Fragments: Fear
Last night I was thinking about the fact that fear has been a theme throughout my life. It kept me in a state of inertia during my teen years when I was still living at home; I was being harmed but trying to take any sort of action was too risky because if the outcome wasn’t perfectly in my favor then I would be in trouble; I’d be harmed further. The same thing was repeated in my marriage (though ultimately I broke the pattern, in that case; yay for personal growth!). It’s also what stopped me from ever taking the step over the line and actually going into sex work. There are other examples. Is it what stops me from calling my health issues what they are?
Tonight, on the way home from Manuel’s, I was thinking again about all the considerations about whether depression should be called a disability. (I even have a hard time calling it a mental illness – hey, I grew up in the same society as everyone else, and we’ve all internalized the stigma to an extent.) I was having the usual back and forth in my head. I wondered what other people think of people who have mental health issues and identify as disabled. I wondered what my closest friends really think about my struggle with depression and my questions about whether or not it is a disability. I wondered how much it really matters what it’s called and why I’m so preoccupied with that question lately. I wondered if Rusty feels burdened or irritated or manipulated or limited or frustrated or exasperated or thinks I blow shit out of proportion or thinks I make shit up or thinks I do things just to get attention or rolls his eyes at all my ponderings on identity. But maybe that’s just because I roll my eyes at myself, a little (or a lot) and maybe I should stop that. I wondered how much of this comes from internalizing of the societal stigmas and how much is me being a responsible person who thinks of others instead of being too self-absorbed.
I wondered what it would be like if I could wipe the slate clean and not have all that baggage and all those wonderings.
Do other people think about this stuff, in the way I do? I often think about how we can never really know if the way we experience the world is “the norm” or if it’s an exception. We can never really know what it feels like to be someone else. But because I’m fascinated with people and interactions, and because it comes perhaps too easily to me to think of how I would feel/act if I were in a certain situation that someone else is in, I always wonder.
We hear a lot of messages in the media and pop culture about being an over-medicated society; people talk about kids getting ADHD diagnoses and roll their eyes because that’s just a scapegoat, that’s not a real condition; we get angry at people who can’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps and shake things off. I admit I feel that way sometimes, when I hear about someone filing for disability, and then their disability turns out to be… PTSD. Anxiety. Depression. ADD. Etc. C’mon if I can force myself through the day certainly other people can too! Plus Americans love to focus on individualism (which, let me be clear, I do not think is a bad thing at all) – why should I subsidize someone else just because they have depression, right? Not on the tax payer’s dime, etc.; all the Libertarian/Republican talking points. And even as I push back and say, that’s spoken as someone who has never dealt with mental illness, sometimes those thoughts go through my head too.
Well, as someone with a mental illness, I don’t really know how to respond. I definitely understand the struggle because I know what it’s like to be in a really dark place and no one understands what it means to be in that place. And even if they have been in their own darkness, they don’t necessarily understand your darkness.
That said, I’ve gotten to the point where I feel that other people’s stigmas about mental illness is their their problem. I was speaking a few hours ago to a friend of mine that had just been to the doctor and the doctor told him not to disclose that he was taking antidepressants because people would discriminate against him. My response: Fuck that! We’re both Ivy-League educated productive members of society. I have nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, I am proud of what I have accomplished despite the chemistry going on in my mind. And I am grateful for my friends and family who have been there for me through it.
That’s all I’ve got.
Part of my problem with this very issue is that one (and when I say one I mean me) can have pretty serious depression but still be relatively high-functioning and intelligent; so, since I can do this and this and this, why the hell can’t I make my brain work how I want it to? Obviously it’s because I fail as a human being!
And as far as over-medication/diagnoses we seem to see now, well, chemistry and behavior and, for lack of a better word, will can all be factors. But the will to change (for those chemically/mentally capable) can be pretty well damaged after a serious bout of suffering.
I do think about these things quite a lot and I don’t think I have ever told you how much I like reading what you have to say on the subject. I don’t know if I made any sense either. I do get pretty steamed when people think depression/anxiety/addiction/etc = hysteria. And I’m pretty resigned to being who I am. I heart drugs and therapy.
