The color system for motherhood and depression

Click here to download my free pdf graphic of the color system as my gift to you.

My husband Sergei and I have adapted our seven year old daughter Polly’s behavior system at school here at home.

Only at home, it is for my depression and how it affects our family.

Based on colors, it goes like this:

Blue: great day

Green: okay

Yellow: struggling but fighting

Red: not functioningay

“Why don’t you and Gillian use the color system in regards to your wife’s depression?” Sergei’s therapist asked him during a session.

After living with depression in the home off and on for the last fourteen years of our marriage (mainly the last seven after becoming a mother to kids with special needs), my husband finally went to talk to someone about his role in my illness, how he can help, and how he can cope.

“The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, “We’re pregnant.” I want to go around the neighborhood saying, “We’re depressed.” If my mum can’t get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it’s eating us alive.” ― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

Depression is a family affair.

If a parent is depressed, you can know for sure it will affect the spouse and the kids. Heck, our dog even gets upset when I lie in bed.

So, we attempt the color system. Sergei asks me how I am doing, and I answer with a color.

“How are you?”

“Yellow, today.”

“Green. Do you want to take the kids to the park with me?”

“Red. I’m going to take a nap.”

The good thing about the color system is that when I am yellow or red, I don’t have to try to explain to my husband how I am feeling, or what I can or cannot do. He already knows.

Red usually means he’s on his own with the kids for a little while. Yellow means I’m struggling but I am pushing through. Green means business as usual.

Blue means, well, let’s just be honest. I haven’t claimed blue in a really long time.

In the last two years, my depression has been up and down. But when it is down, it is really down.

So I fight.

I see a cognitive behavioral therapist. I take antidepressants. I pray. We pray as a family. I count on our faith community to help. Our whole family works to help me be better, although none of us really know what exactly happened to make me the way I am.

Ah, depression. Fun stuff.

But we fight.

I fight.

When I feel red, I pick something I have to do, every day. Sometimes I do well. Sometimes I don’t do anything and I have to try more the next day.

I realize depression is not me, but it is part of me, and I think, unfortunately, it is here to stay.

So I fight red. I push through yellow. I am for green. I yearn for blue. Henri Nouwen says you don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.

If you struggle with depression, might I suggest the color system. It is a great tool for dealing with it with loved ones from day to day, and helpful for the person fighting the depression.

Blue: Thank you God for this day.

Green: I can do this. Good day.

Yellow: This is hard, but I am pushing through.

Red: OK, this sucks. It’s hard. I cannot fight it, and yet I must.

For the sake of my family.

For the sake of God’s will for my life.

For the sake of me.