(Intro)

I got really interesting in psychology and I was offered a challenge.
My task is to live with people with different mental health issues each day for one week. Since each of them are all different, my job is to see what it’s like for people to live their lives while living with a mental illness. I live with the person with the mental illness for one day, each day, for one whole week. It effects themselves and how they do tasks, routines, and when they’re surrounded by others.

I have two weeks to study everything I can about depression, anxiety, personality disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia, phycosis, and ADHD. Wish me luck on this journey!

I. Depression

Today is Sunday and I’m visiting a household of a daughter with clinical depression and a mother with bipolar disorder. Since these two mental disorders fall under the same category as depression, there will be similarities as well as differences.
As I met the two, I noticed some differences with their facial expressions. The teenage girls’ expression was more sad and gloomy and the mothers’ was filled with a lot of exitement. Maybe overally exitement.
I first wanted to observe the teenage girl with clinical depression. I wrote everything down during my observations in my notebook under the title “Depression.” I noticed that for most of the day, she was kept up in her bedroom, laying in bed. She would either be sleeping or just on her phone. I thought that maybe she didn’t have too many hobbies by my observation and just didn’t have a lot of energy. I wished that I could dig her out of the hole she was in but it wasn’t up to me to do so. She was a bit mopey around the house whether she cooked herself a meal, did chores, etc.
I then did some observation of her mother. I noticed that she would lash out on the teenage girl for something small, curse someone out on the phone, and then next minute, she’s apologizing to her daughter begging for her forgiveness. I could see where the manic parts were coming from the point. I also noticed she would excessively clean the house, get tired, then clean it some more. She would be in and out of the house going out to places, spending her money, and wouldn’t be completely back for hours. I wrote all these things in my notebook.
I went upstairs to check on the teenage girl before I had to leave. As I walked up the stairs, I heard screaming and crying from her room and then things being thrown. I ran to her room right from that point. When I opened the door, I saw her room was completely destroyed with glass shattered all over her floor. She was sitting on the ground, crying with her hands over her face. I came over to her to give her a hug and told her that everything would be alright. She say quiet as she stopped crying and finally took a breath. As I was comforting her, she said, “I wish my life wasn’t like this and I wish that I was a normal girl with a happy life.” I asked her if she would ever think about seeing a therapist or any other person to talk to about what’s going on. She said she didn’t like therapy from her experience but said she would reconsider trying it again. I was happy to hear that. I said my final goodbyes, told her that there’s still hope for a new life for her and I told her it will be okay eventually.

© eyesthatcry