Under the Depression Helmet
The last two weeks have been frenetic for Bre Hushaw, who is now known to millions of people as the girl in the depression helmet.
Hushaw has been hearing from people all around the world who want to try it, or at least to know how it works. Her life as a meme began when she agreed to an on-camera interview with the local-news site AZfamily.com for a story headlined “Helmet Approved by FDA to Treat Depression Available in Arizona.” The feel-good tale of Hushaw’s miraculous recovery from severe depression was tossed into the decontextualizing maw of the internet and distilled down to a screenshot of a young woman looking like a listless stormtrooper.
Jokes poured in. Some of the most popular, each with more than 100,000 likes on Twitter, include: “If u see me with this ugly ass helmet mind ur business.” “Friend: hey everything alright? Me, wearing depression helmet: yeah I’m just tired.” “The depression helmet STAYS ON during sex.”
Hushaw has been tracking the virality, sometimes cringing and sometimes laughing. She replies to as many serious inquiries as she can, while finishing up her senior year at the University of Northern Arizona before starting a job in marketing. A year ago, she didn’t think she was going to live to graduation. Back when she was 10 years old, her mother died. Her depression symptoms waxed and waned from then on, and they waxed especially when she heard the gunshots on her campus during a shooting at the school in 2015. She tried many medications over the years—14, by her count.
“From age 15 until I
