rainwaterspark | Entries tagged with depressed

On one hand, while I'm still dealing with eating and sleeping issues, I do feel better on a daily basis. On the other hand, that might be because I've reached the "don't give a damn" stage about law school, and I don't know whether that's necessarily a good or bad thing. I spend most of my time recently thinking about video games (either playing them or planning on playing them during the summer), watching Youtube and TV (although I blame Daredevil and Netflix's desire for everyone to binge-watch their shows), and just...daydreaming about non-law-related things.

Objectively, on some level I know this isn't great. I never used to be the kind of student who tried to skate by on the minimum amount of work necessary to pass; I want to spend my time doing something I'm really engaged in. But right now it's hard for me to care about my law courses, and thinking about law school too much makes me depressed, so I'm just trying to hang on, survive the semester, and figure things out as I go along.

I had a really terrible culmination of depression around the last week of March, and it's hard to say I'm "better"; it's not like the underlying issues have completely gone away. It's more like, for whatever reason, I'm in a state now where I'm able to think about stuff that cheers me up (video games, comics) and minimize thinking about stuff that stresses me out (law school, the future).

It's difficult to speak of depression as being a changeable thing, and I understand the impulse to avoid that characterization—because for so long depression was assumed to be temporary and therefore not serious. But what do you do when, in someone's case, it is a changeable thing? When, for a certain person (like me), it seems to be more context-based rather than an alteration of brain chemistry, or an unexpected, inexplicable combination of random things happening can "pull" you out of the worst of it? Because I really don't know how to explain why the switch "flipped" for me; why it was that for several weeks, I was unable to think about anything other than how my life was miserable and hopeless and painful, and now I can think about something else.

There's a delicate balance when it comes to people with mental illness in terms of attributing agency. I think certain progressive (for lack of a better term) people's impulse is to assume people with mental illness have no agency. And I don't disagree with this; I've had to spend far too many times trying to explain to people that depression isn't something you can "will" yourself out of and that such a belief is deeply damaging and stigmatizing and just outright inaccurate. Because part of the illness is feeling like you have no control over what you're feeling and experiencing, and that's one of the most terrifying aspects of it.

But I think it's also harmful to assume people with mental illness are always completely passive victims. For one, it really doesn't work very well for people who experience "gray" or more "minor" (relatively speaking, in terms of severity) mental illnesses; for another, I personally find that it can erase the individual experience, or the "complex personhood" of having a mental illness. Because part of my experience has been, yes, feeling hopeless and feeling like I'm drowning in an endless sea that I can't do anything to get out of, but part of it has also felt like a relentless battle that I fought each day. Maybe I lost, most of the time. I couldn't get myself out of bed. I couldn't make myself feel better. I couldn't avoid crying.

But even if I lost, I was still fighting. And that aspect is something that I sometimes see unrecognized (*cough* especially in many Bucky Barnes fanfic *coughcough* okay I'll stop now).

In short: Depression can be a really complicated thing.

I'm starting to get tired of my parents' problem-based approach to my depression. The attitude of "we need to identify the cause and then the solution," like you would for a math problem. "Oh, you're stressed and academics are giving you a hard time? You should ask for academic help!"

To the extent that my depression is a math problem (and I guess in some ways I'm "fortunate" in that respect), it's very simple. Why depression? Because law school. That's it. Remove law school and the depression goes away. That's the only factor (or the only one capable of being altered, in any case).

So when my parents focus on things like trying to improve my academic performance, it feels like the equivalent of me being in hell and them telling me "You should bring a pillow and some sunscreen, then you're going to feel so much more comfortable," while my response is "Okay, but have you missed the part where I'm miserable because I'M LITERALLY ON FIRE??? SPF 5000 isn't going to change the fact that I'M BURNING."

It's also hard to take to heart the idea that "Just hang on until the semester is over, then things'll get better. It's only a few more months." Rationally, I know this is true. But depression isn't rational. It can't be bargained with. Sayings like "Everything's going to be fine" and "It's not going to be the end of the world" become empty syllables that mean nothing. Knowing that the fire will go out in a week's time doesn't change the agony you feel from having your skin being constantly burned off.

