The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss

by Mary-Frances O'Connor

My thoughts would spin on why I felt down. I wondered if I was prone to depression because she had been. Or whether I would have turned out differently if she had not been depressed while I was a child. She leaned on me to help her manage her mood, and I was always afraid I would not be able to help her feel better. I learned that I was most successful at helping her feel better, at least momentarily, when I would say whatever she needed to hear or do what she wanted me to. This often meant I had to ignore what I thought or needed. The pattern of believing I should help her feel better at any cost became a well-worn groove. After her death, I repeated this pattern: I struggled to help other people in my life feel better, while I continued to ignore my own feelings. There were endless possibilities for why I felt down, and I carefully examined each one, prolonging the state I was in. It probably didn’t help that I was in a clinical psychology graduate program, where I was training to examine people’s moods and the causes for their feelings. Fortunately, I also learned many problem-solving methods and skills for improving mood, so I did not succumb to rumination all the time.