Depression in the clinical sense is a really hard thing for people to empathize with. There’s this bootstraps approach, like, “Why don’t you get out of bed and get a job! It’s all up to you.” But that isn’t for everyone. There is a time when you realize: “Whoa, you’re sick just as if your leg was rotting off.” David Foster Wallace is a hero of mine, and I read an interview with his wife where she said that everyone was shocked when he killed himself, but if he had pancreatic cancer, no one would have been shocked. The guy was not well.
I know a lot of people that have been afflicted by anxiety and debilitating depression. It takes this momentum: If you’re not pushing the boulder up the hill, it’s rolling down on you.
I’m not even going to put this in the tags, because this is something really important to me and I’m not going to hide it in a place where people might not even see it or will ignore or Karp will cut me off.
People who believe that the bootstraps approach is realistic in all cases of depression are delusional, narrow-minded morons. Get out of bed and get a job - wow, what a thoughtful thing for you to say! People don’t realize that not only does depression have lasting emotional effects, it has serious physical effects as well. My stomach problems can be 100% attributed to my depression and anxiety - I have tried numerous diets, attempting to cut out foods to see which would affect my body in what way, and no matter what I ate, no matter if I cut out meat and dairy, my stomach was still a mess. I read an article in the NY Times about a year ago that discussed Charles Darwin’s depression and how he faced numerous stomach problems because of it. When depressed, people are often achy, experience migraines, etc.
Also, the whole “it’s all in your head!” argument is completely irrelevant. If I punched you in the diaphragm and you were in massive amounts of pain, guess what? The pain would ALL COME FROM THE SIGNALS IN YOUR BRAIN TELLING YOU THAT YOU GOT PUNCHED IN THE FUCKING DIAPHRAGM. SO THAT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD TOO, ASSHOLE.
Craig Finn makes that remark about pushing a boulder up a hill, and that’s a very accurate metaphor for depression. To fight depression and anxiety, you have to constantly work work work, and all that work is absolutely exhausting. Often I was too exhausted to go to school because I spent so much time trying to sort out and deal with my numerous emotional issues - which, of course, is the lovely Catch-22 about depression. You work so hard to fight it that it sucks the life out of you, you stop to take a breath, and then suddenly everything, all the progress you’ve made, comes crashing back and topples you.
I have never understood why there’s such a social stigma around depression, anxiety, and every other mental illness - I legitimately have no idea why a good number of people are quick to dismiss such afflictions and believe that they’re all false or trivial or what have you.
(via rickitarrs)
(Source: youdsay)
Lorelei: I'm not very good at this, but I'm trying :)