Sometimes my friends, dear close friends with whom I’ve shared
deep parts of my soul, well…they annoy me.
Sometimes I wonder if they are listening, or maybe they just don’t hear
what I’m saying. I still love them…but
sometimes they annoy me.
I have depression.
I’ve had it my whole life.
Usually people say you “suffer” from depression, and I do; I suffer
mightily from my depression at times.
But saying you suffer from depression is not always taken as seriously
as saying you suffer from heart disease or diabetes or cancer or many other
maladies and conditions. Because
depression is a “mental illness,” there are some who don’t believe it is
“real.” They think (quite rightly I
suppose) that like other mental illnesses or conditions, that it’s “all in your
head.” They think (I suppose) that you
can will it away by simply ceasing to “feel sorry for yourself.” I have one friend who flatly says: “I just
don’t get it. I hear people say they are
depressed all the time, but I just don’t understand it.” That’s okay, she doesn’t have depression, so
it’s not something for her to have to “get.”
But it’s annoying to have it so cavalierly dismissed as a valid and
legitimate condition. Because when it
hits hard, you (I) are as debilitated as with any other condition. And it hurts to have those around you not
take it seriously.
I believe it is genetic; actually I’ve heard it is quite
common amongst people of my Irish and Scandinavian heritage. But people get confused. I laugh and joke a lot and seem quite jovial
on the outside, most of the time. But
I’m not, always. John Steinbeck kinda
nailed it in his epic novel: East of Eden.
There’s a passage where the Irish character of Samuel is questioning why
the Chinese character of Lee, continues to employ his pidgin English even
though he is well educated and speaks perfect English. Lee explains that people don’t expect an
educated Chinese person so when he speaks perfectly, they don’t understand
him. Samuel laughs and then explains how
it is much the same with him and his Irish humor. Of the Irish he says: “…They’re a dark people
with a gift for suffering way past their deserving. It’s said that without whisky to soak and
soften the world, they’d kill themselves.
But they tell jokes because it’s expected of them.” When I read that passage it thumped right
into my heart. I laughed at first,
thinking how Steinbeck really had insight with regards to “my people,” then
after a few seconds, my eyes teared up; the suffering way past my deserving
just welled up in me.
Depression sucks.
This past weekend I had off.
Nowhere to go, no one to see. And
it hit me. I couldn’t function. I spent most of it near catatonic in my
recliner, snuggled up with some wine and my pets and watching TV. I had no interest in doing anything
else. I did get out in the car and drive
around a bit, but with no particular purpose other than to get out of the
house. But I had nowhere to go, nobody
to be with. So I ended up back in my
home, on that recliner. Wasted the whole
weekend doing nothing. But it wasn’t
even a productive nothing; I did not feel relaxed or rested…just nothing. Morose and melancholy and at times even
darker…morbid darkness. It comes and
goes like that. Sometimes I’m better when
I’m back into the working groove; it helps to keep my mind off things. But it always comes back.
I could try to explain it.
Maybe rationalize that I feel so deeply morose because I care so deeply
about things…which is true. And my life
situation…where I’ve been, where I’m at, and where I’m not going, is just so
unbearable sometimes. But my life is not
worse than others; better than some.
Depression is just part of my assemblage of parts, it’s my burden. And to that end, I do not seek answers or
solutions from my friends. Nor even
understanding. I’ve been through
therapy, I’ve tried the medications. I
only ask that they do not diminish what I’m feeling. I once confessed to a friend, some suicidal
ideations I’d been suffering. Her
response was a pithy “bumper sticker” quote that I’d heard before: “Suicide is
a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”
I know she was trying to inject a lighter air to a very serious matter
and I get that; suicide is scary to the people around you. If you utter the “word,” people don’t want to
hear it because they don’t know how to react, what to do, what to say. I get that.
But there is nothing “temporary” about depression for those who are
clinically afflicted. So a bumper sticker slogan only comes off as condescending. And it does not help.
