Shaquana Armstrong -Dunham
Ayoka: How long have you been dealing with depression?
Shaquana ArmstrongDunham: I've been dealing with for a long time when I was
younger pretty much I've dealt with depression stemming from issues with my mother. I
was a very smart girl so I knew a lot was going on around me. A lot of people think that
when you're young you don't know what's going on but I saw things that we're going on in
my mother's relationships. That caused me to be depressed when I was younger.
Ayoka: Did the depression progress as you got older?
Shaquana: Yes it did. It's like it just carried on. In my family environment, I would cry all
the time. At the time I didn't really understand what the Depression was. My mother would
ask me why I was crying but I could not tell her why so then I started to hide when I would
cry but then there were times when she would actually catch me crying. All of those
emotions and all the feelings that I was feeling.
Ayoka: Did your family recognize the depression or you were they able to identify that you
were suffering from depression?
Shaquana : No they were busy with their own lives they didn't notice. The first time
anyone noticed that there was really Depression was when I was about 15 or 16 years old
and I tried to commit suicide. And that's when everyone realized there's a problem but
there had been a problem for a long time.