So how DO we get through all this shit?

I find myself posting outrageous Trump stories (most of them connected directly to a jaw-dropping denial that COVID-19 even exists), then feeling bad about just passing all that negative energy along. But there are times I honestly do not know what else to do.

I keep vowing I'll learn to ignore all this, but if you're a sentient being who cares at all about the world, you can't just tune it all out. You can't "process" it, as the expression goes, because nobody wants to swallow toxic shit. It just runneth over, kind of, and though I do try to deal with one day at a time, and though PART of today was really good (sandhill cranes on Burnaby Lake, a blackbird eating out of my hand), my day can take a hairpin turn towards incredulous dismay and even depression. And I keep saying to myself, my God, why are you getting depressed about THIS? 

I have no control over it, except, as the trite saying goes, "my attitude towards it". So am I supposed to be optimistic, neutral, or what? I don't know how to feel about it. I am not at all surprised liquor consumption is through the roof now, especially with people who do not usually drink heavily. I stopped drinking in 1990 (darn it all), so that rather self-defeating avenue is closed to me. I want to stop posting Trump stories, but I feel like I have to share them to take some of the crushing load off. I try to not post long blurts, and at least part of today was great, but one thing does not cancel out another. The evening news is now so breathtakingly grotesque that I sometimes flee the room halfway through. 

We cannot escape the primitive workings of the reptilian brain which is supposedly in charge of the free world. I also realize with dismay how heavily satirized and sent up Trump has been for more than four years, and how it has done nothing at all to change an astonishingly dangerous situation. In fact, satire and laughter is a way to escape and make things LESS awful. Humor is a distancing tool and a survival mechanism, but it's also a way to put unpleasant things away from you. I always used to think: yes, Alec Baldwin is brilliant in this role, but it just ain't funny, folks. It's making a completely unacceptable situation palatable through the endorphin-burst of a good laugh. Not that much different from taking a few stiff shots.

I have bipolar disorder and have started writing about it more lately, thinking, well, what have I got to lose? I'm not protecting anything, and (as the kid in the playground said long ago) nobody likes me anyway. But if this revelation affects how people feel about me, either way, well, that's not why I'm doing it. Right now, I'm doing it because some days, like today, I am trying to hang on to a rope bare-handed that is coated in a particularly deadly, slick oil, and though my desperate hand-over-hand is now so fast it's a blur, I feel I'm losing ground a lot of the time because there is nothing but an abyss below me. At present, I have NO medical support whatsoever, NO avenue for counselling, and basically have to keep my problems to myself. So the hackneyed exhortation to "reach out for help" isn't very helpful right now, as it doesn't seem to apply to me.

Will I get through this? I really don't know. Everyone is doing an awful lot of whistling in the dark - again, as a survival mechanism, and as a way to put the unpleasantness away from us so we can get on with some kind of a day. I have never known the world to have this many overwhelming problems on this scale, all at once, and even with the best President in the world, things would still be harrowing, a long and heavy grind for everyone, and downright catastrophic for some.

I tell myself: OK then, I'm a Canadian, I might have this mental condition but I'm not quite hospital material (yet!), my husband and I are well and have a roof over our heads, our kids are employed and doing well and so are THEIR kids. I tell myself all this, many, many times a day, but the dismay still pours over me and creeps into every crevice like a thick and very toxic fog. 

So. . . I keep getting up in the morning like everyone else, with no safety net medically or mentally (and it's ironic that during my long years of stability, I had more "help" than I ever needed, even if it was the wrong kind). Now there's just nothing, and many times a day I say, OK then, I'm being thrown back on my own resources, and might this not be a test of my ability to - to - oh fuck, I give up! It's not like that at all. I want my Mum, and even when she was alive she was indifferent to me, to the point that I was not even mentioned in her obituary, a fact which most people find hard to believe. But I want SOMEBODY'S Mum, and I am tired of trying to reflexively "mother myself" when I just don't have anything left in me to nurture anyone at all. 