My default mode of dealing with problems is to avoid them. How I've dealt with depression so far is by literally running away from it. [Tangent: It amuses me that some "feminists" think that's strictly the "male" way of dealing with problems. And by "amuse" I mean I simultaneously want to laugh and do something violent, because gender stereotyping needs to go die in a pit.] Exhibit A: I was depressed in my last semester of college. I recovered by graduating and going home. Exhibit B: I was depressed about my writing over the past summer. I sought to get my mind off it by ceasing to look at AO3/certain Tumblrs, moving to a new city, and starting law school. Not an ideal solution, or even a permanent one in most cases, but I don't know what else to do. I'm usually aware of the underlying problem, or at least the major aggravating factor when I'm depressed, but I always feel powerless to address it (whether because it's actually out of my control or because it's too complicated to "solve").

Depression is humiliating. It makes you feel utterly helpless. Andrew Solomon has a good way of describing the way depression can eviscerate one's sense of self-identity (paraphrased from his TED talk): "I used to think I was the kind of person who was tough enough to survive a concentration camp. Then depression happened to me, and I realized that wasn't true. But if I wasn't that person, if I wasn't tough enough to survive a concentration camp, who was I?"

I have encountered hardships, obstacles, and usually my first instinct is to work harder to overcome them. For most of my life, I've had an ironclad determination that there was nothing I couldn't learn or fix as long as I was motivated to do so. Bad grades? Difficult subject? Subject I didn't even like? My answer was to work harder. Problem no one knew how to solve? I'd figure out the solution myself. Sucky novel draft? Throw out 10,000 words and rewrite them from scratch. I was often unhappy during college, but I wasn't depressed, and I was willing to bear stress and unhappiness in the short term in the hopes that I could achieve a stable future. I saw it as necessary, one of the immutable, unquestionable facts of life.

But recently I just feel like I can't do it. Recently, I want to fold over and give up. Law school seems hopeless. Writing seems hopeless. Yesterday I told my family that I didn't want to exist anymore because I couldn't do anything, I would never accomplish anything, I had no value to society, and there didn't seem to be a reason for me to be alive.

So what does that make me, if I'm no longer the person who was determined enough to persevere in the face of overwhelming odds? If I now react to adversity by wanting to crawl into a hole and hide? If I'm not "tough enough to survive a concentration camp"?

It's not just a matter of social stigma. It's the feeling that your very self-identity is unraveling. When the things that you used to take pride in—autonomy, independence, determination, ambition, perseverence—the things that you used to define yourself by—fall away, what's left?

What's left of you?

And what's supposed to be left for you to hold on to?

During my first semester at college, one night, I got a call from home saying that one of my childhood friends had been hit by a train and died.

That phone call was shocking for two reasons. One, because it was the first time someone whom I used to be close to, who was only a few months younger than me, had died, and when you're a teenager you think you understand death, you think you know what it means and how awful it is, but you don't, really. When you're a teenager, you think you'll live forever, that you've got decades of time stretched out in front of you, so the thought that you can die—that everything can end in an instant—is honestly shocking.

The second reason was because of the cause of her death. I mean, who dies by accidentally being hit by a train these days? Cars, yes, sadly that happens all the time. But a train? You can see and hear a train coming from a mile away, and anyone seeing a train coming toward them isn't going to attempt to cross until it's past.

It baffled me. It baffled everyone. When I was talking about this with my parents, occasionally they raised the possibility that it wasn't accidental. Maybe it was suicide, they said. Because it's just so unthinkable that a fully cognizant teenager could be accidentally hit by a train.

That couldn't be the answer, I said at the time. According to her parents and friends, she was happy. There was no sign she was depressed.

*

Last year, I learned that three high school student suicides had happened in my hometown. I was sad to hear about them—and a bit surprised, as well. In my 10 years living there, I'd never heard of a single suicide, and suddenly three happened within months of each other. I read a news article, talking about one of the suicides and how sudden and unexpected it was. No one suspected the student would kill himself.

