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helblingHoly crap I got something down on paper. Fine, itis RL stuff and not fiction, but it's better than nowt.
There are certain lines I hate people trotting out about depression. The reason for this dislike is pretty much the same reason behind both. The first line is anything about making the depressed person 'see reason'.
The second is this line, which I have seen crop up, I kid you not, everywhere:
'Depression is not being sad when you have a reason to be sad. Depression is being sad when there's no reason to be sad.'
This combined with the pressure for depressed people to 'just use logic' when it comes to how they feel is a sure fire way to ensure that depressed people will never seek help or acknowledge there is something wrong and cut themselves some slack.
Because, you see, they do have things wrong. I know that a lot of people who talk about depression do so with an air of mystery, because it came 'out of nowhere'. They talk about how everything was going their way, it blind sided them, they could never have seen it coming because it had no reason to rock up...
Yeah, fuck that shit. I'll say it now - I have things going wrong. I have reasons to be sad. And here's the crux point; even if I didn't have things going wrong, my depression would trick my brain into thinking things were. It will rephrase my current employment in my head to be a 'pointless dead end job', despite the fact I've been promoted 4 times in as many years. The fact that Doug and I have decent steady incomes and some modest savings will vanish out of a window, because suddenly it will be viewed against where we want to be in terms of savings to buy a house, which is no where near what we need to be, and resultantly it's all hopeless.
The list goes on. This is why it's pointless to rely on logic when you're depressed, because your logic becomes false and you will honestly honestly believe you are the most pathetic person alive. You wrote a book? It's shit, will never be published, you don't deserve to be published. Your relationships? Abnormal. Friends? Hang around out of pity. Oh, and incidentally, you're so fat and ugly that it would be an infinite aesthetic improvement if you covered your head with a paper bag and then set yourself on fire. Everything that could be a source of hope becomes one more thing to beat yourself with. Which, incidentally, is why it's a bad idea to try and bring up 'positive' things to try and 'cheer me up' if I'm in a depressive spin. Because, for one thing, cheering me up in the middle of that is like putting a plaster on a severed leg and calling things a day, and for another, those positive things you brought up won't stay positive for very long on the inside of my head.
And this, this is where that above line becomes so hideous. Because if I have things going wrong, and I'm sad about them, then I'm not depressed. I'm just sad as a result of my life being shit, right? There's nothing wrong with me at all, I'm just reacting as a normal human would when faced with what I am - which at that moment in time will look like a short fruitless life followed by a long death and being ignobly forgotten so quickly it'll be a wonder if they manage to hold a funeral.
And, logic proclaims, then if I'm not depressed, there's nothing wrong with my reasoning. Everything really is as bad as I think it is, possibly worse.
And don't even get me started on how I feel in relation to other people. I've seen some piece of nonsense going around about why generation Y is sad, and apparently it's all our fault because we set our expectations too high*, and then make it worse by comparing ourselves to the falsely inflated-worth images others of our age put forth through social networking like facebook**. And that's not actually what I do - I compare myself to other people's misfortunes. All around me, I've seen people get sick, get bankrupt, get evicted, die, divorce, get dumped, be bereaved, be unemployed, be fired, be disowned, be outed, have real reasons to be sad.
And here's me, with my pathetic little unpublished book, and boohoo, my husband and I make enough to live in comfortable surroundings even if we aren't in a position to buy yet. What sort of awful, awful human being must I be to be sad when I am not bankrupt, bereaved, evicted, fired, disowned or dead?
You ever had acres of sad suddenly topped by half a tonne of guilt, worthlessness and inadequacy? It's not fun.
Which is why I dislike these platitudes. Because they aren't to make people with depression feel better - I've never met someone with depression that they did encourage, wow, if you are one are you in the minority - they are to make the people around the people with depression feel better.
Because I can appreciate it's frustrating. Really I do, to have to watch while we tear ourselves down and then cry from the pain, over and over again. As we become our own worst enemies and can't meet anyone's eyes, not even our own reflections. I get that seeing someone you love like that might trigger a deep and confusing panic because you don't know what to do, you don't know how to make it better, you're helpless, and there's a lot of emphasis in our society on being actively helpful which is the wrong thing to do; I've yet to see a movie where the hero saves the day not by shooting the aliens or suing the corrupt politicial, but by hugging his girlfriend while she cries into his shoulder, or holds his son while he sobs for reasons that are too hard to put into words. Xena warrior princess never won over the bad guys by sitting at her computer and typing *hugs* into the IM window over and over again because you are too far away to do anything else, but you have to do something, let them know that someone is there.