Long ago I discarded the idea of “the norm”. After years in therapy and years working in large and busy organizations I realized that “the norm” that is perpetrated by media, academia, literature, etc is just BS. Every family is dysfunctional in some way; every person is damaged in some way. Certainly there are extremes and I guess that’s what I try to assess – is X so damaged/dysfunctional that they truly cannot (Y) (work, learn, participate). Not that it’s really my place to assess anyone else, but that is my reaction when I have moments like yours- “C’mon if I can force myself through the day certainly other people can too!”
I do believe that disabilities to a great extent are defined by the one who is disabled. Jolene over here might be unable to fully engage because of X condition, but Jenny over there with the same condition is fully functional. Among a million other reasons, this is why having insurance companies and administrators make health (medical and mental) decisions/recommendations is very bad. Will there be abuse? Yeah, probably. I think it’s the price we pay for an empathetic society.
you asked: “Do other people think about this stuff, in the way I do? ”
yep. and, as far as I know, I don’t have depression. i always think about it from others’ POVs. I really ought to be just outraged, but then i put myself in their shoes… e.g., the wasband, who did some pretty crappy stuff. as angry as i’d get, there’s always a part of me that could see things from his POV. i wouldn’t necessarily think that his POV was a good thing, or right, or even that it was all relative. I could just understand — which doesn’t entail agreement!
i think i picked it up from mom. sometimes, when i’ve called her and just want someone to take my side, be outraged along with me, she’s saying, “but then, what about the other side…” sometimes it pisses me off, but then i think, well hell, i do the same damn thing! :)
hell, even at work. i’m a freakin’ commie right? but i can sit there and think of all the ways X should be done in the interest of profit. i actually know a lot of other commies just like that. we make total capitalist tools for just this reason. ha ha.
p.s. — i don’t think everyone is ‘thinky’ like this. i remember teaching a class once. i was trying to show them what the concepts of epistemology and ontology meant by examining a popular news story. one of the kids in class said, “Can’t you just watch the news without thinking all these things. I just watch the news. Why do you have to think about it so much?”
lol
over the years I have learned that everyone – and I mean everyone has their demons that they struggle with. I think the ones who judge others so harshly for being more open and honest are usually people with the scariest demons of all because they feel it too and hate themselves for it and therefore lash out at others.
Long ago I learned to be thankful for what my life gave me. I forgot the lesson when I found myself in an environment that, to me, felt like I was being looked down on. Later I realized it was really an environment that perhaps was made of people wanting me to get past who I was and start being the person they thought I can be… I began to look at myself in different ways and through the process began to appreciate all the gifts that my life, from the beginning, has given me.
Your insights and empathy are a gift that perhaps you only have because of the other experience in your life that you have had to carry….
just a thought.
One other thing. I was thinking about you the other day and realizing that you have no idea how important it has been for me to know you over the past few years. Your journey has helped me with my journey and I was just in awe at how the universe works sometimes.
I don’t flatter myself to think that I’m one of the people that you wonder what we think of you and your issues with depression, but generally speaking, I think that anyone who has a negative opinion about it and cares to share it with you is an asshole. I mean, really? No one knows your experience, and no one else is in your head, and to judge you for what is seen in the external to do with that stuff is shallow, and frankly occupied with shit that just does not concern them. Essentially, if they can’t say anything nice or supportive then they shouldn’t say anything at all. They are not the arbiters of your life or experience. Whomever this nebulous “they” happen to be. And I know you know they are just assholes, but really – they are JUST ASSHOLES.
Part of the anxiety is, of course, possibly having said assholes close to you (metaphorical, editorial you), and being vulnerable to those people. And I’m not going to say that finding out that people you trusted or liked fall into the asshole category isn’t hurtful, but, and I”m sure you know this too, being able to say, well, they were wrong and they are being assholish, and I’m perfectly free to feel that way is very liberating as well.
