The Depression Whisperer

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

I'm going to say Macbeth suffered from depression. Just a hunch.


I'm one of those people. Tell me you've been having problems, family problems, work problems, any problems, and I will lean over intently, gaze into your eyes and say:
"You're probably depressed."

I am a shameless arm-chair diagnostician and my friends, I WILL DIAGNOSE YOU WITH DEPRESSION.

October is National Depression Awareness Month (Poor October: Breast Cancer AND Depression). Sara is National Depression Awareness Blatherer. Anyone unlucky enough to cross my path will get a lecture on the topic.

Why do I do this? Apart from adoring the sound of my own voice?

Because I believe this is still a taboo topic.

Depression is not cured by "a nice long walk". Depression does not mean you are lazy. Depression does not mean you are a failure. Depression is a mental illness that can make you lose your family, your friends, your job and ultimately your life.

However I also believe we can fight against it. We can decide to get better. Don't get me wrong, it is a long, difficult decision to make, and people in the throes of depression are often not in a state to accept those efforts.

Yet there are therapies. There are ways.

Watch the people around you. Do you know someone who has been unhappy for a long time? Withdrawing into themselves? Do you know someone who is no longer themselves, for lack of a better word? It could be a midlife crisis, could be a bad patch, but if it is depression, what do we have to lose by asking that person how we can help, if they are in need of comfort, or advice.

It is hard to reach out to depressed people. They don't want your help. They want to die.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

To anyone who stumbles accross this message, if you feel you are depressed, please see a doctor. Please talk to someone. It's so hard to do this alone.

I have been greatly helped by people sharing their testimonies and stories with me throughout my own battle with this disease. If anyone should want to talk to me, please do not hesitate to do so.

Depression can happen to anyone.

But I promise: you can get out of it.

The Perv leaves

My pervy co-worker is leaving today, after a small office party. This is the man who 1° always makes terribly lewd jokes I don't understand in my general direction.
2° squeezes, strokes and squishels his female collegues as a jest.
3°once cornered me in an elevator and playfully grabbed my bottom.

Now he is going away for good.

"Slap him", says my boyfriend. "Let him get drunk at his own party, make bad jokes, and when he tries to touch you or anyone else, slap him."

"Throw a drink on him."

"Tell him his behaviour is unacceptable."

I think I will talk to him. Tell him it's not funny when you don't understand the language perfectly. That it's awkward when you're an intern and he works there. And more than that, that touching people without their consent is appalling behaviour.

My French colleague told me with a Gallic shrug: "Let's hope for him he never works in America."

Yes indeed.

tell me about your first job?

It's that time again.

Time to leave home.

My sister is gone and with her a part of me, but also a voice of reason. If she were with me now, she would dismiss my fears and make me laugh, and I would remember how excited I am to live in Berlin for a few months (only four!) and that it's going to be amazing.

I'm leaving in a week. Next Sunday is my going-away party. And then I'm going to do a job I don't even understand, in German.

So this is a request: can you tell me about your first job? I'd love to know how it went.

Overwhelmed

I'm feeling a bit weird. I'm allergic to pollen, so this season is a bit trying to me. I'm depressed, for reasons that I can't really get into, because there are no real reasons.

Sometimes I feel like such a burden to the people around me. Help me. Listen to me. How often can you hear that without feeling overwhelmed? After all, it's my life, not theirs. I'm the one meant to figure stuff out.

In a perfect world, everyone would be honest. Or at least a bit. They would tell you that they are busy when they just can't take your drama anymore. So you could always be sure of when you are annoying them or not. You wouldn't have to guess all the time. I'm not afraid of rejection as much as I am afraid of mute boredom and annoyance.

I hate bothering people but I'm convinced I do it all the time.

Fat talk

Murky waters, here, but I've been hearing a lot of annoying, misinformed and poorly worded comments on fat people lately. Cases in point:
1) Discussion with an acquaintance. She is very slim and barely 5 ft tall, and I am 5'10. She was telling me that she could only find cute clothes that fit in vintage shops since she is so petite. We shared horrible shopping experiences, and then she said: I never understand why some shops sell XXL miniskirts or sequined jackets. I mean, why would fat people emphasize their body?
What really got me was that she had just as much difficulty finding nice clothes that fit than fat women! NO empathy there.

2)Discussion with my track and field group: my coach was telling us to have a healthy diet while training, and I ruefully admitted that I eat lots and lots of candy, chocolate and consume litres of lemonade. The coach then said: Oh, as long as you don't get fat, you're OK.
Hmmmm...so health means being thin, right?

I am a recovering bulimic. I know what it means to hate your body, to treat it like crap, to punish it for existing. Did shaming myself transform me into the thin person I wanted to be? No. Yet this is what we try to accomplish with fat people, shaming them into becoming acceptable in our eyes.

The way we talk about fat, the way we treat people who are fat is disgraceful and wrong. Better people have said it much better than I could, but fat discrimination in terms of health care or travel or anything really is an infringement of human rights.

And I want to talk back.

Pretentious manifestos

I am currently writing an essay on Hakim Bey's seminal work, TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone), which may well be the most pretentious manifesto in the world.

"No, listen, what happened was this: they lied to you, sold you ideas of good & evil, gave you distrust of your body & shame for your prophethood of chaos, invented words of disgust for your molecular love, mesmerized you with inattention, bored you with civilization & all its usurious emotions.

There is no becoming, no revolution, no struggle, no path; already you're the monarch of your own skin--your inviolable freedom waits to be completed only by the love of other monarchs: a politics of dream, urgent as the blueness of sky.

To shed all the illusory rights & hesitations of history demands the economy of some legendary Stone Age--shamans not priests, bards not lords, hunters not police, gatherers of paleolithic laziness, gentle as blood, going naked for a sign or painted as birds, poised on the wave of explicit presence, the clockless nowever."

Contrast with this delightful Futurist Manifesto written in 1909 by Marinetti: "We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman. We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice."

Reading this crap makes me want to crawl into a hole and never pick up an art book again, which, coming from me, is the proof of despair.