Story Notes -- To Be Seen
Angst 2.0 > Break the Cycle > To Be Seen -- Story Notes
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I seriously love you all. Everyone who commented or read (shout out to the lurkers - I <3 you guys, too) is just so awesome. When I posted this I had no idea that I’d get such a response, and every single piece is a reward in itself.
The original title of this particular fic was “Angst 2.0.”, which evolved into "Break the Cycle" and finally ended up being "To Be Seen." I wrote all, excepting the last ~500 words, of the first part in a single sitting. I had been extremely stressed at that time and my anxiety disorder had been so terribly powerful that I could barely function throughout the day. This lead to some rather severe depression.
The feelings described for what Kurt was going through were a direct channelling of what I was feeling - although I did change this to relate more to what Kurt would feel based on his life than my own - and this fic almost literally saved my life.
I don’t have a Blaine or a Burt, or even a Finn. I’m sure the people around me would try to understand, but I’ve grown up with them telling me that depression is about being weak, counselling is nothing but a sham, and even temporary reliance on medication is not acceptable.
I can quite vividly remember sitting alone in the dark, crying, with my phone in hand, one button away from calling my best friend. When Kurt calls Blaine, the kind of courage he (as a character) has in making that phone call, is something that I wrote just wishing I had, too.
So instead of going to family or friends I wrote this - if I hadn’t I honestly don’t know where I would be right now. I try not to dwell on it.
I’ve always felt close to Kurt - we have both faced trying to change ourselves for our fathers, been bullied for who we were, dealt with homophobia (although in different ways), been sexually harassed in high school… Kurt (and Chris Colfer by extension) is someone who is so relatable, so easy to empathise with, that he was the perfect medium for this.
Things didn’t get better for a long time, but when they did it wasn’t because I had suddenly found some inner strength, or pulled myself from the downward spiral, it was because I realized that no matter what I tried, nothing was working. And decided I needed help.
I guess what I’m really trying to say here, and in what I wrote, is that getting help isn’t about weakness, it’s about strength. It’s hard to go to someone and tell them what’s going on; it’s hard to ask for help. It was embarrassing for me, especially coming from a family where my father consistently told me that he was proud of how strong I was, how I could overcome anything without help, to have to breakdown and book that doctor’s appointment.
The second half of this story is segmented and doesn’t flow together like the first half, and a lot of that is because it was written over a period of about four months. I was also trying to emphasize Kurt’s mental and physical state (eek I hope it worked).
The bond that Kurt has with his father is amazing, and with the second part I really wanted to show an understanding on Burt’s part. I wanted Kurt to see that his dad doesn’t think he’s weak, doesn’t think that he should have just snapped out of it. I like to believe that Burt would be like that in canon.
I love my father, don’t get me wrong, he is a wonderful dad. But I never told him that I was going to a counsellor, never told him that I was on anti-depressants for a severe form of GAD and depression. When he noticed that I was doing better, the first thing he did was tell me how proud he was of my inner strength, how he always knew I was such a strong person that I could overcome anything on my own. But I couldn’t, and I couldn’t tell him that.
I know this whole big blurb is a huge over-share, and that maybe it’s excessive, but I really wanted to put that out there. Not only for me, because it was really important for me to get this out, but for anyone who reads this and needs help but is afraid that they are going to be looked down upon because of it. The stigma that society, especially our own, puts on getting help for depression is distressing - I know this personally, and I’m sure many others do, too.
In my second year as an undergrad I read a passage in a textbook that lead to a paradigm shift of sorts, allowing me to think about mental illness in a different light:
“Some cross-cultural psychiatrists believe that there are a very small number of universal mental illnesses, two of which correspond to biomedical labels of “schizophrenia” and “depression.” … Depression-type illnesses are common throughout the world, although the local expression of the affective (emotional) disorder varies.”
-- Brown PJ and Barrett R. 2010. Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. New York: McGraw Hill. pp 221.
I really wish I had that lesson a lot sooner.
This story was never meant to go beyond the few hours after Kurt hitting the end of his rope, and I made a point of keeping it that way. I know there were many other ways this it could have gone, and as much as I would have loved to have explored those, this is what came out.
Okay. I’m done, I promise. I don’t know if anyone actually read all of the way through (wow that got long-winded and soap-boxy), but congrats if you did :)
P.S. I spent a long time sifting through my university’s online journals to try and find information on LD50, etc. for benzodiazepines, but it is surprisingly difficult to find the right information. Especially when my major is physical anthropology - some of the medical jargon was completely out of my league. I’m not going to say where I actually ended up finding the right information (OMG hope I don’t have a virus). In any case, I used the dosage of diazepam to base this off of. While I realize that diazepam is more commonly used for other afflictions than insomnia, I’m hoping people will let me get away with this.
There are many places online that offer help:
http://www.depressionforums.org/
http://suicidehotlines.com/ -- crisis lines
http://www.suicidology.org/web/guest/crisis-centers -- crisis lines
http://www.depressionhurts.ca/default.aspx
And YouTube has some interesting stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FomroPMOKvg