*

If depression were visible on people's faces, fewer people would probably take their own lives. Others—family, friends—would realize something was wrong, and (hopefully) seek help.

But depression is not a binary state. Something that's hard for many people to understand is that you can still seem functional even with depression. You can still show up to class or work, talk to people, even smile or laugh. But that doesn't mean you aren't depressed.

The nature of depression is to hide. There are many reasons for it—societal stigma; personal feelings of shame. To borrow someone else's phrase: Depression is humiliating. And the worse it gets, the more shame you feel. About not being able to "snap out" of it; not being able to do normal, daily things that everyone can do; not being able to meet important deadlines; not being able to feel better even if you have people who love and support you.

So you don't show it. You feel like you can't show it. You pretend you're functional, you're normal. Not just because you're afraid people will judge you for being weak and pathetic and lazy, but also because you're terrified to let people know that something is wrong with you, something that you don't know how to fix. You start to view yourself as some horrific monster with an all-consuming darkness inside, and you're terrified to let other people see that monstrous darkness. This is the "real" you, you think, and if others knew, they would hate you and walk away.

Better to hide. Not that it's all that hard. The vast majority of people are not going to pay attention to you, and sometimes even your friends and family members won't notice. Not everyone is that sensitive. Besides, why bother them? Everyone else has busy lives. They don't have time to help keep the pieces of yourself together when you feel like you're about to fall apart. And they shouldn't have to bear that burden. They shouldn't have to stare at that yawning abyss inside you. Wanting them to do otherwise would be selfish.

Depression is a paradox. It is desperately wanting someone to help you, and at the same time pushing people away. It is a silent cry for help, but at the same time knowing no one else can help you. No matter how much they love you, they can’t help you. No one can rescue you from that constant feeling of drowning, like you can barely keep your head above water, and there’s a current dragging you down, and your limbs are aching from the effort of trying to stay alive.

That's the tragedy of depression: how easy it is to hide.

And the hardest thing is to stop hiding. To show someone that writhing abyss inside you, with all the fear and the shame and the self-loathing.

The hardest thing is find the courage to tell someone, "I'm not okay."

(The Saga: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3)

When you're depressed, one of the unhelpful things people can do to try to help you is shower you with optimism. That sounds counterintuitive, and harsh. I know people are only saying these things because they're trying to cheer you up.

But here's the thing: it's not that depressed people suddenly lose sight of reality. It's not that they forget there are people who love them, or that they have accomplished things. It's not that they don't know these things.

It's just that when you're depressed, you're unable to believe it.

When you're depressed, you always know, on some level, that what you're feeling is ridiculous. That you are not a worthless waste of human space with no reason for existing. But that just adds to the humiliation and the frustration: you know it's not rational, and yet you just can't do anything about it. You can't make yourself feel better.

I love my sister, but when I'm depressed, I can listen to her tell me about how I am her inspiration and how she admires me for hours and still feel depressed. It's not that I think she's lying to me, I just can't believe in what she's saying.

( Read more... )

I previously mentioned the (melodramatically-named) Great Collapse of Summer 2014. Recently I was rereading one of my blog entries from that time, and I was sort of struck by how articulate and rational, even eloquent I was about everything that I had gone through. (Usually when I'm depressed my entries are more like "I feel like crap what are words how do you English.")

It's been four months since then, and I guess that's about as good a time as any to write another reflection.

( Cut for brutal honesty )

I wrote a version of this post, and then deleted it. I'm still not sure whether I should post about this, but...oh well.

The argument, or mistaken belief, that people can "power through" or "will themselves out of" depression is terrible in terms of ableism generally, but it also just plain makes no logical sense.

No one wants to have depression.

No one wants to lie curled up in bed and be unable to get up.

No one wants to feel like crap and be unable to figure out why.

No one wants to sit there, feeling hungry, yet having no interest in food. (Not out of a desire to lose weight or a desire for suicide by starvation, it's just...no interest in eating.)

