A GUIDE TO OVERCOME DEPRESSION (AMAZON, paperback & kindle editions.)

 I was born into a home of responsible parents, although not very skilled at raising children; they belonged to the postwar generation, and they just repeated the same mistakes their parents had made with them. When I became a teenager, I fell in love with a boy who, despite his young age, had already begun to develop the traits of a psychopathic personality. One summer, while we were both vacationing in the same resort, he decided to end our relationship; it was then that I decided to end my life. The abandonment of this boy rekindled my mother's lack of real affection, and the result was that one night, when my parents had gone to the movies, I swallowed eighteen aspirin tablets convinced that they would kill me. However, after swallowing all the pills, I felt very afraid and decided to seek help. Luckily, my aunt had decided to go to bed early and sent for my parents right away. As luck would have it, a well-known psychoanalyst was also staying at the same hotel, and it was he who flushed my stomach and suggested that my parents leave me alone for a while. The next day I went to the beach where I met my usual group of friends; with them I was able to share my sorrow and feel better. Although I did not know it at the time, I had resorted to one of the most effective treatments for depression: find someone who will listen to us and validate our feelings, while at the same time show us that there is always a better way.

LIFE CHALLENGES NEVER END

According to Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, the only constant in life is change; and very often change creates suffering, especially within families. When I was a kid, I used to play canasta with my grandfather Renato. I took the bus that took me to the Caballito neighborhood and, once there, I got off at the corner of his house. I liked being with him because my grandfather used to tell me about his adventures in the trenches of First World War in which he had participated. However, as expected, when I turned thirteen, I traded the canasta with my grandfather for outings with my schoolmates. I never forgot his reproach one day: “Marina, you don't come to see me anymore”. Today, that I have reached the age when our children leave the family home to start their journey, I feel my grandfather's sadness as if it were my own. What a paradox that despite the fact that we wish for the young people in the family a life full of love and work, that same life far from us fills us with nostalgia and sadness! Moreover, if I'm not mistaken, we mothers are the ones who suffer from it to a greater extent; perhaps it is because the relationship between mothers and their sons and daughters is different from any other; it is a relationship that smells infinity. This is how, by being left without those who were the meaning of our life for many years, we have to face the profound change of starting a new life, the last but the one with the greatest meaning in terms of our role in this world. The time has come for us to be who we are without any help.