The Kids Aren't OK
So today's journal post is about long-term depression.
When MTV's "Daria" was popular, people associated me with the show's main character. She was bitter, sarcastic, and a model of the my generation's disenfranchised youth. A lot of people related to her, either because they felt like her or one of her "loser" friends, or knew people who were like them.
That says that there's a whole fucking generation of people who are like me. Any one of us could have shot up our high school. But guess what? That doesn't make it OK. In fact, it makes it less OK. Our wonderful America, home of the brave land of the free, has raised up a whole horde of dysfunctional children.
It's NOT OK that I have been more or less miserable for pretty much as long as I can remember.
It's NOT OK that I can go and have fun on one level and laugh and play and still go home and not be able to sleep at night.
It's NOT OK that the best two years of my life were mostly fun because at the time I was living with my parents, drinking and taking club drugs whenever I could get my hands on them. It's NOT OK that I did not know what "happy" felt like until I blew holes in my brain with pills.
It's NOT OK that I can fail to accomplish the most basic tasks and not have a reason. Most of the time I don't FEEL down - but I'm still tuned out. This is NOT normal behavior.
It's NOT OK that I do not have a social support network to speak of. This is also not normal. Primates are inherently social, including humans.
Please stop telling me "Oh, you're young, blah blah blah". I'm 32. I'm not a kid. This is not practice, this is not a joke. It's also not something I have control over, so telling me to buck up or lecturing me about my attitude is annoying at best. If I could just decide to not be unhappy, don't you think I would have done so a long time ago?
In fact, I would LOVE to not be angry and depressed all the damn time. That would be awesome. I'm not enamoured with my personal problems, and I know drinking or smoking weed won't make them go away. I want to fix them but the tools to do so are out of my reach. And that's not OK either, but without a major reform of the system I am excluded from mental health care because I'm a) still mostly functional and b) working class.
Tomorrow's rant: Today's PTSD is Yesterday's Ritual Abuse Syndrome, or Why Our Concept Of Therapy Is Fucked Up
When MTV's "Daria" was popular, people associated me with the show's main character. She was bitter, sarcastic, and a model of the my generation's disenfranchised youth. A lot of people related to her, either because they felt like her or one of her "loser" friends, or knew people who were like them.
That says that there's a whole fucking generation of people who are like me. Any one of us could have shot up our high school. But guess what? That doesn't make it OK. In fact, it makes it less OK. Our wonderful America, home of the brave land of the free, has raised up a whole horde of dysfunctional children.
It's NOT OK that I have been more or less miserable for pretty much as long as I can remember.
It's NOT OK that I can go and have fun on one level and laugh and play and still go home and not be able to sleep at night.
It's NOT OK that the best two years of my life were mostly fun because at the time I was living with my parents, drinking and taking club drugs whenever I could get my hands on them. It's NOT OK that I did not know what "happy" felt like until I blew holes in my brain with pills.
It's NOT OK that I can fail to accomplish the most basic tasks and not have a reason. Most of the time I don't FEEL down - but I'm still tuned out. This is NOT normal behavior.
It's NOT OK that I do not have a social support network to speak of. This is also not normal. Primates are inherently social, including humans.
Please stop telling me "Oh, you're young, blah blah blah". I'm 32. I'm not a kid. This is not practice, this is not a joke. It's also not something I have control over, so telling me to buck up or lecturing me about my attitude is annoying at best. If I could just decide to not be unhappy, don't you think I would have done so a long time ago?
In fact, I would LOVE to not be angry and depressed all the damn time. That would be awesome. I'm not enamoured with my personal problems, and I know drinking or smoking weed won't make them go away. I want to fix them but the tools to do so are out of my reach. And that's not OK either, but without a major reform of the system I am excluded from mental health care because I'm a) still mostly functional and b) working class.
Tomorrow's rant: Today's PTSD is Yesterday's Ritual Abuse Syndrome, or Why Our Concept Of Therapy Is Fucked Up