No one wants to have a hard time getting up in the morning, not because they're tired or sleep-deprived, but because they can't think of anything to look forward to during the day.

No one wants to suddenly lose interest in the things that used to bring them joy, to feel like there's no meaning in their life anymore.

No one wants to be unable to do the basic things that functional adults are supposed to be able to do, like take care of themselves or pay the bills or study for an exam.

No one wants to be stuck constantly thinking about every mistake they've made, every way they're a failure, every flaw and little thing that makes them a horrible, worthless human being.

No one wants to wonder why there is something so fundamentally wrong with them compared to other people, and think about how this brokenness probably would (or does) drive other people away.

I think the desire to believe that people can exercise "control" or "agency" might come from a benevolently misguided attempt to try to have an "empowering" attitude towards depression, but in the end, it's not true and it doesn't do anything except reinforce the (inaccurate at best, harmful at worst) idea that depression will just go away if you "try harder."

Because no one wants to have depression.

And if they could control or "power through it," they would've done so already.

Because no one wants to have depression.

It's been almost two months since my last LJ post, which is pretty unusual, since I'm usually pretty active on LJ, if only posting about random things.

So what happened during the last month and a half?

Well...depressed moods and continual teetering on the brink of emotional collapse. Here's a record of what happened on my Wordpress blog:

Basically, it happened because I started posting fanfiction on AO3 and didn't get that much of a response, even though I'm ridiculously proud of my work.

I started not feeling so great.

I thought these feelings would pass given enough time, but that hasn't been the case, and several stressors combined have made me feel even worse.

I've tried to reflect and be rational about what happened, but it's still an ongoing, uphill struggle.

So, in a nutshell: the last month and a half have kind of been a blur. I started slacking off severely at work—not out of laziness, but because I'm chronically exhausted and can't muster up the energy or interest anymore. I've had on and off sleep problems, and while I'm generally not a good sleeper, I definitely tend to experience insomnia when I'm extremely stressed or depressed. I have days when I stare into space and think about the things I need to do and feel a combination of zero ability to get it done and crippling anxiety at the same time. I've had a lot less interest in food and eating recently—which is kind of another thing that I associate with my experiences of depression.

I've babbled quite a bit about my recent writing of fanfiction on this LJ, though mostly in vague terms, and unlike 99% of the other projects I've talked about in the past, I actually finished everything I mentioned, so, I might as well talk about them.

The Hunger Games/Captain America fanfiction, which reached a substantial 14,000 words long, got very little attention. I've made my peace with this, because I realized I was probably too ambitious with this piece. It was a combination crossover fic/criticism of THG/social commentary, which was probably alienating to THG fans and confusing to non-THG fans. (Plus, it wasn't slash, it was actually a little anti-romance, so, you know.)

The other things I've written, though, have made me a bit more upset.

"Not a good man": A Bucky Barnes character study; this is my (somewhat annoyed) reaction to the "woobification" of Bucky that happened in the fandom post-CA:TWS and probably the best writing I've produced on a technical/descriptive/poetic level.

"Look into my eyes and tell me if I'm real": The "monstrous 20,000-word fic that consumed my life" that I've referred to several times before. Over 20,000 words (if you count all the stuff that I had to delete/rewrite) and basically a three-month all-consuming obsession has been a substantial chunk of time, effort, and emotion to invest in this fic; I can honestly write a commentary on this fic that would be as long as a goddamn thesis, explaining why I wrote everything the way I did—every scene, every sentence, every word choice, every freaking punctuation placement. I will never not be proud of this, even though I've come to accept that probably no one will care about this fanfic as much as I do.

Honestly, it hurts. As I said earlier, I thought the pain would lessen over time, but it hasn't, and I don't think I will. School is starting soon in a few weeks, so I guess at this point what would be best for my mental health would be to cut my ties with AO3 almost completely. Which, you know, is really pathetic and anti-promotion and anti-engaging-with-fandom, but I'm not sure what else I can do.

