Tresser: My mom was my biggest help. I thought that she would be the main one
against me.
She was in a Pentecostal Church, we shouted and prayed everything away. It was
old school church and you just didn't take medication.
She didn't know just how bad it was. I wouldn't all her. I didn't talk to anyone. My
husband would sit on the bed and tell me that I needed to get up. To get out of the
bed made me just want to die. My mom said, “this needs to change or it's going to
take you out”.
I didn't want to be a mom or wife. I beat myself up more because i knew that I had
a blessed life, I had everything that everyone else wanted. I just didn't understand
why I hated living
My moms best friend, a minister, called me one day and asked, If you had high
blood pressure, cholesterol or diabetes would you take medication. I said yes. Why
won't you take this medication for your depression. That’s what the Lord made it
for. See what it does for you. This is what you need to do for yourself your
husband and your children.
The lightbulb went off and I knew I had to do this for me. I thought that my family
would think that I was ’mental’.
Ayoka: We don't give ourselves that in between, we categorize ourselves as either
all in ‘crazy’. As African Americans, if we have to take medications then we are all
the way , ‘deep in crazy’ or we just don’t take it at all. We don’t give ourselves that
in-between to take it to help us to maintain, just like we would take something for
high blood pressure or diabetes.