What NOT to say to a depressed person

What NOT to say to a depressed person


I've posted this several times before, but each time it seems more relevant. I believe, at one point or another, I have heard all of these. When a major figure (particularly a celebrity) commits suicide, we dust off a lot of homilies, and repeat "reach out for help" with the same regularity as that other meaningless phrase, "thoughts and prayers". It's sad that the onus for "reaching out" is always placed on the suffering person, as if it's an easy thing to do or as if they wouldn't have done it already if they could - and if the help were there.

All too often, the "help" is inadequate (I was recently told by a psychiatrist that the average person with mental illness is misdiagnosed FIVE TIMES), or not there at all. Witness agonized parents sitting in the ER for three hours while their suicidal daughter, barely hanging on to life, waits for some sort of medical attention, likely dismissive (for psychiatric cases are still viewed as "mental" and somehow within the patient's control). No one realizes that if they don't have any beds in the psych ward, which they almost never do, the patient will almost certainly be sent home with a prescription and a promise never to do it again. Even if she is admitted, no one will send flowers or cards or come to visit her in the psych ward, because that very name inspires dread. (Funny thing, because people visit prisons all the time.) Having your tonsils out would inspire a very different response.

"Reach out for help" seems to be the panacea right now, and unless they have been there, people don't look beyond it. Are things changing? Perhaps, but not quickly or profoundly enough to penetrate the blank wall of gratuitous advice which is the conventional and acceptable response.





“It’s all in your mind.”

“You just need to give yourself a good swift kick in the rear.”

“No one ever said life was fair.”

“I think you enjoy wallowing in it."

"Depression is a choice, you know."

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”





"There are a lot of people worse off than you.”

“But it’s a beautiful day!”

“You have so many things to be thankful for!”

“You just want attention.”

“Happiness is a choice, you know.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

“Everything happens for a reason.”





“There is always somebody worse off than you are.”

“You should get off all those pills.”

“You are what you think you are.”

“Cheer up!”

“Have you been praying/reading your Bible?”

"People who meditate don't get depressed."

“You need to get out more.”





"Don't you have a sense of humour?"

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

“Get a job!”

“Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

“But you don’t look depressed. You seem fine to me.”

“You can do anything you want if you just set your mind to it.”





“Snap out of it, will you? You have no reason to feel this way.”

“I wish I had the luxury of being depressed.”

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

"Do you want your family to suffer along with you?"

“Can't you at least make an effort?"





“Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. I was depressed once for several

days.”

“Turn it over to your Higher Power.”

“I think your depression is a way of punishing us.”

“So, you’re depressed. Aren’t you always?”

“You’re always so negative! Look on the bright side.”





“What you need is some real tragedy in your life to give you perspective.”

"You're a writer, aren't you? Just think of all the good material you're

getting out of this."

“Have you tried camomile tea?”

"I TOLD you to read that book."

"Go out and help someone who is worse off than you and you won't

have time to brood."

“You have to take up your bed and carry on.”

“Well, we all have our crosses to bear.”

"God never gives us more than we can handle."

"I was depressed until I tried yoga."

“You don’t like feeling that way? Change it!"

“SMILE!”

What NOT to say to a depressed person

What NOT to say to a depressed person

(A summer repeat, but worth saying again. I believe, at one point or another, I have heard all of these. When a major figure commits suicide, we dust off a lot of homilies, and repeat "reach out for help" with the same regularity as that other meaningless phrase, "thoughts and prayers". It's sad that the onus for "reaching out" is thoughtlessly placed on the suffering person, as if it's an easy thing to do and as if they wouldn't have done it already if they could - and if the help were there. By the responses below, I would say that, in general, it is not.)


 


“It’s all in your mind.”

“You just need to give yourself a good swift kick in the rear.”

“No one ever said life was fair.”

“I think you enjoy wallowing in it."

"Depression is a choice, you know."

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

"There are a lot of people worse off than you.”

“But it’s a beautiful day!”

