M6 Experiential Task

Mental Illness Interviews

The first person I interviewed was a close friend and teammate of mine who wanted to remain anonymous, but agreed that I could call her Faith. The interviewing experience was unique in comparison to any other interview I have conducted. I interviewed her while we were on the road traveling to Arkansas and I simply asked the questioned provided, but she did tell me some other things unrelated to the questions. Faith was diagnosed with chronic depression when she was a junior in high school so around 16-17 years old. She told me that her symptoms consisted of feelings of sadness and loneliness, loss and lack of confidence, fatigue/lots of sleeping, and self harm. Some challenges Faith encountered were getting out of bed, avoiding people and social events and was unable to see the positive side of things. But her biggest challenge was going to church because she felt like she was in such a bad place and couldn’t understand why because of her religious beliefs. She tried to avoid going to church all together. Her depression at its worst lasted for about a year and during this time she sought many different forms of treatment such as starting with seeing her regular doctor, she was referred to a counselor and saw that person once every 1-2 weeks, she also talked to a church affiliated counselor and that helped her gain more understanding about her issues with her religion, another form of treatment she had was a prescription medication. The people that helped and supported her the most were her parents, they helped her with treatments and being there for her. Other people that helped Faith were her close friends, boyfriend, and people in a support group that her church counselor set her up in. Something that really worked for Faith was when her family and friends took her out to do things and didn’t allow her to lay in bed or be alone.  

My second interview was very different from my first, but it was much easier than the first because I was more comfortable. The interviewee is significantly older than the first and is a relative of mine. My aunt Lou has suffered from depression for her entire adult life and now she's 53 and she said that is partially due to events that have occurred. In previous years she has talked with a counselor as a form of treatment and she continues to take zoloft for her depression. Some of the symptoms she had/has is sleeping a lot, no motivation and crying outbursts at work or in her car. My aunt said that there were lots of people to help her like her coworkers, friends and her two kids. Her two kids helped to keep her going and not completely give up on everything in her life.

The interviews I conducted were both unique and lead me to gain a better perspective on the two people as well as the illness.