Senior Capstone ℅ 2019

5-24-2019

Depression Causing and Curing Love: An Autoethnography

Nyah Garcia

Los Angeles Leadership Academy HS, ​ngarcia10096@laleadership.org

Depression Curing and Causing Love Garcia​ 1

Senior Capstone ℅ 2019

Society has brought people to a point where in order to love others, one must love

themselves. Changes are made to oneself in order to receive love in certain situations regarding

intimacy, rather than allowing natural characteristics and emotions take control. Falling in love

is a beautiful thing, or so it is perceived as one. Relationships are incredible whether they

remain natural or are modified.

Keywords:​ ​intimacy, natural, changes, love.

Acknowledgements

For Veronica Garcia [my mother], everyone who chooses to fall in love, ⎯⎯⎯ and those

fighting depression due to love.

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Depression Causing and Curing Love: An Autoethnography

Nyah Garcia

Los Angeles Leadership Academy HS, Los Angeles, California, USA

Society has brought people to a point where in order to love others, one must love themselves.

Changes are made to oneself in order to receive love in certain situation, regarding intimacy,

rather than allowing natural characteristics and emotions take control. Falling in love is a

beautiful thing, or so it is perceived as one. Relationships are amazing whether they remain

natural or are modified.

The Incident

Deja de ser chismosa (stop being nosy). That is what my grandma would say if she were

here. Pressing my ear against the door, my grandma’s voice continues to play in my head, I also

hear crying coming from the other side of the door. The door knob has never seemed so far. It

got farther and farther each time I would look up at it. I am on the tips of my toes and still can't

reach. You are seven years old, Nyah, you are NOT tall enough to reach that without your step

stool. [​duh​] I run to the restroom and get my step stool hoping it will help me reach something

so far away….my mom.

It is locked. Te dije que no andas de chismosa. I definitely do NOT have the keys to my

mom’s room. My last choice was to knock. [​why didn’t I do that in the beginning?​ ] It won’t

hurt to try, right? I know she can hear me. Are those footsteps I hear? It’s her, she is standing
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right infront of me, crying. There are so many tears running down her face and so many tissues

all over the place. I hug her, I don’t ever want to let her go. The sight of her crying makes me

cry. No llores (Don’t cry). Grandma’s right. Good thing her voice never escapes my mind. Pa

always said crying is for the weak and sensitive people in this world. Pa is not here. Pa is not

holding mom the way he should be. Pa didn’t tell me he was leaving. I will never understand

why Pa left, but I do understand he will never be there for me, the way my mom is.

Seventeen years of my life have been thrown away in a single instant of words I would

have never thought would come out of my husbands mouth.

“I want a divorce.” “I don’t want to be a part of this family anymore.” “I don’t love

you like I used to.”

All of this should have hit me sooner by the continuous women showing up at my door asking

for Antonio. They came before I was pregnant, while I was pregnant, and after my pregnancy. I

should have known better. I should have stayed away when I left the first time. My sister

warned me about this man, his wicked ways, cruel heart, and disgusting personality. Why did I

hold onto the marriage that should have ended before it even started?

Saturday was our day, but instead it is the third day I have been locked in this house full

of memories we had.

“I cannot pick myself up.” “How am I going to do this without him?” “How will

I take care of Nyah on my own?”

Nyah, my daughter. Is that her trying to come in? I cannot let her see the tornado of

tears that hit me the way they did. It’s too late. I cannot leave her out there any longer. As I get

up to open the door, stepping over my tissues, I realize, my love never left me. Opening the
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door and seeing the mini me I created caused a snap in my brain. My love will always be within

her, within each other, with or without that thief of hearts. Being mad at the world won’t help

me. Being mad at him won’t give me peace. Being alone, abandoning Nyah won’t give me time

to heal. It will hurt me. Hurt me the way Antonio did. Hurt me how I have been hurting Nyah

by locking myself in my room without realizing I have a little mouth to feed, a hand to hold and

child to take care of. My life belongs to her.

Analysis

Introduction

Before diving into a relationship, do you ask yourself, “what is love”? The essence

behind the way your body reacts to another human being, the way your mind thinks about that

human being and most importantly, how your heart intakes that affection is all made up of love.

Love is an intense feeling of deep affection, not including the arguments, disagreements, and

everything in between. But where does this natural feeling evolve from? The essence of human

nature.

Without human nature does love exist? But without humans does human nature exist?

The reality humans embody explain the traits each and everyone of us possess, including our

desire to feel love. The bundle of characteristics along with our ways of thinking, feeling and

acting, all come naturally but are indirectly sculpted by our relationships and interactions with

others. Our quirks, attributes and idiosyncrasies all make up the determination of an ideal life:

to be someone in this world, to be happily in love with our soulmate, and to remain financially

stable while keeping sane.

