Have you watched Ginny & Georgia? If you haven’t, please know there might be spoilers ahead.
Did you love the latest season?
Did you cry?
Because by the end of episode five… I was bawling.
For those who don’t know, Ginny & Georgia is a Netflix series that follows a mother-daughter duo—Georgia, a free-spirited single mom with a complicated past, and Ginny, her bright but anxious teenage daughter—as they try to build a new life in a small town. While the show blends comedy and drama, it also dives into serious topics like trauma, self-harm, race, identity, and mental health.
Sometimes fictional characters give us the language we can’t find for ourselves. They reflect back something we’re feeling but don’t quite understand. Watching Marcus and Max struggle made me think about how many of us walk through the world carrying something silently—because it’s too heavy, too confusing, or too hard to explain.
Stories give us a safe space to feel things we haven’t made sense of yet. They help us explore what we might not be ready to talk about out loud. And in that process, they help us heal.
One character, Marcus, stands out for his raw and vulnerable portrayal of depression. He’s a moody, intelligent teen who struggles quietly while the world around him assumes he’s just another brooding boy. His inner monologue is a great portrayal on what depression can really feel like, especially for teenagers and young adults.
In Season 2, Marcus shares:
“Some feelings are like old familiar friends. Depression is like that for me. When I’m not in it, I don’t remember it. I remember it’s bad. I remember the darkness, but it’s… different to feel it again. It’s the difference between remembering what a room looks like and actually walking through the door. Being inside it again. Feeling it.
When the episode starts, it can be slow. An intrusive thought—‘I don’t want to be here’—but then it’s gone. You bat it away like a fly or a bad smell. When it hits you fully, though, when you’re really in it, it’s everything. It becomes who you are, you’re nothing else.
On the outside, you look the same, smiling and pretending is so much work. But inside, it’s a different story. You start to hate yourself. You’re so alone—so unbelievably alone. And you can be with someone you love, but you’re not really with them.
We think we know what’s going on with other people, but we don’t. You never really know what’s going on inside someone else’s head. Everyone is fighting a battle you can’t see. We all have blind spots.
And you know it’s you. It’s something wrong with you. And it’s exhausting. So goddamn s*** exhausting and it’s helpless. It’s a void, and existing takes so much energy. You wanna sink into a hole of nothing where no one talks to you and you don’t have to smile or talk or be.
Anyway, it’s familiar. I’ve been here before. I’ve gotten out of it before. But the getting out part becomes the room that you remember, but aren’t in. And that’s what’s scary—being back in the room where depression lives. It’s a sharp pain, an overwhelming numbness.”
That monologue resonated with a lot of people when it came out—because it’s painfully accurate. It gives shape to something that’s often hard to name. Depression is not just sadness; it’s disconnection, numbness, self-loathing, exhaustion. It’s feeling stuck in a room you forgot existed until you’re back inside it.
In Season 3, Marcus says less but still says so much. At one point, he tells his sister:
“I can barely be with myself.”
That one hit me. Because sometimes depression makes it so unbearable to be in your own body, in your own mind, that all you want is to escape it. To crawl out of your skin and just not feel this anymore.
But Marcus isn’t the only one struggling.
His twin sister, Maxine (Max), is often bubbly, dramatic, and full of life. She’s loud, social, and funny. But underneath all that brightness, there are cracks. There are moments when you can tell she’s overwhelmed, trying to hold it together. She rarely says she’s not okay—but that doesn’t mean she isn’t.
That’s the thing about depression, it doesn’t always look like sadness. It can hide behind a smile. It can look like overachieving, like people-pleasing, like always being the “fun” one. It can be invisible. Max and Marcus are twins, yet they show us two completely different faces of the same experience.
Depression is overwhelming, but your mental health is not your identity. It’s a part of your story—but not the whole. And even if it feels never-ending, depression can pass. You can find your way out of the room where depression lives.
Even when everything feels dark and no light is breaking through…
Even when it feels like a wave that keeps knocking you down, barely letting you breathe…
Even when it feels like you’re drowning…
You can come back up.
It might take time. It might take support, care, therapy, rest. But you don’t have to stay in that room.
It’s possible to step outside again.
It’s possible to feel warmth again.
And it’s possible to feel like yourself—maybe even a new version of yourself—once more.
It might take time. It might take help. It might not look the way you expected. But you don’t have to do it alone. There is support. There is healing. There is light.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or lost, please know you’re not alone. Therapy can be a place to pause, breathe, and figure out what’s really going on underneath the surface. If you’d like to talk, I offer virtual therapy for adults across Ontario, and I’d be honoured to hold space for your story.
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