So I signed up for a social network for people with depressed.
Here what I wrote in the “My Story” section of my profile.
Depression has claimed my entire adult life and I am 46. And I was depressed before that as well. Basically I have had two years free of depression, when I went to college, and then my parents pulled the plug on that by defunding it. And because they took early retirement, I couldn’t get a student loan for a year and a half after that, and by then, I was far too depressed to care. Plus all my friends had graduated. I was raped by a stranger when I was 4 years old. I have never had a job, never supported myself, never been in a relationship, and I have almost never dated or had decent sex. Basically, I live in my computer. I sit here all day, playing video games and blogging my 1000 words a day. I have no actual life and I doubt I will ever have one. I try not to hate myself but it’s hard to avoid it when I have so much internalized anger. Every day is a struggle despite the utter lack of challenge in my life, and there are times when I want to just walk away from everything, find some place where nobody knows me, and start over.
My life sucks. I deserve more than merely making it through the day.
But all I can do is go to therapy once a week, work on myself via journaling. and hope that some day I will be free.
And this is what I wrote as my first post :
The darkness never sleeps. Even in my dreams, I’m depressed. Self-loathing follows me like a haunted satellite, always up there, looking down on me, ready to strike. It takes iron discipline to keep it at bay and even then sometimes it overwhelms me. My soul seethes with the rage I can neither contain of express, so it just builds up underneath my consciousness like pressure in a volcano. To calm myself, I contemplate the Void.
It soothes me.
Maybe some day I will be nothing too.
1240
That’s… pretty damned good imagery. There is the makings of a pretty decent poem in there. I am especially proud of the phrase “haunted satellite”.
Well they say you should write what you know.
I would have been so popular back when Emo was a thing.
Anyhow, I was a little surprised at what came out of me. I had no idea that I had such bitterness and rage on tap, just waiting for an outlet.
In retrospect, it’s obvious, but at the time I was a bit taken aback. Not just that I had all this inside me but that it came out in such a well articulated form.
Guess I am getting pretty good at this whole writing thing.
One thing that “helped” was the fact that when I was signing up for this place (mydepressionteam.com), under “Life situation” there was no option for my actual life situation at all.
They had working full time, working part time, student full time, student part time, stay at home mother, stay at home father, and “other”.
Well I am unemployed and not raising children. So that makes me an “other”.
They literally “othered” me.
Then the website itself irritated me because it all seemed so phony and artificial and faux-cheerful and reminded me of everything I can’t stand about most mental health providers. And it brought up something else.
It brought up my misgivings about being understood. The place did not make me feel like it was a safe place where I could be myself and express how I truly feel.
Instead, it made me feel like it was yet another place that would in no way be able to handle my darkness or comprehend what I am going through or even understand what the fuck I was saying.
So it would be just another vapid echo chamber of mindless support from people who don’t have the slightest idea who or what I am. Just like group therapy.
And that… I do not need.
Still, I am not giving up on the place yet. Might be some real individuals who are able to pick up what I am putting down out there.
Or at least who are willing to engage with what they don’t understand.
But let’s just say I have had my expectations realigned.
More after the break.
A pretty interesting Reddit thread video :
it’s a great question, once you wrap your head around it. In the current age, the idea that you can get through life without using a computer is laughable.
But I remember when only nerds knew how to “program” (in other words, use) a computer and the idea of anyone else even wanting one was laughable.
Hard to imagine these days, when everyone has a smartphone in their pocket that is a million times more powerful than the supercomputers of my youth.
I would say the closest I have to one of those for right now is that I refuse to use the self-checkout lane at grocery stores.
Not because I fear the evil red barcode scanner light, of course. To me, they seem like they involve a lot of work, do not save me any time, and put people out of a job.
Relatedly, my insistence on doing everything in cash might be seen as rather outmoded in this era where everyone pays for everything with a card.
But I come by it honest. My grandfather, my Pepe, ran his entire business that way. And he sold electronics, so there was a lot of moolah in that wallet.
Me, I like cash because it’s simple, direct, universally accepted, and if I want to know my current “balance” I just take out my wallet and count it.
Plus, I don’t have to pay a third party for the privilege of paying the second party.
There is no access fee for cash. YET.
I am not unaware of the advantages of the card based lifestyle. There are efficiencies involved, especially now that all you have to do is tap your card against the reader, but these have never struck me as being worth the cost.
However, what something costs is always relative to one’s income, and it’s not impossible that were I to secure a better income, my position would change.
But even then, I might cheat by keeping track of my balance on a piece of paper, like something out of an old-fashioned checkbook.
Remember those? I never liked using checks myself. Another case where cash is just so much easier.
Nobody demands to see two different forms of ID for cash.
And I know that I am just entering the phase of life where these things start to crop op. So I am bound to fail to adopt future technologies too.
OMG, I almost forgot the biggest one : I don’t have a cellphone.
Why would I? I’m always home!
So I suppose my true crime against being current is still having a landline.
In my mind, phone numbers belong to locations, not devices.
And I know that is terribly, terribly old-fashioned of me and I suppose that one day, landlines won’t be a thing any more and I will have to adapt.
But until then, it’s cash and landlines for me.
Oh and books! Real, actual, physical books!
I guess there’s just no hope for me.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.