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Life itself is difficult, before the complexities we, as humans, choose to go through, as

time passes by. Usually being in a relationship adds complications to your life, whether they are

negative or positive effects. One of the many effects of falling is love is deciding whether or

not, you can resist the possibility of falling into a state of depression. This mood disorder affects

how we feel, think, and handle daily activities. My mother isolated herself from the world, from

the responsibilities life threw at her, for a long period of time due to the immediate effect of

depression. This feeling can be reversed with the affection humans continuously need and

crave. With a considerable amount of hugs and kisses or simply the small communications one

has with someone else, love is always applied. As a child, I lifted her spirits, allowing her to

continue in life, and grow out of her depression faze. [​the world isn’t going to end because a

man left you]​ Who knew the miniature version of herself would eliminate the constant sensation

of sadness she felt?

Study of Focus

Human nature itself is the cause for the behavior humans express, whether it is with

others or within themselves. Diversity, complexity, and individual variation, is demonstrated by

human language, rationality, and morality. The way humans choose to express intimacy is all

influenced by the larger mystery of our personal understand of love and nature.

Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama, Paul Lauritzen, Jurgen Habermas and [most importantly]

my mother, are all giving their understanding and explanations on love and nature in this

research paper. Followed by the decisions humans juggle numerously throughout their lives: Do

I accept what nature has given me when I experience love or must I change it in order to love

myself before I can encounter love? The unique opinions give different perspectives on why
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humans have an accepting or complicated relationship with intimacy. Usually, these

complications result with depression. Therefore the different forms or depression disguised but

later resolved by love are also demonstrated in this paper.

My mother’s experience with depression allows the reader to appeal to her sorrowful

emotions while still being able to go through the process of acknowledging all the love she ever

needed, was with her all along. An excessive amount of people experience love through the

journey of progressing through nature, therefore, from examining human socialization and

numerological processing of a human in love, it is clear that the results of intimacy are either

seen as a gift or an opportunity for change.

Claim #1: Gift

A human’s connection with nature is just as important as a mother’s connection with her

daughter. When humans accept society as human nature created it to be. It is easier to recognize

the importance in loving yourself before being able to love others. In an article regarding the

connection between humans, nature, and ethics, a political philosopher explains the significance

in human connections and its effect on nature.

S​andel goes on to say why losing “the ethic of gift​edness” would be unfortunate.

Losing the ethic of giftedness would undermine “three key features of our moral

landscape—humility, responsibility, and solidarity.” This claim could be understood as a

con​sequentialist point—if we lose these key constraints on our behavior, many people

will end up worse off—or it might be understood as pointing out conceptual

implications—if we lose these aspects of the “moral landscape,” we could not but feel

that as a huge loss. Sandel plainly hopes, though, that many of his readers will feel the
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loss of giftedness itself already as a loss. It is partly to show the import of losing

giftedness it​self that he tries to show how it is bound up in sports and in parenthood,

such that if we lose the ethic of giftedness, then sports and parenthood will be

dimin​ished—“the drive to banish contingency and to master the mystery of birth

diminishes the designing parent and corrupts parenting as a social practice governed by

norms of unconditional love.”​[12] Sandel’s argument is not limited to sports and

parenthood, however; he intends these discussions to exemplify a larger point about

giftedness.​ (Gregory K. Kaenick, 2011, par. 20)

When resisting the eagerness to make an overarching claim about human nature, humans

are able to feel and act upon the love their body chooses to express. By connecting the unique

traits each human accommodates, traditional connections can be made, rather than designed,

later resulting in intimacy (Gregory K. Kaenick, 2011, par. 21). Seeing each other as equal,

because we all come from nature, allows us to self-understand how we feel and why we feel

that way. Our emotions should not be based off of how others make us feel, but how we choose

to feel because t​ hey ​belong to us. “They are products of fate or nature rather than of other

members of the moral community” Habermas states in an article connecting humans, nature,

and ethics (Gregory K. Kaenick, 2011, par. 22). The intimacy someone chooses to have with

someone else should not depend on the public's opinion, but how they feel within their

relationship. Making connections, sharing qualities, and having things in common are

collectively the result of falling in love with each other, naturally opposing a relationship being

made by force. In a novel written by Rainbow Rowell, a character known as Park realizes the

beauty behind a girl he wanted an intimate relationship from. She was bullied by many of her
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classmates due to her hair color, interest in literature, and clothes she would wear. Once Park

took the time to observe and understand Eleanors natural features, he instantly fell in love with

her (Rainbow Rowell, 2012, p.14). Accepting the beauty within yourself, influences the beauty

you choose to accept from others. With the mentality of expecting the unexpected, humans do

not feel the need to change what could have been the best decision they’ve ever made.