“You have so many things to be thankful for!”

“You just want attention.”

“Happiness is a choice, you know.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

“Everything happens for a reason.”





“There is always somebody worse off than you are.”

“You should get off all those pills.”

“You are what you think you are.”

“Cheer up!”

“Have you been praying/reading your Bible?”

"People who meditate don't get depressed."

“You need to get out more.”

"Don't you have a sense of humour?"

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

“Get a job!”

“Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

“But you don’t look depressed. You seem fine to me.”

“You can do anything you want if you just set your mind to it.”

“Snap out of it, will you? You have no reason to feel this way.”

“I wish I had the luxury of being depressed.”

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

"Do you want your family to suffer along with you?"

“Can't you at least make an effort?"

“Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. I was depressed once for several

days.”

“Turn it over to your Higher Power.”

“I think your depression is a way of punishing us.”

“So, you’re depressed. Aren’t you always?”

“You’re always so negative! Look on the bright side.”

“What you need is some real tragedy in your life to give you perspective.”

"You're a writer, aren't you? Just think of all the good material you're

getting out of this."

“Have you tried camomile tea?”

"I TOLD you to read that book."

"Go out and help someone who is worse off than you and you won't

have time to brood."


“You have to take up your bed and carry on.”

“Well, we all have our crosses to bear.”

"God never gives us more than we can handle."

"I was depressed until I tried yoga."

“You don’t like feeling that way? Change it!"

“SMILE!”

Should I post this? Maybe not

I have my reasons for thinking these things, but in saying them, I break many taboos. That's why I need to say them. I came to the conclusion that there is no one on earth I can share this with, and that appalls me and doesn't surprise me.

What NOT to say to a depressed person

 


“It’s all in your mind.”

“You just need to give yourself a good swift kick in the rear.”

“No one ever said life was fair.”

“I think you enjoy wallowing in it."

"Depression is a choice, you know."

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

"There are a lot of people worse off than you.”

“But it’s a beautiful day!”

“You have so many things to be thankful for!”

“You just want attention.”

“Happiness is a choice, you know.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

“Everything happens for a reason.”





“There is always somebody worse off than you are.”

“You should get off all those pills.”

“You are what you think you are.”

“Cheer up!”

“Have you been praying/reading your Bible?”

"People who meditate don't get depressed."

“You need to get out more.”





"Don't you have a sense of humour?"

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

“Get a job!”

“Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

“But you don’t look depressed. You seem fine to me.”

“You can do anything you want if you just set your mind to it.”





“Snap out of it, will you? You have no reason to feel this way.”

“I wish I had the luxury of being depressed.”

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

"Do you want your family to suffer along with you?"

“Can't you at least make an effort?"





“Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. I was depressed once for several

days.”

“Turn it over to your Higher Power.”

“I think your depression is a way of punishing us.”

“So, you’re depressed. Aren’t you always?”

“You’re always so negative! Look on the bright side.”





“What you need is some real tragedy in your life to give you perspective.”

"You're a writer, aren't you? Just think of all the good material you're

getting out of this."

“Have you tried camomile tea?”

"I TOLD you to read that book."





"Go out and help someone who is worse off than you and you won't

have time to brood."


“You have to take up your bed and carry on.”

“Well, we all have our crosses to bear.”

"God never gives us more than we can handle."

"I was depressed until I tried yoga."

“You don’t like feeling that way? Change it!"

“SMILE!”






Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Mental illness: Let's NOT reduce the stigma!

Every day, and in every way, I am hearing a message. And it's not a bad message, in and of itself.

It's building, in fact, in intensity and clarity, and in some ways I like to hear it.

It's about mental illness, a state I've always thought is mis-named: yes, I guess it's "mental" (though not in the same class as the epithet, "You're totally mental"), but when you call it mental illness, it's forever and always associated with and even attached to a state of illness. You're either ill or you're well; they're mutually exclusive, aren't they?

