Terry first experienced depression as early as fourth grade.

“I didn’t know what the name of it was, but I knew something was up,” she said. “I remember my mom going to a school conference, and that’s when I first heard the name ‘depression.’”

From there, life has been an uphill battle for Terry, who is now 53 and lives in Milford.

When she first came to Oakland Family Services’ mental health treatment program, Day One, Terry was experiencing profound grief. Within a four-year period, her aunt, sister, mother, multiple cousins and her best friend had died, then her boyfriend left her after 11 years together.

She felt suicidal and wanted to “check out.”

“I was turning 50, and I was broken,” she said. “My back was messed up. All these things were coming together. My doctor suggested going to counseling. Maybe if I could get my mind right, I could get my body right. I needed somebody to help me figure it out. That’s what Shirley has done.”

Over the past three years, Day One clinician Shirley Brogan has helped Terry work through everything from grief and aging to resentment and revenge fantasies.

“My time with Terry has been rather like the story of the tortoise, slow and steady as we dealt with multiple issues regarding her physical health, relationship losses and changes, midlife aging perceptions and abilities, and general coping day to day,” Shirley said.

That feeling of wanting to check out has come and gone throughout Terry’s life, but she had always pushed through for the sake of her two now-adult daughters. Affording monthly bills has been a consistent challenge for Terry, who lives alone in low-income housing.

She has worked in commercial and residential cleaning for 32 years, a physically demanding job that has become more painful over the years as she has developed chronic pain from arthritis, degenerative disc disease and spinal stenosis. Though Terry needs surgery to place rods in her back and can only work about four hours at a time, she worked through the pain for three years while waiting for her disability claim to be approved.

Her first disability payment finally came through on Nov. 10, but then her shift was eliminated and she lost her job on Nov. 22.

“That’s kind of my life,” she said. “November 10th it was all yippee yay, good timing, my money came, then the 22nd came and I lost my job, I’m thinking, ‘OK that’s a downfall.’ … It’s up and down, that’s how my life is.”

Coming to terms with middle age has been difficult for Terry, especially as she copes with her chronic pain. Turning 50 and becoming a grandmother were both milestones she struggled to accept.

“I’m not old on the inside,” she said. “My brain’s not 53. I want to do stuff that 35-year-olds still do.”

Shirley introduced Terry to a series of “buckets” to help her cope with both day-to-day and long-term challenges.

“Our tool of ‘buckets’ or containers — such as the ‘Thank You, Jesus’ and ‘Screw It’ buckets, a piggy bank for hopes, and mailbox for ‘dead letters’ for things to let go of — helped us focus on cognitive distortions, feelings verbalized to someone who’d listen and options for change with small step plan of action,” Shirley explained.

One way Terry knows she is making progress is when her “Screw It” bucket, meant for things that she wants to forget and move on from, is running low.

“Without Shirley, I might not even be sitting here right now,” she said. “When I went to her, I had a death wish. I wanted to die. And I don’t feel that way today. Now I have things to look forward to, like my new grandkid. Shirley probably saved my live.”

For Terry, one of the best things about therapy has been just having a person to listen without judgement. 

“Most of my friends aren’t judgers, but there’s a few that look a different way after you tell them certain stuff,” she said. “I know who to talk to about what, and Shirley is one of them. … She gives me a lot of coping advice. I sometimes come home looking forward to getting on there with here because I’ve got a lot to tell her. … I write stuff down to tell her, ‘I want to talk about this, and we’re going to talk about this, and she’s going to have to help me with this.’”

Antidepressants have also helped turn things around for Terry, who says she now wants to continue living and looks forward to seeing her newborn grandson grow up.

“I’ll be happy if I can see my grandkid go on the school bus for the first time,” she said. “Stuff like that used to raise my adrenaline when my kids were little. When the kids met Santa, when they got on the bus, that stuff was emotional for me. … Time goes by fast. I still feel young, like I should be putting my own kid on the bus, but I already did all that.”

Day One: A Program of Oakland Family Services offers mental health and substance use treatment for people of all ages. With offices in Pontiac, Berkley and Walled Lake, we also offer telecounseling. We accept most private health insurances, as well as Medicare, Medicaid, Medicaid HMOs and the Healthy MI plan. Call (248) 858-7766 or fill out this form to get started.