What my father and I don't talk about

An essay on adolescent mental health and how generational variance has potential to be diffused

When I was freshly seventeen I was obliged the duty of applying to college. I had just about no clue what I wanted out of the rest of my life, nor did I have the financial capacity to spend my money on a degree that I was entirely ambivalent toward. I had explored the prospect of majoring in neurobiology after taking a strong interest in the act of attempting to figure out what my lamenting thoughts meant and why they had so much influence over what I thought about myself.

A year later I found myself declining any offers I received from colleges within my hometown state of Wisconsin and packed my life into two suitcases, destined for New York City. I wrote this essay as a personal statement not even two years ago now, and reflecting on my words I can say with confidence that it unintentionally foreshadowed the exact thoughts toward my future that I was feeling at the time: I need to experience more than what I know as comfortable.

At its very core, this essay encapsulates the vulnerability that has accompanied me through young adulthood, that sits on my shoulders and tells me that my certainty is actually confusion. A seventeen year old girl wrote this essay, but many of its emotions still ring true. So here it is, what my father and I don’t talk about.

8:00 AM I nervously stepped out the front door for my first day of elementary school.

“Have a good day little girl!” My dad’s excitement called after me, his arms wide open ready to scoop me up. 3:00 PM I ran off of the bus crying because girls didn’t like me in middle school.

“I’m sorry little girl,” my dad whispered, simultaneously wrapping his arms around me. 9:45 PM I stumbled home from work after my first day of senior year at a new school and wept on my bedroom floor because I didn’t fit in. My father sat with me, 

“I love you little girl,” the words floated from his lips with the kind of solicitude that only a parent could bear.

“I’m not a little girl anymore!” I spoke with great lament. Thus, like every time before, he hugged me anyway. 

The term ‘mental health’ is somewhat of a profanity in my household. My father grew up in the company of four siblings, a stay at home mom, and an alcoholic for a father– reaping the consequences of building independence on his own accord. At eighteen he met my mother, and together, they built a life on one day giving me all of the things they only dreamt of as children of the 70s. The top of our fridge is never short on SSRIs and supplements for a better reach at “normalcy” and no matter how many times I ask questions I know they will never be answered. 

I learned that somewhere between 1978 and 2005 “sanity” gained a new connotation. My parents have bore criticism in ways I will never know, and built a family on what they understood about life at one point in time. Growing up surrounded by reminders of “mental health days,” and a first hand experience of clinical depression alongside generational aperture gave me insight to the conversions of current research, resources, and or lack thereof. There is no act of heroism that compensated for the way I couldn’t talk about my dearest friend, my greatest enemy, my own mind within the walls of my own home. The ways that I was made to feel weak. Rather, I learned to create space for my parents, and remind myself that their expressions don't always equate to honesty with the most human part of themselves: the way they really  feel.

6:00 AM I rolled out of bed for my third day of senior year, and walked into the kitchen with tears in my eyes; still swollen from the night before. On the counter was a note that read “Have a good day little girl.” I held on to it and tucked it away in my bag. For seventeen years my dad never knew how to respond to my cries for help, he didn’t have transformative advice or the skillset to “fix” me, but not a day has gone by that I haven’t been reminded of how no matter when or where or what day of the week it is, I will always be my father’s little girl. A prompt of poignancy for all of the things he isn’t sure how to say.  How I feel will never cease to be a delicate conversation in my house, but my relentless advocacy for finding rationality in the most crowded areas of our consciousness continues to create intimate bonds among the people I hold dearest to me. I explore these conversations unapologetically, and sincerely hope to bring them to the surface of the way we address them in society, perhaps in our own homes.

 I am not a little girl anymore, but I don’t get angry when he calls me that. I embrace it, and maybe someday down the line my dad will appreciate my persistence to talk about the most human part of myself, the part that he never could.

With love Always,

Olivia Jean