Today, I felt depressed. Like eating chocolate ice cream, watching Love Story on repeat depressed. Mostly because I missed my friends and family terribly.

But apparently, I’m suppose to feel that way, according to some quick Google research I did.

If you are Latina, your chances of being depressed are increased. Most especially if you’re educated, acculturated and U.S. born. Don’t believe me? Check out these stats from
NAMI Multicultural & International Outreach Center in Arlington, VA:

  • Latinos are identified as a high-risk group for depression, anxiety, and substance
    abuse.1

  • Deborah Duran established correlation between acculturation and depression (Duran,
    1995)

  • Prevalence of depression is higher in Latino women (46%) than Latino men
    (19.6%).

  • The Common Wealth Fund Survey revealed that surveyed Latino and Asian
    American girls exhibited more depressive symptoms than the African American or
    white girls.

  • Among female high-school students in 1997, the rate of attempted suicide among
    Latino girls (14.9%) was one-and-a-half times that of African American (9.0%)
    and non-Hispanic white (10.3%) girls.

  • Close to one out of every three Latino female (30.3%) high-school students in
    1997 had seriously considered committing suicide.

  • There are higher rates of mental illness among U.S. born and long-term residents than
    among recent Latino immigrants.

  • Place of birth has a significant correlation with the subsequent risk for most
    psychiatric disorders.

A lot of these facts make so much sense to me. I’m not ashamed to say it but there was a time in my life where I did contemplate suicide. Most people would consider that an uber personal detail and not something that’s meant to be in a blog for the world to see. But I’m not trying to hide it at all. I tell everyone about that, most especially people who are saddened for some reason.

It was after my dad died and I moved to Corpus Christi. Looking back now, it might not have been the right time to move. He died in October. I left in March. I dealt with the loss of not only my father but also of my way of life.

I wanted to kill myself. The pain was too much to bare. I wanted to drive into the ocean to be with my dad.

But I’m alive because I’m Latina. True to form, as is true with most of us, I worried about others before me. How my mother would continue living burying a husband and a daughter in the same year. That kept me alive. That and the power of prayer.

Bottomline: Sucks to Latina sometimes. Granted that we are awesome and wonderful beings. We come in all shades and cultures, we’re stronger than we give our own selves credit for, and we’re powerful writers, bloggers, executives, etc. But sometimes, just sometimes, it’s all just too much.

And now I have an inkling about why.