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(INTRO MUSIC)
FEMALE:I started having trouble with my younger daughter emotionally, uhm so, I took her to
counseling and I had to fill out a form, a survey, you know? About how I was doing and
how I was feeling and they read it [LAUGHTER] and they said I needed to see someone [LAUGHTER]
I was in pretty bad shape and honestly, I was totally honest on that survey, I didn't
even tell 'em all the, all the, how bad I was feeling, that I, that I was feeling like
all I had to do was raise my children and then I could just, be done, When IÊwas twenty-three,
I moved to San Francisco, I met my hum, my husband out there and we had a couple of kids
and we moved to Phoenix because I couldn't afford a house in San Francisco and we moved
out there [INAUDIBLE] everything went to hell [LAUGHTER] from there [LAUGHTER] I was very
isolated, I had no friends, I just sat, I spent a lotta time just sitting. IÊsmoked,
sat and smoked, You just feel so exhausted all the time and everything seems so much
more difficult to do. If someone hasn't had that sort of depression, uhm, maybe it's a
little difficult to understand that you're hopeless; you don't really have any hope that
anything's ever gonna be any better not for you. You get in this habitual train of thought,
uhm, where it's almost like you have grooves in your brain that you automatically go on
this this cycle and if you could recognize it and for me it would be feelings of worthlessness,
something would happen, uhm, you know, whether it was daughter's, you know well, I'm a terrible
mother if I was a better mother, this would never have happened this whole cycle of "I'm
terrible, I'm worthless, I'm no good" you know? I'm a failure. I was seein' a therapist
and uh, it was good to have someone in my corner to hum, it was really good to have
someone to talk to who was sort of, you know, seemed like totally on my side, whatever I
didn't feel good at all about taking medications for my depression. I don't know if I thought
I was, I was a failure or a weak being or I guess IÊwas more talked into it, uhm, looking
at on the basis of if I was a diabetic where people who are diabetic and they have to take
medication and to look at myself and my and my illness in that way; it was just you know
in the same sort of way but I needed this medication for me to be healthy [PAUSE] I
always wanted to Tai Chi so it was one of the things I think I talked with my therapist
[about] I just something, I don't know why but it was something I always just wanted
to doÉ Feeling better and, and, and goin' from smokin' 'n' starin' to taking Tai Chi
and loving it, was a was not all of a sudden, it was years worth, worth of work, really,
hum, to, to, and the therapy, as the therapy and medication that enabled me to say, "Okay,
yeah, it's Tai Chi that I really wanted to do and go 'head and do do it" I made friends
and uhm, I started goin' out Friday nights [LAUGHTER] havin' a glass of wine and some
pizza and on that you know, and so, that really helped a lot [LAUGHTER] yeah, I do like myself
now, yeah, I'm, I'm doing well and uhm and good things are happening.