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Health

Her mother doesn't get why she's depressed. So she explains the best way she knows how.

Sabrina Benaim eloquently describes what it's like to be depressed.

sabrina benaim, depression, explaining depression

Sabrina Benaim's “Explaining My Depression to My Mother."

Sabrina Benaim's “Explaining My Depression to My Mother" is pretty powerful on its own.

But, in it, her mother exhibits some of the most common misconceptions about depression, and I'd like to point out three of them here.

Misconception #1: Depression is triggered by a single event or series of traumatic events.

empathy, human condition, humanity

Depression isn’t just over sleeping.

Most people think depression is triggered by a traumatic event: a loved one dying, a job loss, a national tragedy, some THING. The truth is that depression sometimes just appears out of nowhere. So when you think that a friend or loved one is just in an extended bad mood, reconsider. They could be suffering from depression.

Misconception #2: People with depression are only sad.

family, parents, mom, anxiety

The obligation of anxiety.

Most people who have never experienced depression think depression is just an overwhelming sadness. In reality, depression is a complex set of feelings and physical changes in the body. People who suffer from depression are sad, yes, but they can also be anxious, worried, apathetic, and tense, among other things.

Misconception #3: You can snap out of it.

button poetry, medical condition, biological factors

Making fun plans not wanting to have fun.

The thing with depression is that it's a medical condition that affects your brain chemistry. It has to do with environmental or biological factors first and foremost. Sabrina's mother seems to think that if her daughter would only go through the motions of being happy that then she would become happy. But that's not the case. Depression is a biological illness that leaks into your state of being.

Think of it this way: If you had a cold, could you just “snap out of it"?

No? Exactly.

empathy, misconceptions of depression, mental health

Mom doesn’t understand.

via Button Poetry/YouTube

These are only three of the misconceptions about depression. If you know somebody suffering from depression, you should take a look at this video here below to learn the best way to talk to them:

This article originally appeared on 11.24.15

Our home, from space.

Sixty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to make it into space and probably the first to experience what scientists now call the "overview effect." This change occurs when people see the world from far above and notice that it’s a place where “borders are invisible, where racial, religious and economic strife are nowhere to be seen.”

The overview effect makes man’s squabbles with one another seem incredibly petty and presents the planet as it truly is, one interconnected organism.

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Viral bookshelf hack is creating luxury closets on a budget

Peak adulthood is being envious of rich people's closets. There's usually some sort of full length couch in them or a luxurious chaise lounge, a wall of shoes and some sort of automated rack that spins to help you pick out a tie. They are amazing and the non-rich people typically have some wire racks in a small walk-in with no where to put shoes, bags or anything else that doesn't hang.

But people have been finding a way to revamp their normal closets to look like they were custom built and it's for a price tag that will make your budget happy. The Target bookshelf hack has been going viral on TikTok for several months as new people discover the trend and post their own before and after videos.

Users on the social media app are buying the tall $40 Room Essentials bookshelves from Target and turning them into custom closet builds.

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Science

A juice company dumped orange peels in a national park. Here's what it looks like now.

12,000 tons of food waste and 21 years later, this forest looks totally different.


In 1997, ecologists Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs approached an orange juice company in Costa Rica with an off-the-wall idea.

In exchange for donating a portion of unspoiled, forested land to the Área de Conservación Guanacaste — a nature preserve in the country's northwest — the park would allow the company to dump its discarded orange peels and pulp, free of charge, in a heavily grazed, largely deforested area nearby.

One year later, one thousand trucks poured into the national park, offloading over 12,000 metric tons of sticky, mealy, orange compost onto the worn-out plot.

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Joy

Teen with autism makes record-breaking Jenga block tower, inspiring Hallmark holiday movie

15-year-old Auldin Maxwell, who stacked an astonishing 1,840 Jenga pieces all on one single block, says using them helps tap into his creativity.

Canva

Maxwell hold two Jenga-realted world records

At the ripe old age of fifteen, Auldin Maxwell is already breaking world records and inspiring Hallmark movies.

Maxwell landed his first spot in the Guinness World Records in November 2020, when he successfully balanced 693 Jenga blocks all on top of one vertical facing Jenga block.

Only four months later, he broke his own record by stacking 1,400 Jenga blocks onto one vertical block, more than doubling the original amount. He then broke the record for most Jenga GIANT blocks (500) stacked on top of a single vertical Jenga GIANT block.

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Internet

Are women actually quiet quitting their marriages? Women say not so much.

Men are often blindsided by their partner filing for divorce while women prepare for months.

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

Women push back on claim they're quiet quitting their marriage

By now everyone's familiar with the term quiet quitting. Doing the bare minimum of your job requirements to not get fired but don't really go above an beyond to secure promotions or pay increases. The term has been applied to areas outside of the workplace as well, specifically dating relationships but in a recent Newsweek article, it's expanded to marriage.

Except, Newsweek's article and accompanying video are implying that the quiet quitting of a marriage is more prevalent for the woman in marriages. Statistics are pretty indisputable—nearly 70% of divorces are initiated by women and men, according to the article are often blindsided by the filing.

In the case of quiet quitting marriage, the wife often continues to do the daily responsibilities of a partner and continue having a sexual relationship while planning their exit. But are women actually quiet quitting because women have other opinions on the matter.

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Family

'This isn't how it's supposed to be': Family with ‘good jobs’ lives paycheck-to-paycheck

“Go to college, get a degree, work to support your family. Here we are. Did that. Now what?”

A mom in Pennsylvania is having a hard time getting by even though she has a good job.

There’s a specific trait that exists deep in the American collective psyche that suggests that one’s financial well-being is somehow a reflection of their moral compass. Many people assume that if someone struggles to get by, they don’t work hard enough or make poor choices.

But that knee-jerk reaction couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are countless reasons why hard-working people struggle, especially these days with historically high inflation. Just about everything costs an arm and a leg.

For many, the sharp increase and costs forced them to go from being comfortable to getting by paycheck to paycheck. In addition to the financial stress, many feel stigmatized because of their struggles.

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