I’ve spent a lot of time being judged. You’re too aggressive, you’re too angry, don’t be so upset, calm down, blah blah blah, and that’s just my dad – who loves me but who can’t figure out why I’m so damn pushy and opinionated, even when it’s plainly genetic. It’s not that I don’t care if people are judging me now, it’s that I assume they are, and that’s really easier, ironically because it means when they are not, I am pleasantly surprised. I am not really advocating this as a sane way to deal with it, but there you have it.
I am pretty sure I have some sort of depressive problem, but any time I’ve been to any therapy, they’re like, well, you are dealing with your life, that shitty thing that happened to you, your exboyfriend breaking a fish tank with your shoe still attached to your foot, you’re just so rational about it, and that’s about as far as it goes. I don’t want to be medicated. I just don’t. Some of the things that actually are incredibly crazy-making for me when I’m off the deep end are also things that make me very, very good at my job and at being all kinds of awesome when it comes to the work I do for Drama Club. So, it might be messed up, but I like myself this way and I’ve developed coping mechanisms that get me through, mostly, when shit is bad. And I’m okay with that. But I dont think that means that people don’t need to be medicated. It means I do not WANT to be medicated. There is a distinction.
So for what it’s worth, I do not judge you, harshly or otherwise, for recognizing that you need medication and for thinking of depression as a disability. The fact of the matter is that you may be more brave than I am, being able to face it in that way, because I certainly cannot, or have not chosen to. Anyone who thinks you’re wimping out can take a long walk off a short pier.
I too suffer from depression and have now come to understand that I have on and off for many years but just didn’t understand what it was until I finally started therapy last year.
For me personally I am now at a point in my life where I don’t have any problem talking about my depression or therapy to others and with the help of therapy I have finally reached a point in my life where I don’t worry about what others think of me. Especially those who I don’t consider friends.
I agree with one of the comments above that in my experience the ones who most have negative things to say about mental illness are the ones who seem to be in denial about their own problems and issues. It is so easy to say “She is crazy” in order to ignore the truth. My opinion is that it is their own fears of facing their problems that has them judging others for being so open about it.
Thanks for writing this. It’s nice when you know you’re not alone in this.
I’ve dealt with sometimes crippling depression since I was 12 years old, i.e. the time I hit puberty. A few years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which I believe is the correct diagnosis. In college, a therapist said I had ADHD, and I tested off the charts for it, but the ADHD meds never worked for me. Just made me MORE agitated. I’m on a combo of Zoloft and Lamictal now, with Xanax on the side “as needed” — which I am happy with. I HATE taking medication, but life is nearly unbearable without it.
I was off my meds when I first moved to Atlanta, to attend art/design school, and the social aspects, though secondary, were one reason I quit after a month. My first week I saw one of the girls from high school who (I felt) hated me, and it freaked me out. I spent most of my time alone in my apartment. When I would sit at a table, no one would sit with me. In fact, people would get up and sit elsewhere if I sat down. I felt it was high school all over again. I mean, who wants to be around the mopey weird girl?
If I let myself, I could blog with regular frequency about what I go through in my mind, but I fear that I’ll come across as “whiny” or “weak.” I don’t think that people who DO blog are whiny or weak. Especially not you, Amber. It’s just how I feel about *myself.* I have a fear of showing what I perceive to be weakness in myself, that it will put people off, alienate them, or make them hate me. I only ever open up to a small handful of people. Maybe if I did it more I’d have more close friends. But even, on the rare occasions when I *do* I feel like it’s annoying to people, that I’m bothering them by unloading, that I should just keep it all to myself or, at the very least, only unload on a therapist. Or my husband haha …
I tried therapy a few times but didn’t have great experiences with my therapists. I probably should try again. I’ve always thought that stand-up comedy would be a perfect way for me to unload, but I’m too damn shy, and touchy about hecklers, to actually do it. That’s why so many comedians have substance abuse issues, they’re really miserable, shy people on the inside.
I have a lot of these same thoughts, I think, about having battled an eating disorder. On one hand, I know that it can be considered a disability and that what I have been through is a kind of suffering. On the other hand, I think, Well, every woman struggles with this, so fuck it, I’m just whining.
I don’t know if that’s exactly similar to what you’re struggling with, but it reminds me of my struggle some.