Comments on: The rhetoric of depression

By: cindy

cindy — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 22:47:09 +0000

Wow. There’s a lot here to absorb. I’ll be back.

By: New Kid on the Hallway

New Kid on the Hallway — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 23:36:06 +0000

Wow indeed. Speaking for myself, I’m ashamed to talk about the really bad things (and also, my experience with depression has not been as severe as some people’s, so there’s less of it to talk about. Also in some ways I feel like a depression imposter, so to speak). While I have always managed to get out of bed in the morning, I don’t talk about the days I stood in the shower and sobbed because I couldn’t bear the prospect of going to work, or screamed - and I mean screamed - at the cats at the slightest provocation. Because I’m not supposed to be like that. Because depression seems senseless (there’s no *reason* to feel that way), and I’m all about reason and intelligence and all those academic things. Because I should be able to “get over it” and I think that I have to be perfect - without weakness - for people to like me.

I guess that’s why I don’t talk about it. FWIW.

By: My Favorite Cop-Out

My Favorite Cop-Out — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 03:15:00 +0000

[…] Wolfangel has a chewy and kinda scary post on the rhetoric of depression: I am tired; I am sad; I am not doing what I need to do. These are all fine and acceptable; these are the ways everyone talks about depression. I do not say how actually I hate myself. I do not say how I feel I deserve only bad things. I do not say how I feel I am such a terrible person that this badness inevitably stains anyone around me. […]

By: bitchphd

bitchphd — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 14:25:45 +0000

I wonder if part of what we don’t talk about is b/c of shame–which is also a big part of depression. Or if it’s a sense of audience–I know that some of the things I don’t say, I don’t say b/c I don’t want to scare people, b/c I know I *feel* them, but I also on some level know they’re not true/not a real threat, and I realize readers have no way to tell the difference. Or maybe it’s both, or something else.

In any case, w/r/t being a bad person who deserves bad things: my sense of you is, and has always been, that you are thoughtful, generous, and have a fine appreciation of the beautiful–that last being a quality I particularly admire. Refined, I think, is the word. Perhaps a sense of unworthiness is part and parcel of that refinement, I don’t know. But in any case, for what it’s worth, I do not think you are a bad person who deserves bad things. I think you are a person of very high standards.

By: wolfa

wolfa — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 15:52:00 +0000

NK, I also feel like a fake talking about this. Because — and I am trying to make this clear — not all of this is current. (Yes, some is.) And it feels like I am faking it, too: after all, I do not really cry that much; after all, I have never just dropped everything in my life, it’s always been easier to keep up whatever schedule I had before.

And it also feels like really, I have no reason for this. And in a way I guess it is true. There is — eventually — no reason for depression, it just feeds on, is caused by, itself. Of course, it is also much easier to write it on my pseudonymous blog. (Though frankly, it’s not like all my friends don’t know (scarring is, shall we say, not subtle), but it’s not like I say it in so many words.) It’s easier not to have to look at someone’s face when you say these things.

Anyways, a lot of your comments are things I want to write about — this was so different from what I intended — so I will have more to say about them too.

Dr B, yes, there’s definitely shame. And — well, your audience is a larger, more political one, so I understand why you want to avoid saying some things, or in some ways. I understand why everyone does, really. It just makes me sad, because we’re restricting depression and what it can mean, and I think that is a bad thing. But on the other hand, no one is obliged to live their lives as a teaching moment, to say more than they want to so that maybe someone will learn. Would I do the same were I writing a higher-profile blog? I don’t know.

I don’t know how much of not a real threat any of this is. It is not a real threat in the sense that no, I am not about to kill or even really harm myself. Not now. But it was in the past, and it may be in the future — I don’t know. I hope not, but life is unpredictable. I don’t know what anyone thinks from this. But I can certainly not write thoughtfully in the same way when I am too depressed, so the fact of these posts is sort of comforting, in a perverse way.

As for the bad person — well, mostly I ignore that, because no matter what I do or don’t reason, I cannot turn that bit off. I appreciate the kind words, though; they do help, sometimes.

By: Pronoia

Pronoia — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 19:23:47 +0000

Here’s another potential reason people don’t talk about depression in those terms: they think everyone feels that way and so talking about the sadness and the slowness is a kind of shorthand, one that signifies all of the bad thoughts without having to say them aloud.

This, at least, is why my darling Ms. P doesn’t often talk about the bad things, although she does now with me. She never knew other people don’t feel that way all the time.

By: wolfa

wolfa — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 02:09:16 +0000

True, P, that’s another possibility I didn’t consider. I don’t consider those a good shorthand for me — I’d use other things, maybe, black holes, maybe things lying in wait, I am not sure. But I also would not use them as a shorthand because it is something I do not want to talk about obliquely or accidentally (or, often, at all).