The Tone Setter

There’s a difference between feeling depressed and being depressed. Feeling depressed is like bad weather — you wait it out, take a walk, maybe call a friend. Being depressed is like realizing the forecast forgot about you. You’ve lived in the fog for months, maybe years, pretending to see the sun so no one gets worried.

I am clinically depressed. I hate saying that. I don’t want the label. I don’t want the medical file. It makes me feel like I’m a cracked version of who I was supposed to be. And I can already see the disappointment in the air if my parents ever read these words. Because in their story, depression means failure.

Their failure to raise me right.

My failure to follow the “perfect” script. 

My failure to be grateful enough for the life they worked their asses off to give me.

But it’s not failure. It’s biology and trauma and hormones and life. 

It’s survival. It’s complicated. And still—I feel guilty about it. I protect them from the truth because hurting them would break me even more. So I put on the happy daughter costume and pray the zipper doesn’t split.

Clinical depression and LIFE

On social, my life looks solid. There’s the husband, the kids, the dog who thinks he’s a person, the indifferent cat, and that stupid beta fish that showed up after a birthday party because some mom thought handing out live responsibilities in crystal bowls was super cute (teaches responsibility or something). That mom, in my book, is a bitch.

I run a “typical” family. PTA meetings. School fundraisers. Sports. Taco Tuesdays and Pizza Fridays. Movie and game nights. 

I set the tone in this house. If I wake up light, the whole family floats. Dance parties for breakfast.

If I wake up heavy, the air shifts. Everyone walks around me carefully, like sadness might spill onto the floor and stain the kitchen rug.

And that’s another chapter not included in enough parenting books: Mom Becomes the Thermostat for Everyone’s Emotional Temperature.

There’s enormous pressure in knowing your mood can derail an entire day. It forces me to smile wider, laugh louder, perform better—while inside, I’m wishing for silence. Not always death. Just quiet. Just a break from being the center of everyone’s world.

That’s the thing about suicidal thoughts that some people misunderstand: It’s not always a plan (though many times a plan has already been quietly pre-filed). Sometimes it’s just a desire to step out of the role life set you up to live. To stop being.

To stop being the cheerleader.

The nurse. 

The organizer. 

The finder of things lost five fucking feet from their faces.

And then there’s the career I didn’t have. The dream of me.

Because the woman I swore I’d never become? She’s here, wearing my clothes, and smelling like expensive spa.

After all the money, the degrees, the expectations…She became just the mom.

The house manager.

The mental binder of all schedules.

The knower of everyone’s likes and dislikes.

And the worst part? She’s good at it. Like, obnoxiously good.

Because I am a great mom. I am the mom who remembers to pack healthy snacks and cracks jokes that teens actually appreciate. People trust me. They like me. They come to me for advice.

Would it be easier if I were terrible at this mom thing? Easier to understand the clinical depression? Clinical depression doesn’t care. It doesn’t care about your talent for motherhood or your charming personality or that you color-code the family calendar. It just shows up and sits beside you while you cut disposable facial towels in half to last longer.

Medication helps. Let me re-phrase that. Medication saves lives.

It doesn’t erase me—it lets me show up as the version of myself that isn’t drowning.

My parents don’t get that part either. They think pills mean giving up. A lifetime commitment. More money being thrown away. 

But for me, medication is the thing that keeps me here to set the tone at all.

So yes, I’m clinically depressed.

Yes, I’m still a great mom.

Yes, I’m still funny, loving, and occasionally glamorous.

And yes: I sometimes feel like I’m screaming inside the glass box from “You.”

But here I am.

Still setting the tone.

Still choosing to stay.

Still believing that I will see clearly and the rain will be gone soon, even if I am the one that drags it out of my way.