, you know, when I became conscious about all this, and then I had children, my children knew that they could come and talk to me. They knew that if I was having a problem or an issue or something was going on with me, I was sort of in a bad place with my depression, we talked about it. And they aren't saddled with the same things I'm saddled with. So I, I definitely got the message that that's something that I needed to be straight with my kids about and ... 

Terry [00:26:40] Breaking the cycle. 

John [00:26:41] And they could talk about whatever they needed to talk about and my job was not to become defensive. My job was not to gaslight. My job was to appreciate and honor their feelings and encourage them to talk. So, I guess that's about the best you can do when you grow up in a family where silence and secretiveness and gaslighting is how we manage life's curveballs. 

Terry [00:27:16] We truly hope this discussion helps you better understand your own depression or how to support someone else in your life who lives with it. We invite you to check out the hundreds of other episodes in our archive and to explore both the resource hub and treatment options on recovery.com. Depression is too dark a road to walk alone. We'll be back next week.