Claim #2. Change

The typical relationships between humans and their natural instincts regarding love are

either accepting or perfectionist. The constant need of improvements made to oneself in order to

love themselves are endlessly made in society. The things humans choose to value in society

make up human nature, instead of what we’re naturally born with. ​Because h​ umans are

constantly sorting the world into categories, predicting how things work, and testing those

predictions, change is inevitable no matter the situation (NewScientist, 2018, par. 7). By making

unreliable judgements and overthinking, humans set themselves up for change. An example of

this would be how humans believe in punishments, with the idea of the result always being

rehabilitation. ​If I choose not to date this guy because he has way too many interactions with

girls [​ or is simply just friendly] ​I can prevent myself from getting cheated on. ​Disregarding who

could have been your soulmate, keeps humans from getting possibly hurt in the future, or a life

ideally dreamed of living [the world will never know] because ​he ​was not what was expected

that way [the one]. In a novel written by E.L James titled, ​Fifty Shades Darker a character

known as Christian Grey alters his ideal perception of how a woman should be treated in a

relationship. In order for Anastasia Steele [the love of his life], to remain in an intimate

relationship with him, he had to release his constant crave to dominate her sexual desires. By
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proposing a new arrangement, Anastasia Steele is driven back to him ​only ​because he changed

(E.L. James, 17 April 2012, ​Fifty Shades Darker​, p. 42). After humans created an elaborate

systems of rules, taboos, and etiquette, our ideal version of how a relationship should be was

created. If humans do not like the way someone or something is, our natural instinct is to adjust

it to our liking, even when it comes to intimacy.

Opinion

Nature is a gift that is constantly changed in order to satisfy our needs. Some parents

choose who their child dates, when they should get married, or how many children they must

have. While the others, allow human nature to guide them on their journey through life. I

personally believe we as humans must allow nature to lead us when it comes to making

decisions. The most important decision one makes is who we choose to be with for the rest of

our lives. Everything happens for a reason, you cannot change the past or future but you can

experience the present. By doing so, I allow my natural behaviors exhibit who I truly am [small,

cute and funny]. ​Because ​I witnessed the outcome of depression, I refuse to alter who I truly am

in order to amuse someone else's expectations. Humans in society should not modify what

nature has in store for us and appreciate the beauty of it instead.

Our life

Our life events and personal factors are all affected by whether we are the ideal version

of ourselves, or we need to be altered in order to become what we want to be. This not only

plays a role within our physical features but our mental understanding of loving yourself and

others. A combination of recent events and other long term factors play a significant role in

your interpretation of intimacy (Beyond Blue, 2018, p.2). As a result of my grandpa abandoning
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my mom at a young age, the idea of allowing another male figure into her life was

unimaginable. She immediately decided to change her natural being in order to please my father

and prevent him from abandoning us, the way her father did. Before my mother decided to

change for the love my father was willing to give her, she ignored the possible consequence of

falling into depression ​if h​ e left [he did]. Not only did her mindset reform when she was

depressed, but medical conditions appeared while everything she did was diminishing. Her

personality resulted in low self-esteem, sensitive towards personal criticism, and negative

self-assessment. For an excessive amount of time my mother was diagnosed with bipolar

disorder. She experienced episodes of extremely low moods that met up with the major

depression (Natural Institute of Mental Health, par. 6). She was prescribed modern

antidepressants and effective treatment regarding a psychologist. These episodes of depression

did not disappear instantly but after a crucial amount of time, it lifted. Every now and then,

depression still lingers causing her to “have a beer” all because she wanted to change herself for

someone who ended up being an irrelevant factor in her life. [or was he?]

The positive outcome of this dysfunctional relationship my parents had was the creation

of me. Although my mother was struggling through depression ​because of love,​ my small

episodes of affection changed her mindset on how she should feel and why she was feeling this

way. An image exhibited below was created by myself, inspired by the powerful connection I

have with my mother. All the patterns and colors being transferred from the left hand to the

right portray how easily you can impact others.

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Figure 1.​ Touch (Nyah Garcia, 2019)

Conclusion

“We do not need to have a full theory of human nature in order to have moral concerns about

changing it,” therefore should we? (Gregory E. Kaebnick, 2011, p.2) Intimacy itself is already

difficult to handle before having the need to alter it. Love is complicated to define, evaluate, and

appreciate, when humans are regularly changing it. Each and every person has their own

definition of love, with the influence of nature. We either approve of what nature blesses us

with or try to replace it by making illusional judgements. Our form of intimacy is forever

unique based on how you interpret what nature has given you in life.
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References

Kaebnick, G. E. (2011). Humans, Nature, and Ethics. Retrieved from

https://www.humansandnature.org/humans-nature-and-ethics

Support, B. B., System. (2018). Beyondblue. Retrieved from

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression/what-causes-depression

Mental Health, N. O. (2018). Depression. Retrieved from

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/depression/index.shtml

Scientist, N. (2018). Human nature: Six things we all do. Retrieved from

​https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/human-nature/

James, E. L. (2012). ​Fifty shades trilogy.​ New York: Vintage Books.

Rainbow Rowell (2012). ​Eleanor and Park.​ ​St. Martin's Press

Garcia, Nyah (2019) ​Touch