We don't speak of diabetic illness. We don't speak of Parkinsonian illness. We don't speak of - you get the idea. Although these are chronic, ongoing disease conditions, we use different language to describe them that does not imply the person cannot be well.

Why should this matter? It's only a name, isn't - it doesn't change anything, does it?

I beg to differ. The name "mental illness" itself is problematic to me. It seems to nail people into their condition. Worse than that, nobody even notices. I have never in my life heard anyone mention it, because in the public consciousness, it does not exist. In fact, "mentally ill" is a compassionate term (so they say), if leaning towards pity and tinged with dread. But it is is definitely preferable to "psycho", "nut case", "whack job", "fucking lunatic", and the list goes on (and on, and on, as if it doesn't really matter what we call them). But it's still inadequate.

There's something else going on that people think is totally positive, even wonderful, showing that they're truly "tolerant" even of people who seem to dwell on the bottom rung of society. Everywhere I look, there are signs saying, "Let's reduce the stigma about mental illness."

Note they say "reduce", not banish. It's as if society realizes that getting rid of it is just beyond the realm of possibility. Let's not hope for miracles, let's settle for feeling a bit better about ourselves (hey, we're really helping the cause!) for not calling them awful names and excluding them from everything.





(Caption: To put yourself in another's shoes, you gotta first unlace your own.)

I hate "stigma". I hate it because it's an ugly word, and if you juxtapose it with any other word, it makes that word ugly too. "Let's reduce the hopelessness" might be more honest. "Let's reduce the ostracism, the hostility, the contempt." "Stigma" isn't used very much any more, in fact I can't think of any other group of people it is so consistently attached to. Even awful conditions (supposedly) like alcoholism and drug abuse aren't "stigmatized" any more. Being gay isn't either. Why? Compassion and understanding are beginning to dissolve the ugly term, detach it and throw it away.






"Let's reduce the stigma" doesn't help because it's miserable. It's the old "you don't look fat" thing (hey, who said I looked fat? Who brought the subject up?). Much could be gained by pulling the plug on this intractibly negative term. Reducing the stigma is spiritually stingy and only calls attention to the stigma.

So what's the opposite of "stigmatized"? Accepted, welcomed, fully employed, creative, productive, loved? Would it be such a stretch to focus our energies on these things, replacing the "poor soul" attitude that prevails?






But so far, the stifling box of stigma remains, perhaps somewhat better than hatred or fear, but not much. Twenty or thirty years ago, a term used to appear on TV, in newspapers, everywhere, and it made me furious: "cancer victim". Anyone who had cancer was a victim, not just people who had "lost the battle" (and for some reason, we always resort to military terms to describe the course of the illness). It was standard, neutral, just a way to describe things, but then something happened, the tide turned, and energy began to flow the other way.

From something that was inevitably bound to stigma in the past, cancer came out of the closet in a big way, leading to all sorts of positive change that is still being felt. But first we had to lose terms like "victim", because they were unconsciously influencing people's attitudes. We had to begin to substitute words like "survivor" and even "warrior".

One reinforced the other. The movement gave rise to much more positive, life-affirming, even accurate terminology. That's exactly what needs to happen here. We don't just need to "reduce the stigma": we need to CAN that term, spit on it, get rid of it once and for all, and begin to see our mental health warriors for who and what they really are. They lead the way in a daring revolution of attitudes and deeply-buried, primitive ideas, a shakeup and shakedown of prejudice that is shockingly late, and desperately needed.





Why do we need to do this so badly? We're caught and hung up on a negative, limiting word that is only keeping the culture in the dark. I once read something in a memoir that had a profound effect on me: "Mental illness is an exaggeration of the human condition." This isn't a separate species. Don't treat it as such. It's you, times ten. It's me, in a magnifying mirror. Such projections of humanity at its most problematic might just teach us something truly valuable. Why don't we want to look?