So having these platitudes to say is comforting. It means that suddenly you know what to do and say, that you are aware of how you are expected to act. And when the depressed person doesn't fulfill their part of the bargain and get better, it means sometimes that fact is greeted by anger; you're doing your part, why aren't they doing theirs?! Don't you know how hard it is to watch you suffer?!
Anger is the last defense of the helpless, those with their hands tied. It's an incredibly painful one, even if it's understood where it comes from.
So, this is a public service announcement, because I know I've both caused that anger, and also felt it.
If I'm causing you that anger, please go away. Not forever, but you will only hurt both of us while you're like that, so go cool off. If you are not at that stage yet, then accept that sometimes there really isn't anything you can do for me, but reassurances that I'm not a worthless human being and that I havebn't ruined your life just by being in it are always useful. So are hugs, if you are on my hug list.
If I'm feeling that anger, I may go and cool off. Know that I'm only feeling it because I care so much that the anger is actually less painful to me than seeing you suffer. I will come back, and the blame is not with you that I'm feeling that way, it's all on me. If I'm sticking around but am quiet, and seem distracted, know I'm trying to think of what to do, and how to help in a way that is meaningful, because I know how disheartening and damaging platitudes can be. Resultantly, if you have anything you need - from a drink, to some space, to a hug, to me fetching someone else who you are more comfortable hugging - just say, and I will fetch.
Here endeth the rant/PSA.
* - Naturally, it never considers that we didn't spring, fully formed, out of nowhere and that our expectations had to be set by someone else, namely our parents and their generation. Nor does it want to study the complex and multifaceted reasons that this generation is doing significantly worse than the generation before them, as that might involve admitting the baby boomers did something wrong to leave their children scrabbling around in their own leavings. No, rather than confront this hard topic, and any associated guilt, it's all our fault and we need to be more grounded in reality. While working starter-wage jobs for 5 years before we got a snifter of a promotion when our parents had to work 1, and balancing your living costs while paying off your student loans - something our parents never dreamed of jousting with - and subsisting solely on vegetables that we can grow in our own window boxes; an honest to god suggestion left in the comments. I could go on, but I won't, because it's amazing what the now-middle class, approaching retirement, comfortably settled how dare you suggest it's our fault group will do to avoid taking a good hard look at themselves.
** - Which frankly comes across as yet another chorusing of 'things were better in our day, all this new fangled stuff is bad for you' by the older generation. To which, I have one rebuttal: cigarettes.
There are certain lines I hate people trotting out about depression. The reason for this dislike is pretty much the same reason behind both. The first line is anything about making the depressed person 'see reason'.
The second is this line, which I have seen crop up, I kid you not, everywhere:
'Depression is not being sad when you have a reason to be sad. Depression is being sad when there's no reason to be sad.'
This combined with the pressure for depressed people to 'just use logic' when it comes to how they feel is a sure fire way to ensure that depressed people will never seek help or acknowledge there is something wrong and cut themselves some slack.
Because, you see, they do have things wrong. I know that a lot of people who talk about depression do so with an air of mystery, because it came 'out of nowhere'. They talk about how everything was going their way, it blind sided them, they could never have seen it coming because it had no reason to rock up...
Yeah, fuck that shit. I'll say it now - I have things going wrong. I have reasons to be sad. And here's the crux point; even if I didn't have things going wrong, my depression would trick my brain into thinking things were. It will rephrase my current employment in my head to be a 'pointless dead end job', despite the fact I've been promoted 4 times in as many years. The fact that Doug and I have decent steady incomes and some modest savings will vanish out of a window, because suddenly it will be viewed against where we want to be in terms of savings to buy a house, which is no where near what we need to be, and resultantly it's all hopeless.
The list goes on. This is why it's pointless to rely on logic when you're depressed, because your logic becomes false and you will honestly honestly believe you are the most pathetic person alive. You wrote a book? It's shit, will never be published, you don't deserve to be published. Your relationships? Abnormal. Friends? Hang around out of pity. Oh, and incidentally, you're so fat and ugly that it would be an infinite aesthetic improvement if you covered your head with a paper bag and then set yourself on fire. Everything that could be a source of hope becomes one more thing to beat yourself with. Which, incidentally, is why it's a bad idea to try and bring up 'positive' things to try and 'cheer me up' if I'm in a depressive spin. Because, for one thing, cheering me up in the middle of that is like putting a plaster on a severed leg and calling things a day, and for another, those positive things you brought up won't stay positive for very long on the inside of my head.
And this, this is where that above line becomes so hideous. Because if I have things going wrong, and I'm sad about them, then I'm not depressed. I'm just sad as a result of my life being shit, right? There's nothing wrong with me at all, I'm just reacting as a normal human would when faced with what I am - which at that moment in time will look like a short fruitless life followed by a long death and being ignobly forgotten so quickly it'll be a wonder if they manage to hold a funeral.