I suppose, in a larger sense, what I’m really railing
against here, is condescension. I
recently have had two arguments with one of the people I care for in a nursing
facility. Though this man is physically
disabled, his mind is intact, and maybe because that is all he has left to work
with in his world, it has made him cynical, and even bitter. And he often comes off as smug and
condescending to everyone else around him.
One of our arguments concerned a change of administration at
our facility and the fact that the new regime came in with all the subtlety of
Hitler blitzkrieging Poland. Hours and
overtime were cut, people were reprimanded, bullied and fired before the new
administrators took the time to even get to know the people (besides what they READ
in personnel files and reports.) People
who had held our facility together for over a year, often working shorthanded,
with few supplies, and with no tangible or intangible compensation or
appreciation of our efforts. “It’s all
about the money,” the cynic argued when I suggested that the new administrators
just didn’t care, not about us, or the people we care for. Then, smirking, he added, “It’s a business; they’re
here to save money for the company. It is
what it is.” No shit. As if I’m too naïve to understand. None of that negates the fact that it’s a “business”
that’s supposed to be ABOUT caring!
Our second argument concerned a football pool he was
organizing; five dollars in got you the opportunity to pick the outcome of all
that weeks’ NFL games. I couldn’t swing
the five dollars so instead I assisted (picked every last one of the games!)
for a co-worker who knew absolutely nothing about sports and cared even less;
she just thought it would be “fun.”
Hmmm, the idea that sports could be, “fun,” how cute! Of course the blowhard dismissed me and my
picks, smirking as always, no doubt on account of the fact that everyone knows
that girls don’t know anything about sports, and especially sports
prognostication. And of course…(we) won
the pool. I’d only missed on two picks,
both games being upsets. My friend and I
of course both played up our “beginner’s luck” by confessing we’d only picked
based on each team’s “outfits.” In front
of the cynic, and an arrogant doctor who happened to be at the nurse’s station
while we were discussing the games, my friend and I laughed and joked and
high-fived each other saying: “Yay, teal team!”
Both the doc and the bitter man shook their heads in disgust at our, “luck.”
Subsequent conversation turned to the “business” of football
in particular, and sports in general, when the subject of athletes’ contracts
and players’ lack of loyalty in moving from team to team purely for financial
considerations. Again I suffered this
man’s condescension as he reiterated what seems to be a theme with him, “It’s
just business,” he summated. “There’s no
loyalty; they’re only in it for the money.”
Wrong, Mr. Smug. Of course, yet again
my opinion was not valued because I cared to dispute this “truism.” And of course, never mind the fact that Mr.
Smug never played sports. Or that I’ve
been watching, AND playing all sorts of sports all my life. Or that I’d taught many of them, and coached
one of them for over twenty years. Oh
sure, I never did so on a professional level, but I think I can fairly assert
that I KNOW why athletes participate in athletics, and that even on the
professional level, it is not merely for financial remuneration. You do not make the sacrifices to your time,
your body, and your heart that you do in sports, only for money, especially
when playing for championships. There
are intangibles that too many “armchair” athletes and “never was/wannebes” will
never understand. But what do I know? I’m
only a girl.
So I suppose what all this is about is naiveté. Why should I get so worked up about
things? Why should I care so much when
almost nobody else does? Why should the
way “it is” sometimes drive me deeper into my inherent depression? Why not just accept that things cannot be
changed? It is what it is. It’s a business. It’s life.
It’s the way things are. Why not adopt
the rationale of a realist instead of suffering the perpetual pain of the
idealist? Bullshit, that’s why. If there were not those malcontents such as
myself who SAW things as they are, but did not ACCEPT them, we would still be
slithery creatures in the primordial mud.
I’m depressed because I CANNOT accept stagnation; the status quo. I’m naïve to believe that things can and
SHOULD be changed, that people SHOULD care about each other. That we’re here for something more than just
doing business as usual. And if it makes
me sad sometimes that we’re not there yet, then I’ll happily express my tears…
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