Depression

Hi there, I’m depression.  I sneak around making lives bleak and ghastly, and I’m remarkably good at it.  Sometimes I even get people to kill themselves, I can make their lives so bad!  But that’s not the fun part.  The fun part is tormenting them and making them cry and cut themselves and become alcoholics.  They get so upset over the things I tell them, and none of it is even true!  hehehehe  Sorry about that - I’m usually better at controlling my evil laughter.  I have to be, since my life’s work is dependent on getting into heads and hearts undetected.  Well, at least at first.  Eventually, I can get them so depressed it doesn’t even matter if they know I’m there making them feel wretched, they can’t do anything about it.  Here, watch this.

I’ve been in and out of this girl’s head for years.  Sometimes she can chase me out with one of those poisons the doctors call anti-depressants, but that doesn’t bother me too much.  It’s always more fun when they’re putting up a bit of a fight - pitiful though it may be.  Let’s see, what’s she thinking about?  She’s upset with a friend for canceling their plans for tonight. Perfect.

“So she cancelled on you.  You should have known she would.  Why did you depend on having fun tonight?  Now you’re just going to be disappointed, because she didn’t want to hang out with you after all.  Oh, she decided she needed to study for a test?  That’s got to just be an excuse, if she really needed to study she would have said so in the first place.  She’s probably starting to think you’re annoying.  Everyone seems to, why do you think no one has been calling you lately?  You had to call to make the plans, didn’t you?  And now she backed out.  You’re being really selfish, you know.  If she has to study for a test, she has to study for a test.  Don’t be such a baby, you should be ashamed of yourself for even having these thoughts.  Are you starting to breathe faster?  You can’t have a panic attack right here on the street, then everyone will know you don’t have things under control.  And you don’t have things under control, do you?  Even being around these people is making you nervous.  What kind of a crazy person can’t handle being around people?  Everyone likes people.  Look at those two girls laughing and talking together.  Why can’t you be like them?  They’re having a girls’ day out and it’s obvious they don’t have a care in the world.  Oh don’t be so melodramatic.  It’s no wonder you’re sad so often when you blow things out of proportion like this.  Depression?  Do you think it’s back again?  Wow, you just can’t seem to get rid of it, can you?  Millions of people in the world never have depression, but you.... You get it over and over again.  You’re so weak.  Don’t call anyone, do you want them to know how helpless you are?  You’re so pathetic, they’re sick of hearing from you.  You just look like a big attention-seeker, your friends aren’t going to understand.  What’s that, your best friend understands anything?  But do you really want to put this on her?  She’s so stressed out and busy, she doesn’t have time to listen to a problem she can’t solve for you anyways.  Just fix it yourself.  You’re a capable adult, you can do that much, can’t you?  You just want to go home and go to sleep, you’re so tired.  You should call in sick to work tomorrow, you’ll feel better if you just stay home and take a day to rest.  You loser.  Lying about being sick just so you don’t have to go to work?  What is wrong with you?  Your mom doesn’t need this stress.  She worries about you enough as it is.  Don’t call her.  What would she do anyways?  You have a big bottle of vodka at home, don’t you?  You need to get home to that and drink until you can’t feel this anymore.  That’s bad for you.  That’s not how normal people deal with their problems.  You’re acting like an alcoholic, you disgusting excuse for a human being.  These people walking past you would be horrified if they knew what you’re like.  That woman didn’t smile at you, either.  She probably saw how ugly you are and couldn’t force herself to do it.  Imagine that, being so ugly and disgusting that people can’t even smile at you.  You’d better get home and get away from people who can judge you.  It’s okay to be ugly at home.  You can even have that last slice of chocolate cake, that will make you feel better.  As if you need the calories, you’re already overweight.  You were a size 9 in high school, and now you wear a 13!  How did you let your weight get so out of control?  You need to start exercising tomorrow.”

