Talking to my son about my depression

Aristotle once said, "The internet is both a beautiful and terrible thing. You also shouldn't believe everything you read on it."

As many/some of you know, I "came" out to my company and later, my friends and professional network as a father, husband, entrepreneur and CEO who battles depression with my post "My Long Shadow" on LinkedIn and, later re-published on The Mighty, and while that was certainly one of the toughest decisions I've made in years, the harder part was when I realized that my 13 year old son would read about it on Twitter.

I wasn't embarrassed by my condition, I just wanted to make sure I put it in the right context. As everyone over the age of 13 knows, 13 is a very confusing time in one's life. So I struggled with how much to tell him because, if you've read my post, apart from detailing what it's like to live with depression and anxiety, I also touch on suicide, and that last part is what concerned me most. In fact, just a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal published a tremendously impactful article entitled "As Suicides Rise, More Attention Turns to the People Left Behind" that shared the result of several new studies detailing just how impactful suicide is on the surviving caregivers.

“The grief that follows a suicide is a traumatic grief. It brings high functioning people to their knees,” says Ronnie Walker, a licensed clinical mental health counselor and the founder of Alliance of Hope.

So the night before I decided to finally publish my story, I pulled my son aside, as I often do, and had a deep, heart to heart discussion. I am proud of the relationship I have with my kids and while only time will tell if the approach is right or wrong, I have always had two simple rules when it comes to communicating with them: I will never lie to you, but I might not always tell you everything if I feel it's not appropriate.

This general rule has helped me and my wife navigate many exciting, awkward and challenging discussions, and for the most part, my children have understood. So when I pulled my boy over and began speaking with him, I decided to talk to him as if I had a non-fatal, but relatively serious disease. I explained that mental health is no different than physical health, and that it's normal to be sad, but depression is more a sense of feeling that things just won't get better - until they do - but you can't remember that they got better so next time you're depressed you feel things just won't get better.

I told him that this is the way I've been made and while I'm working very hard to improve my condition, I don't "choose" to be depressed and nothing he - or his sisters do makes me depressed. My depression is just like my hypothyroidism - a condition he also has that is very easily treatable - something I was born with.

I also explained that closely related to depression is anxiety, which is a sense that things are spinning too fast and the future is coming at you like a freight train. I went on to say that when you're in the middle of an anxiety attack, you simply can't turn off your brain, and it's exhausting.

I told him that talking to someone is really helpful, and medicine is helpful too. As is acupuncture, hikes, dog belly rubs and a fun night out. I told him that he didn't need to worry and while he has unfortunately been exposed to news reports of suicides (again, think of Aristotle), that it was nothing that he had to consume himself with. (Going back to my two simple rules, I will never lie to him, but I might not always tell him everything.) I ended by telling him one more time that depression is not related to sadness or happiness and it's important he never confused the two.

A few weeks later, while driving him to karate, he told me that one of his friends had confided in him that he suffers from anxiety, and my son responded by telling him that his father does too and it's ok. He told him that he knows it's not a choice and that he will be there for him if and when he needs him. What probably would've been a misunderstood behavior leading to embarrassment and ridicule 5, 10 years ago is now, for the most part, an understandable condition. And this is what's most important to me because instances of children's mental illness is rising at an alarming rate:

"...mental illness diagnoses among U.S. children increased 30.5% between 2011 and 2017. ... In total, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20% of children in the U.S. have a mental, emotional or behavioral disorder."

So the unintended consequence of my disclosure to my son enabled him to respond to his friend's condition in a relatable, compassionate and personal manner, and there is simply nothing more rewarding than that.

I'm not an expert, so please exercise you're own judgement when choosing to talk to your kids about your mental health issue if you have one, however, as I am determined to continue breaking down the stigma of mental illness, the more we can normalize the discussion amongst our friends and family, the more comfortable people will be talk about their problems and hopefully find the help they need.

**