I never planned that writing fanfiction would become a longterm thing for me—partly because my lifelong focus has been original fiction, and partly because there is only so much I can do with the same set of characters before I get bored. So getting more exposure by continuing to write fanfic is kind of out of the question for me. (Not that I've already lost interest in Captain America fanfic, but after writing so much in a relatively short period of time, I've hit a dry spell, and I don't know whether I'll find inspiration again before Cap 3 comes out.) But I'm still proud of what I wrote and I wish I had proof that I'm not delusional.

Somehow, I accidentally managed to delete all of my blog entries on RS.

...Yeah.

Not sure what to think right now...

I was Bootcamping my family's shiny new iMac in order to play Assassin's Creed (which I've been dying to play forever). I got it to work wonderfully, but then I later ran the Mac's Disk Utility, which gave me a critical error.

Nothing worked to fix it, and eventually it progressed to the point where the iMac would shut down while booting up.

In the end, I had to completely wipe the hard drive and reformat it. I'm really, really hoping my sister didn't leave any files that she didn't back up, because otherwise, she's going to kill me.

The good news is that it's a new iMac (which is also bad news, though--I managed to break it that quickly? D:), so there weren't many files on it, although my dad will probably yell at me for messing around with the computer and making him have to reinstall Microsoft Office.

I'm also sad--yes yes, this makes me sound terrible because it was my desire to play HD computer games that led to this mess in the first place--that I won't get to play Assassin's Creed. (I'm not trying the Bootcamp thing ever, EVER again.) From the first two hours or so of the game, I loved it. Running around the rooftops of 12th-century Damascus was so much fun. T_T

(Maybe I should give in and buy a PS3 or XBox 360 after all? *shot*)

iPod suddenly said I had to erase all media and restore. So, I tried to backup my music collection--cue iTunes crashing several times and me having to force my computer to shut down. Then, I looked at my iPod, and all the music was gone. I panicked, plugged it back into the computer, and double-checked. The mp3 files were still there, which was odd. Ejected iPod, and there was still nothing there. I looked at the few that I managed to copy to iTunes, and they were all corrupted.

Looks like I'll have to start my 600+ track music collection all over again.

:(

I wanted to write some prose to vent out my feelings vicariously, but...right now I'm more in the mood to vent directly.

There's this feeling you get when you're moving forward, a resistance, a feeling of not being prepared, the feeling that you can't handle what's coming next, that you're going to totally and utterly fail the next stage of your life. There are too many unknowns in the equation, the future is nebulous, something you're not sure of, something you can't grasp or plan or even feel the shape of.

This sounds childish, but sometimes I want to be a child forever. There was something comforting about the repeating cycle of school, summer, structured classes, knowing what to expect every year, even though there was a lot of hard work and some mental breakdown involved. Whenever I had free time, I could research whatever I wanted, learn about and get interested in whatever I wanted. Instead I'm on the road to adulthood--trying to figure out what I want to do for a career (I still don't know), trying to explore in order to narrow down the choices.

What job? How can I deal with society? Sometimes I really loathe that about myself--my inability to think of the right things to say at the right time, to deal with unpleasant people or situations. I always seem to be carrying around guilt for something; I am convinced that I always did something wrong, or inadequate. As much as I criticize myself, I'm always hurt by even the slightest criticism from others. I really hate that, and though I want to get rid of this, I can't. Something deep, psychological maybe. I really, really hate it. I hate not being able to stand up to anyone or anything. I hate feeling paralyzed by group discussions and unable to come up with anything (the psychological justification doesn't help).

I'm afraid that I will fail college. My family is paying full tuition for me to attend one of the most expensive, most prestigious colleges in the U.S., and I'm terrified that the investment will not pay off. I don't know what I want to do. I like language (both in terms of writing and foreign languages), and I like history, but what kind of career follows from those? I don't want to be a scientist. I don't want to go to medical school. Law school seems slim. I don't know. I DON'T KNOW.

I had a job over the summer that I completely botched. I'm afraid of what will happen when I get a real job.

I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore.

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On my world, it means hope.

(The fundamental belief in the potential of every person to be a force for good)

Entries tagged with depressed

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