Conversation with A.G.
JS: Le me just start by saying thank you, you don't have to do this interview, but the fact that you're willing to do it and share (your experience) is really important, so I just want to say thank you as a friend and as a family member. So, like I asked you yesterday, have have you had any experience with anyone that has suffered from depression or have you yourself suffered with depression.
AG: Never been diagnosed, never really looked for help for it, but I think I've suffered through bouts of depression. I think. I can't define it, I'm not a clinician, I'm not a doctor, but depresssion yeah, I think I've suffered from it.
JS: What makes you think that?
AG: Um, eh, everyone's done this weird searching on the internet for a lot of different things, a lot of random searches. (For me) One of them has always been, what's the definition of depression? You look up the definition of depression, and you go like, "Am I depressed?" It's the weirdest thing because if you don't see a clinician, or a doctor, about it you start going through WebMD and you got everything that they say. It doesn't matter what it is.
(Laughter)
JS: Okay. So you're saying that you looked up the definition of depression, when did you do that?
AG: Years ago, years ago.
JS: What about what was happening in your life, or changing, made you think, "Am I depressed?"
AG: I was dating my wife. And, I had this weird thing that I used to do, and it ruined a bunch of relationships, where if I was unhappy with something or um, I call it the mehs (I feel like meh). I don't want to deal with anything, I isolate myself. I'm talking about I isolate myself to the point where people were looking for me like, "Is he okay?"...Because I literally, like I ghost everbody. The only people that see me are the people that I work with and they don't know me. I just go and do my job and come back home. I try, I think I got it from my dad, I try not to involve anyone in my place of work with my personal life at all. They don't need to know anything about my personal life, that's my business. I'm just there to do my job and go home. That's my dad's attitude with work and he instilled it in me and my brother.
JS: So, you mentioned that reoccurrrence that choice to ghost people in certian situations have ruined some relationships in the past. So, how often do you think that happened in your lifetime, that ghosting element?
AG: Before my wife? (laughing) I don't even count it's been so many people; romantic relationships personal relationships, friendships. Just straight up, "Is Anibal okay, I haven't heard from him?"
JS: Does it still happen?
AG: No
JS: What changed?
AG: My wife. She called me out on it. She goes like, listen, we're in a relationship. I don't know who you've been in relationships with before with, but you let me know when you're like this. And she was the first one to ever actually have that conversation with me. So I told her okay, I get this weird thing that happens to me, I get like, I don't want to use the word depressed because I've never been diagnosed, that's not something we go to doctor's and get found out about. The last time I went to a psyhcologist, I was eight. And, they were diagnosing me for Dyslexia, and my mom said, "no that's not my son."
JS: That's really interesting that comment that you just made. We don't usually go to the psychologist to get diagnosed, or to the doctor to get diagnosed with that. What do you mean by that?
AG: Eh, mental healh issues. It's completely different now. It's a different world. But when I was a child my mother, actually, where we grew up, the guy that lived right above us he was called Dr. Carl Rouette. He was a clinical psychologist. He worked in a mental hospital not too far away from where we were growing up. And, um, he would spend a lot of time with us, he would talk with us. He would tell my momm what to look out for for things. And, my mom would say, "thank you very much, we're not doing any of that."
Yeah, but I get it. I get it. Especially, the world she grew up in, if you had any type of mental deficiency or mental health issue in the Dominican Republic you would end up in a sanitarium; anything at all, sanitarium was the response. Oh, you're bipolar--sanitarium, right away. Medicince for that, no. Put him in a room, put him in a padded room. He'll be fine, just give him some time to work out his issues.
JS: So, there was a stigma attached to that.
AG: Oh yeah, definitely. And, I never ask my mom, but I know someone on her side of the family ended up in a sanitarium. Never to be heard of again.
JS: That's wild. Okay, so you meeting your wife and her calling you out on that behavior has somewhat recitified that behavior because now you're married, it's been nine years, this is a successful relationship for you, right?
AG: Yes.
JS: You're married and you have two children. Do you think, that since you've been married you've though maybe I have depression and maybe the behavior isn't I ghosted someone or something, but that it comes out in another way.
AG: Oh, Definitely. Yeah, yeah. Defintely, I definitely saw that happen. It was where I ghosted people, now, everyone has their own coping methods for different things. I think I started coping with my issues with overeating...I'm not kidding, I did the math and I look back at it. I was putting on ten pounds of weight every year of marriage.
JS: How did you work that out?
AG: I decided to make a change. Me, personally...I only included my brother and my mother in it...It was a picture at my son's birthday that made me say, this is just not right. Not right.