POST-BLOG. I ran this one two years ago on Let's Talk Day. Because it got twelve views, I thought I would run it again. I am not sure why I continue with this, except that it seems to satisfy some need in me. But when I try to put the message "out there", I find there is no "out there". The internet is all about numbers, totals, likes, views, and popularity, a thing I cannot bear because I thought I left the high school mentality behind a long time ago. So I do this for the only reason that matters to me: because I want to.

Whack jobs: or, why we still can't deal with mental illness

I’ve been having some thoughts lately, mostly triggered by some recent events in the news. It’s about people’s language around mental illness. I have just a bit of trouble with names like loony, whack job, etc. being casually tossed around to label someone who is in psychiatric pain. I hear this every day of my life, and it dismays me. We often talk about “the other”, and I can’t think of a worse example of ostracism for something that is not the person’s fault.

But I am also struggling with the fact that people still sometimes use terms like “committed”,“ arrested” and “incarcerated” when referring to someone who is in so much pain that they are a danger to themselves and, perhaps, those around them. 

Being in hospital because you’re suffering to that degree is not like being dragged off to jail. Even if a person is “committed” (which I didn’t think existed any more), they can sign themselves out after 24 hours. They are not in leg irons. They are not being unfairly labelled “crazy” for their personal beliefs and left on some archipelago with the rest of the raving loonies. This perception is a “snake pit” mentality that harks back to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. 

Sometimes people’s judgement is seriously “off”. What is the alternative for someone who has just said that he is going to kill himself? Just leave him there, send him home? If he were bleeding to death or had a heart attack or was in some other kind of life-threatening danger, I am sure he would be rushed to treatment. Why can’t we see suicide threats the same way? I think it’s because people are expected to just get it together on their own. Shape up. To accept help is to take on a stigma that might, perish the thought, hurt one’s career or standing in the community. (“You know what happened to him, don’t you?”) Some people, believe it or not, would rather die.

Why is a suicidal emergency so different? Because, I believe, we still look at mental illness with horror, paranoia and dread. Misinformation and ignorance is rampant. I’ve never heard of anyone being dragged off to the snake pit against his/her will, and it is extremely hard to get into the average psychiatric facility because there are never any beds (which should tell people something, but there’s an uncomfortable silence around it).

I watched an old TV show the other day, one of those black-and-white dramas, in which a husband and wife were accusing each other of being crazy. The term “put away” was used at least fifteen times. “Put away” is something you use to describe storing cups in a cupboard. But it also implies that you are “done”, that you will never live in the “real” world again. We don’t use this term any more – or at least, not often. But “incarcerated” is almost as damning.

The situation I’m writing about – and I’m sorry I can’t be more explicit, but I am not prepared to do that – seemed to trigger language that was, to say the least, dated, but also fraught with – what? Rage seemed to be uppermost, but I can’t tell for sure because I don’t personally know the people involved.

The first time I heard the term homophobic, I was very confused. Phobic means – fearful. Why would people be fearful of homosexuals? What did this have to do with their prejudice?

Everything. For fear comes of ignorance, and ignorance can be more willful than we want to know. I found this whole situation depressing because it also snagged into personal and professional hierarchies, elitism, and the unassailable power of the patriarchy, not to mention sweeping aside claims of sexual assault. (And where have I heard THAT one before?). 

We pay a lot of lip service to "reducing the stigma" (never eliminating it, as if that is just too gargantuan a task to even consider) and asking people to "reach out for help", neatly leaving it in THEIR hands when they may be too ill to reach out for anything. In cases like this, who will step up, who will be there to fill the void? In too many cases, no one, and the person decides life is too unbearable to continue with. Then it's "well, he just refused to reach out for help, so. . . "

I don’t know how much of this will be resolved (or even improved) in my lifetime. Looking at what has happened to women’s rights in the past few years, we might even go back to leg irons and snake pits. But for God’s sake, people, watch your language! Real human beings are involved. Equating a psychiatric facility with a prison implies some kind of crime, and there is no crime. The gulag is not part of anybody’s reality now.

in·car·cer·ate

inˈkärsəˌrāt/

1. imprison, put in prison, send to prison, jail, lock up, put under lock and key, put away, intern, confine, detain, hold, immure, put in chains, hold prisoner, hold captive; informal put behind bars
   

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author page!