There, see how easy it is?  The tiniest little thing can let me in, and then I start to blow everything out of proportion.  She’ll go home and eat that cake - and probably other things too, now that I put the idea in her head - and then, with a little hint from me, maybe she’ll make herself throw it back up.  That’s always fun, telling them to hurt themselves and then making them feel guilty for it.  Guilt is the fun part, and I never work with a vict - er, client without giving them an extra large dose of guilt.  Even if it’s about something that seems silly to you and I.  Actually, especially if it’s something that seems silly to you and I.  I’m good at what I do - I can even make them feel guilty for feeling guilty.

Ahh, look at this woman.  She thinks she just has empty nest syndrome, because she would never admit to having depression. Depression is for other people, she says.  Oh, these stupid humans - they make it so easy!

“Well, now your kids are all gone.  You spent 25 years of your life raising kids, that’s half your life, and what do you have to show for it?  One kid poised to become a professional student, the way it looks; one kid skipping out on college to do mission work...  You should be ashamed of yourself, putting your kids down like that.  You’re their mother, you should support and love them unconditionally!  And how can you fault them for following their dreams and doing what they want?  Isn’t that what you always told them to do? You hypocrite.  No one needs you anymore.  Don’t even bother going to that silly library committee meeting, they don’t need you there.  They’ll just ignore everything you say, and then gossip and talk amongst themselves.  Better to let them talk about you when you’re not there than have to endure their fake kindness and interest in you and your family.  Why are you so hateful to them?  They are perfectly nice women.  Just because you miss your kids doesn’t mean you have to take it out on innocent people.  You know you annoy both of them with your constant worrying, don’t you?  You heard her the other day:  “Mom, will you stop it already?  You’re smothering me!”  Not only do your kids not need you, they don’t even want you around.  You might as well stop calling them, you’re only disturbing them.  And your husband doesn’t really like you much either - he’s probably going to divorce you now that he doesn’t have to put up with you for the sake of the kids.  Oh stop it, he loves you, why would that change just because the kids are both gone now?  You’re so stupid, worrying like this.  Go drink some wine and knock it off.”

She’ll do it too, she’ll go drink “some” wine and eventually fall asleep on the couch.  The best part is, her husband really is getting fed up with her, because she’s not the same woman she used to be and he never gets to talk to his wife.

Oh, it’s a great life, being depression.  People talk about you in hushed tones and curse you.  And yes, there are a great many misconceptions about depression, but they only serve to make the lives of the depressed more miserable. And isn’t that a great cause?

Stop Blaming Women

I have an idea. I know it isn’t going to be a popular idea, but hear me out anyway. I think we should stop blaming women.

I know right now you’re saying “for what?” but my answer to that is simple:  for everything. We should stop blaming women for everything. Oh, I know there are plenty of things we blame on the gays and the Mexicans and the blacks and the Asians (did you know “Asian” isn’t really a nationality? Asia isn’t a country.) and the immigrants and the “kids these days” and we should stop blaming them too, but since I have neither infinite time nor infinite words let’s just talk about the women for right now.

Can we not blame women who step out of their so-called “rightful place” in the home to earn money to support their families for “tearing apart marriages and wrecking families”? Yes, I’m looking at you, Fox News panel of middle-aged men. That video clip is absolutely sickening. If marriages are being torn apart and families are being wrecked, that’s happening on a couple-by-couple basis. Every couple has their own unique problems and arguments and struggles, and to suggest that those problems would be solved if women just stayed home is simplistic and disgusting. Also, those men seem to be saying that dads can’t care for their own children, which is a whole different (though still awful) gender stereotype.

Can we stop blaming women for abortion? Let’s be honest, women can’t get pregnant by themselves. Whatever your views on abortion, you cannot logically say that a woman can get into a situation where abortion is even a possibility without a man, yet women alone bear the guilt, shame, sorrow, and pain of abortion. What if we put the responsibility on everyone? What if we taught teenagers of both genders that sex exists, that it isn’t evil, that they will almost definitely do it someday, and that when that day comes there are things they need to know about birth control, STDs, and consent? What if we made birth control readily available to everyone so unwanted pregnancies were less common? Abortion isn’t women’s fault – it’s society’s.

On a related note, can we stop blaming women for rape? If no one drank alcohol, there would still be rape. If no one wore clothes that were even remotely revealing, there would still be rape. If no one went out alone, there would still be rape. If women literally stayed home all the time, there would still be rape. Honestly, if there were no WOMEN, there would still be rape. (This really applies to any gender of rape victim – knock off the victim blaming, society.)

I understand that the world is a scary place. Even in the 22 years I’ve been alive a lot of things have changed and a lot of terrible things have happened, and it seems like someone must be to blame. It’s too scary to think that some things are just random, that maybe everything doesn’t happen for a reason.

Here’s the problem with that:  the world isn’t a blockbuster movie or a bestselling novel. Everything isn’t moving neatly from plot point to plot point with an obvious good guy and bad guy. The world isn’t telling a story. The world just… is. Bad things happen and good things happen and maybe no one is to blame, or maybe everyone is. I can tell you one thing though – there is no one group of people, be it straight white males, Americans, conservatives, or women, that is exempt from blame, just as there is no one group responsible.

So… that raises more questions than it answers.

Honestly.

I have to admit to having a slightly difficult relationship with the truth. I usually tell the truth, but the whole truth is a little harder to pull off and “nothing but the truth” is basically impossible. Sometimes it’s easier or kinder to tell a white lie that doesn’t hurt anyone.

That being said, there’s something that’s been bothering me for the last few weeks. I lie to almost everyone I meet about why I took two years off between high school and college because “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do” is a lot easier to say than the truth. The truth is a much longer story. The truth is a much more painful story. I guess that’s why I’m ready to tell it:  I’m not ashamed of the pain anymore.

When I graduated from high school in 2009 I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I was 18 – how could I have known? Because I was incredibly lucky I ended up at Concordia in Moorhead and I imagined I would figure out the rest as I went along. Clearly, that’s not exactly how it turned out.

It was only about two weeks into my first semester when I realized how loudly God was calling me to the ministry:  loudly enough that I didn’t have the luxury of ignoring it for long. I immediately exchanged my own life plans for the plans God had, and I had never been happier than when I left Concordia knowing what I was going to do with my life. I knew (and still believe) that God Himself had called me to the ministry.

But I’m not in the ministry. While I was waiting for a place to open up for me, the depression I had been living with for years completely overwhelmed me. I’m not sure I can describe how it felt to wake up every morning wishing I hadn’t, or how hard it was to come up with reasons to get out of bed. I just know that I had somehow stopped feeling. I, the girl who had always been prone to explosive fits of tears, couldn’t cry.

That’s when the cutting came in. I don’t remember how or why I started, but I do know that releasing blood was a lot easier than releasing emotions. I could control how much I was going to bleed, but it felt like if I let myself feel an emotion of any kind I might fly apart into a million pieces. I just wasn’t willing to take that risk.

The next year was hell and ended with me in the psych ward on suicide watch. I was 20 years old and I wanted to be done with life.

At the same time, I was desperately asking God why. Why would He call me to the ministry, ask me to give up all the plans I had for my life, and then not make me able to go? Why not just leave me alone? Why not heal my depression? Why would He watch me suffer like that if He really loved me? It was a huge relief when I realized the ministry was no longer the place God had in mind for me.

Today things are so much different and so much better, so I’m not telling this story because I want sympathy. I guess what I’m trying to say is, me too. If you’ve ever doubted God, if you’ve ever been depressed, if you’ve ever hurt yourself on purpose, if you’ve ever felt hopeless, if you’ve ever really truly wanted to die, I understand. Feeling pain means you’re human and you’re alive. Don’t be ashamed of your pain.