Sharing stories: Marginalized women's experience with depression.

I am interested in the experiences of women living with diagnosed or undiagnosed depression and accessing services at the Phoenix Transition House in Prince George. For the past two decades, the universal Canadian health care system has been dismantled and decentralized by neoliberalist economies. These changes drastically affect the regional health services available to women who provide unpaid care, who work for lower wages, and/or who have been victimized by personal violence. This situation creates a feminized' landscape of depression and mental health services. Eight months of participant observation serves as a background for understanding the daily lives of women accessing services at the Phoenix Transition House. Interviews with seven women were digitally recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to yield eight themes. The most pervasive themes were barriers to mental well-being, limited access to mental health supports, unrecognized symptoms of depression, and stigmas related to depression. --P. ii.