I’ve been going through the two year-end review articles on my ersatz home, Cracked.com, and I thought I would share some links and thoughts that they bring up.

Obviously, being a fan, I had read all the articles and seen most of the videos before. But it’s nice to revisit.

Like this article about 4 well loved TV shows that were hell behind the scenes. It’s a bit of a harsh read, but I have an insatiable desire to know everything about how television is actually made, so I enjoy the read nonetheless.

They bring up Gene Roddenberry’s bizarre insistence that in the Star Trek : The Next Generation universe, there was no longer any interpersonal conflict. And that, Great Bird, is literally impossible.

I can imagine no conception of the human animal that does not include interpersonal conflict. Sexual reproduction alone drives us towards it as we compete for mates. The fact that we are a pair-bonding species ups the ante considerably. Add in differences of personality, communication styles, and the vital necessity of establishing a unique identity via differentiation, and the fact that some people are just born cranky, and interpersonal conflict is inevitable.

The only way to prevent it would be to either drug or lobotomize everyone, which sounds suspiciously like the sort of system that Kirk would destroy if given half the chance.

But as the article points out. Gene was, well, circling the bowl at the time. He was pretty much broken down everywhere, including the brain, so his fanatical insistence on this unsupportable ideal is understandable. This was, presumably, the one thing he could remember and hold onto while everything else turned into chaos and misery.

Then there’s the 5 Facts Everyone Gets Wrong About Depression, which hits rather close to home.

They talk about how depression does not mean you are always miserable and alone. Take my case. Someone who was not an it-getter about depression might see me out with my friends and think “That guy doesn’t look depressed to me!”

But depression is a much more long term illness than that. Like the article says, the rest of the time, when I am alone with myself, the forces of my overactive superego come in and make me hate myself and all that comes with that.

They also mention that people think depression is just sadness, and that is so far from the truth. I would welcome being merely sad. In fact, there are times when I have found myself feeling melancholy and it has been a blessed relief, something I actually treasure, because sadness is so much less corrosive and destructive than depression.

Sadness is rain. Depression is acid rain in a hurricane of fear and pain.

Then there’s this whole idea that antidepressants don’t work. Uh, bullshit. Paxil saved my sanity and my life. If it hadn’t been for Paxil, I would have walked into traffic by now. And the idea that they don’t work, like the article said, could actually lead to people dying. So I am quite vehement when the subject comes up.

Then there is the people with depression who don’t want to take the meds because it will “change who they are”. Well duh, that’s the whole point. They change you from a depressed person to one who is not so depressed. There is no such thing as change without change. The mere act of getting better will change you.

But it won’t change your true self. In fact, it will uncover it.

Then there’s that whole “snap out of it” thing. People who say that depressed people need to snap out of it are not necessarily being cruel or willfully ignorant. They might be just tell you what works for them. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for people who have never suffered from depression to even imagine what it is like. And so they offer the best advice they know.

Sure, their ignorance is painful to us and that’s not something they or we can help. But they mean well.

The harshest one that made the list, though, is 6 Shocking Realities of the Secret Troubled Teen Industry.

The fact that there is anywhere in the civilized world where that kind of shit is legal just plain boggles my mind. It’s the sort of thing I thought went out with the lobotomy. The pockets of utter barbarity in the USA never cease to amaze me.

I was a “troubled teen”. I was very depressed and I missed a ton of school. If my parents had been that psycho, they could easily have arranged that kind of shit for me. And if that had happened, I would have gone completely insane.

That’s not hyperbole. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I have very strong opinions about my personal autonomy and expression of self, and anyone who tried to suppress me would find themselves dealing with a side of me that I, thankfully, have never really had to express very much.

And who knows, maybe if I had not been bullied so harshly that I had to learn to fight just to establish my right to exist, this side wouldn’t be there. As it is, I am positive that if they tried that shit on me, I would go positively feral. They would not have an easy time with my capture, and even once they had me, I have a dangerous combination of intelligence, imagination, and savagery that would make me very difficult to contain.

And there’s really only one way that would have ended : me in a home for the criminally insane. I would fight like a bear every step of the way, they would have more than enough evidence to convince the authorities that I was a danger to others (even if I was only fighting for my own freedom), and I would end up convicted of assault and put into the asylum system.

And what would happen there? More people trying to control me who would not understand that I am perfectly sane and well behaved as long as people are not trying to control me or lock me up.

I would never get out.

That’s why I am so afraid of mental health hospitals/wards. I feel like if I got into one, a downward spiral of reaction to attempts to control me that would lead to me in a straitjacket in a rubber room.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.