A night of productive writing extends far longer than anticipated. Time for reflection. All this talk about depression has me depressed. Not because there has been no productive insight - there has been great writing on point. Im depressed because I know the outcome here, I know how this plays out. My experience is that people are very good at paying lip service to wanting to help those with mental health issues, but that action and actually helping is less likely follow-up. The problem is this - those of us with issues are often not easy to be around. We can be very, very anti-social at times. We appear to be selfish, un-appreciative, generally a one-way street of emotional energy towards us with no return. To like us, to help us, is to take on an obligation that on its surface comes with no rewards. It requires one to leave their comfort zone, ignore normal social cues, and accept that the normal rules dont apply. Why? Because we are suffering a disability and are desperately trying to get better. Nobody, nobody, wants to be depressed. You simply cannot imagine the pain that goes on inside a broken brain. Yet we cant always get things right. We hurt those around us. It often looks like we want to hurt others, like we dont care, like we care only about ourselves. But we dont. We ache to be understood. We want to be appreciated. We need to be helped. We love to loved, in spite of having done everything in our power to make ourselves unlovable. Most importantly, we desperately want to live a normal life. But we know we are letting others down. We know we are hurting the ones we love most. Above all else, we dont want to let anybody down, we dont want to hurt anybody, especially those loved ones. And that is the fundamental problem. Because we know we are failing. We know we are letting others down. We know we are hurting our loved ones. Even if nobody says we are. Especially if somebody says we are. So panic sets in. What can we do to make things better? Panic leads to mistakes, mistakes we keenly perceive. It spirals. Eventually there is only one answer to all of these problems of our own creation. Everybody would be better if we were gone. So please, if you can find it in you, go and hit somebody over the head with your love. Be selfless and find work for somebody to give meaning to their life, endure the wrath and pain inflicted by somebody depressed and just suck it up and do good for that person. You just may save a life. Which isnt such a bad personal return after all, is it?
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 08:59:04 +0000
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