And, logic proclaims, then if I'm not depressed, there's nothing wrong with my reasoning. Everything really is as bad as I think it is, possibly worse.
And don't even get me started on how I feel in relation to other people. I've seen some piece of nonsense going around about why generation Y is sad, and apparently it's all our fault because we set our expectations too high*, and then make it worse by comparing ourselves to the falsely inflated-worth images others of our age put forth through social networking like facebook**. And that's not actually what I do - I compare myself to other people's misfortunes. All around me, I've seen people get sick, get bankrupt, get evicted, die, divorce, get dumped, be bereaved, be unemployed, be fired, be disowned, be outed, have real reasons to be sad.
And here's me, with my pathetic little unpublished book, and boohoo, my husband and I make enough to live in comfortable surroundings even if we aren't in a position to buy yet. What sort of awful, awful human being must I be to be sad when I am not bankrupt, bereaved, evicted, fired, disowned or dead?
You ever had acres of sad suddenly topped by half a tonne of guilt, worthlessness and inadequacy? It's not fun.
Which is why I dislike these platitudes. Because they aren't to make people with depression feel better - I've never met someone with depression that they did encourage, wow, if you are one are you in the minority - they are to make the people around the people with depression feel better.
Because I can appreciate it's frustrating. Really I do, to have to watch while we tear ourselves down and then cry from the pain, over and over again. As we become our own worst enemies and can't meet anyone's eyes, not even our own reflections. I get that seeing someone you love like that might trigger a deep and confusing panic because you don't know what to do, you don't know how to make it better, you're helpless, and there's a lot of emphasis in our society on being actively helpful which is the wrong thing to do; I've yet to see a movie where the hero saves the day not by shooting the aliens or suing the corrupt politicial, but by hugging his girlfriend while she cries into his shoulder, or holds his son while he sobs for reasons that are too hard to put into words. Xena warrior princess never won over the bad guys by sitting at her computer and typing *hugs* into the IM window over and over again because you are too far away to do anything else, but you have to do something, let them know that someone is there.
So having these platitudes to say is comforting. It means that suddenly you know what to do and say, that you are aware of how you are expected to act. And when the depressed person doesn't fulfill their part of the bargain and get better, it means sometimes that fact is greeted by anger; you're doing your part, why aren't they doing theirs?! Don't you know how hard it is to watch you suffer?!
Anger is the last defense of the helpless, those with their hands tied. It's an incredibly painful one, even if it's understood where it comes from.
So, this is a public service announcement, because I know I've both caused that anger, and also felt it.
If I'm causing you that anger, please go away. Not forever, but you will only hurt both of us while you're like that, so go cool off. If you are not at that stage yet, then accept that sometimes there really isn't anything you can do for me, but reassurances that I'm not a worthless human being and that I havebn't ruined your life just by being in it are always useful. So are hugs, if you are on my hug list.
If I'm feeling that anger, I may go and cool off. Know that I'm only feeling it because I care so much that the anger is actually less painful to me than seeing you suffer. I will come back, and the blame is not with you that I'm feeling that way, it's all on me. If I'm sticking around but am quiet, and seem distracted, know I'm trying to think of what to do, and how to help in a way that is meaningful, because I know how disheartening and damaging platitudes can be. Resultantly, if you have anything you need - from a drink, to some space, to a hug, to me fetching someone else who you are more comfortable hugging - just say, and I will fetch.
Here endeth the rant/PSA.
* - Naturally, it never considers that we didn't spring, fully formed, out of nowhere and that our expectations had to be set by someone else, namely our parents and their generation. Nor does it want to study the complex and multifaceted reasons that this generation is doing significantly worse than the generation before them, as that might involve admitting the baby boomers did something wrong to leave their children scrabbling around in their own leavings. No, rather than confront this hard topic, and any associated guilt, it's all our fault and we need to be more grounded in reality. While working starter-wage jobs for 5 years before we got a snifter of a promotion when our parents had to work 1, and balancing your living costs while paying off your student loans - something our parents never dreamed of jousting with - and subsisting solely on vegetables that we can grow in our own window boxes; an honest to god suggestion left in the comments. I could go on, but I won't, because it's amazing what the now-middle class, approaching retirement, comfortably settled how dare you suggest it's our fault group will do to avoid taking a good hard look at themselves.
** - Which frankly comes across as yet another chorusing of 'things were better in our day, all this new fangled stuff is bad for you' by the older generation. To which, I have one rebuttal: cigarettes.
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no subject
Date: 2013-09-18 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-18 07:34 pm (UTC)Yes, I am pretty abnormal. :-P
no subject
Date: 2013-09-18 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-18 08:49 pm (UTC)Also this is really well written, and thought provoking.