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The Redhead Bedhead: Sex Educator JoEllen Notte
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Getting Really, Really Real About My Own Depression

I continually work on reminding myself what is actually “me”, what is depression, and what is depression’s interpretation of me.For the last couple of years I’ve been doing a lot of writing about depression– how it can affect people, how to navigate it, ending the stigma around it… I really talk about it a lot. I haven’t really talked much about what’s been going on with me though and, frankly, over the course of the last couple of months depression has taken me to some of the lowest, darkest places I’ve ever been. So, what happens when the person who teaches about depression becomes overwhelmed by it? I recently wrote about just that for OC87 Recovery Diaries. Sex and Depression: A Sex Educator Explores Her Own Diagnosis is the most honest thing I’ve ever written about trying to do this work when depression takes over my mind.

Thank you all for reading and supporting my work. Without you I wouldn’t have this work to do and I certainly wouldn’t feel empowered to write terrifying things like this piece.

Sex and Depression: A Sex Educator Explores Her Own Diagnosis

What’s that old saying, “Those who can do and those who can’t teach”? I’ve never liked that. The snarky condescension, the dismissiveness towards those who educate, the idea that one can either do something or teach others how to do it themselves and the fact that it doesn’t actually make much sense — who wants someone who “can’t” teaching them? There is one time, however, when I feel this old adage so hard, when it feels true like nothing has ever felt true before, like I suspect I am the living, breathing, embodiment of its words, when I am pretty sure that the reason I teach is that I 100% CANNOT — when I am in the grips of a depressive episode…

Read the whole post at OC87 Recovery Diaries


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About JoEllen

JoEllen Notte is a writer, speaker, and mental health advocate whose work explores the impact of depression on sex and relationships. Since 2012 she has written about sex, mental health, and how none of us are broken here at The Redhead Bedhead.

JoEllen has led workshops nationwide on sexual communication, navigating consent, having casual sex kindly, and dating as an introvert. She has toured sex shops, spoken at length on dildos, and even started a sex school but she is happiest and most effective when writing and speaking on behalf of quiet people who have sex. Check out her video series on attending conferences as an introvert and her extensive writing on sex and depression.

JoEllen has spoken at Clark College, University of Chicago, University of Tennessee, the Guelph Sexuality Conference, Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit, and the Playground Conference

JoEllen’s first book The Monster Under the Bed: Sex, Depression & The Conversation We Aren’t Having was published by Thorntree Press in March 2020. Her new book In It Together: Navigating Depression with Partners, Friends, and Family was published by Thornapple Press in March 2023.

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