Let's Talk: today and every day

Every day, and in every way, I am hearing a message. And it's not a bad message, in and of itself. 

It's building, in fact, in intensity and clarity, and in some ways I like to hear it.

It's about mental illness, a state I've always thought is mis-named: yes, I guess it's "mental" (though not in the same class as the epithet, "You're totally mental"), but when you call it mental illness, it's forever and always associated with and even attached to a state of illness. You're either ill or you're well; they're mutually exclusive, aren't they?

So the name itself is problematic to me. It seems to nail people into their condition. Worse than that, nobody even notices. "Mentally ill" is definitely preferable to "psycho", "nut case", "fucking lunatic", and the list goes on (and on, and on, as if it doesn't really matter what we call them). But it's still inadequate.

There's something else going on that people think is totally positive, even wonderful, showing that they're truly "tolerant" even of people who seem to dwell on the bottom rung of society. Everywhere I look, there are signs saying, "Let's reduce the stigma about mental illness."

Note they say "reduce", not banish. It's as if society realizes that getting rid of it is just beyond the realm of possibility. Let's not hope for miracles, let's settle for feeling a bit better about ourselves for not calling them awful names and excluding them from everything.

I hate stigma. I hate it because it's an ugly word, and if you juxtapose it with any other word, it makes that word ugly too. "Let's reduce the hopelessness" might be more honest. "Let's reduce the ostracism, the hostility, the contempt." "Stigma" isn't used very much any more, in fact I can't think of any other group of people it is so consistently attached to. Even awful conditions (supposedly) like alcoholism and drug abuse aren't "stigmatized" any more. Being gay isn't either. Why? Compassion and understanding are beginning to dissolve the ugly term, detach it and throw it away. 

"Let's reduce the stigma" doesn't help because it's miserable. It's the old "you don't look fat" thing (hey, who said I looked fat? Who brought the subject up?). Much could be gained by pulling the plug on this intractibly negative term. Reducing the stigma is spiritually stingy and only calls attention to the stigma.  

So what's the opposite of "stigmatized"?  Accepted, welcomed, fully employed, creative, productive, loved? Would it be such a stretch to focus our energies on these things, replacing the 'poor soul" attitude that prevails?

But so far, the stifling box of stigma remains, perhaps somewhat better than hatred or fear, but not much. Twenty years ago, a term used to appear on TV, in newspapers, everywhere, and it made me furious: "cancer victim". Anyone who had cancer was a victim, not just people who had "lost the battle" (and for some reason, we always resort to military terms to describe the course of the illness). It was standard, neutral, just a way to describe things, but then something happened, the tide turned, and energy began to flow the other way.

From something that was inevitably bound to stigma in the past, cancer came out of the closet in a big way, leading to all sorts of positive change that is still being felt. But first we had to lose terms like "victim", because they were unconsciously influencing people's attitudes. We had to begin to substitute words like "survivor" and even "warrior". 

One reinforced the other. The movement gave rise to much more positive, life-affirming, even accurate terminology. That's exactly what needs to happen here. We don't just need to "reduce the stigma": we need to CAN that term, spit on it, get rid of it once and for all, and begin to see our mental health warriors for who and what they really are. They lead the way in a daring revolution of attitudes and deeply-buried, primitive ideas, a shakeup and shakedown of prejudice that is shockingly late, and desperately needed.

Why do we need to do this so badly? We're caught and hung up on a negative, limiting word that is only keeping the culture in the dark.  I once read something in a memoir that had a profound effect on me: "Mental illness is an exaggeration of the human condition." This isn't a separate species. Don't treat it as such. It's you, times ten. It's me, in a magnifying mirror. Such projections of humanity at its finest and most problematic might just teach us something truly valuable. Why don't we want to look?

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA