On Severe Depression

(Part I)

I’ve heard it said, ‘write what you know.’ So, at the risk of being a negative nancy,[1] I’m going to write about severe depression.[2] The problem with writing about severe depression is that it doesn’t exist.

Severe depression is an absence, not a presence. Severe depression is the absence of desire. Not just the desire that we call desire, the wanting passion, the grasping at the world–nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs; but, also the abstract desire to be, the desire to live. On top of the basic desire to live/be is the desire to live/be in a certain way, the desire to be a good person, both in general and in the specific roles we play — child, friend, lover, employee, boss, parent, etc. What good means is culturally mediated but, ultimately, individually determined.[3]

For much of human history, being good has meant being obedient. And, while this still applies to children as well as certain ethnic subcultures–for the rest of us, being obedient has been eclipsed by being actualized (at least when we’re not at work). Unlike being obedient, which usually comes with specific instructions, being actualized remains maddeningly vague. The best I can figure out is that it has something to do with pushing yourself as hard as possible to cram as many things into your life as possible.[4]

It turns out the opposite of the desire to live is not the desire to die, for that is also a desire, however perverse. The opposite of the desire to live is severe depression. This is not to say that severely depressed people don’t kill themselves, they do, but I believe it is more out of the impulse to escape pain than any desire for the imagined relief and peace of death

Impulses are pretty much the extent of the severely depressed person’s interactions with the world. And even then, these impulses, these actions, are actually a break, a spark in the void of severe depression, driven by panic or some similarly reptilian emotion; as far as possible from the will power of the frontal lobe. I’ve felt that kind of panic. I found it both barely tolerable and blessedly unsustainable, like rage, eventually you run out of steam.   Severe depression, like apathy, runs on the lack of steam; it is an absence not a presence.

Thanks to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it is easier to destroy than to create. Maybe this is why modern medicine insists on treating depression as a thing, a malignant presence to be vanquished. Or did you not realize that those white coats were suits of armor and all the disease dragons?

I’d been noticing lately that I don’t get the same enjoyment out of the new post-funny humor that so many of my younger friends do. This type of humor is exemplified by an ironic stance, where things worthy of ridicule are embraced with a knowing smile. I wasn’t sure why that was but had a feeling age or, rather, generational-zeitgeist had something to do with it.

The other part of the puzzle became clear to me from my recent sarcasm-dripping post re: MoveOn.org’s recent poorly thought out get out the vote campaign. This is how I instinctively react to something worthy of ridicule, by sarcastically praising it. I do this because this is how my friends and I related to the pseudo-sentimental baby-boomer controlled wasteland of a culture growing up. And then this language took over the cultural sphere for the decade of the Nineties, when Generation X briefly was at the wheel of the Logan’s Run-esque world of popular culture.

On the surface, the differences between irony and sarcasm can be subtle. In both cases something God-awful is being insincerely lauded. In the case of sarcasm, the true stance of the speaker is only very translucently obscured by a thin veneer of praise. As long as one knows the aesthetic proclivities of said speaker they can easily infer that the praise is not genuine. With the additional knowledge that no one cool ever so wholeheartedly embraces anything, the ruse becomes a priori obvious, “oh, you are gushing, must be sarcasm.” In the case of irony, by all indication, the speaker is genuine in their embrace of a given God-awfulness. Unlike sarcasm, there is no eye rolling, or over-inflecting to cue the listener in to the archness of the speaker’s stance. To the contrary, effort, often enormous effort, is exerted to present the stance of the speaker as genuine. It is only by shared agreement that the phenomenon being embraced in all actuality sucks eggs that the irony is made visible. The underlying similarity is that in both cases the archness is a means of performatively invoking hipness on the part of the speaker.

For clarification I will give an example: the invocation of Lionel Richie. Now, it is a widely shared and acknowledged belief among sane people with even an ounce of aesthetic sensibility that Lionel Richie’s music is crap, and for very specific reasons; namely, it is a pre-packaged, inoffensive, disingenuous aping of the very real, deeply felt human conditions of love, longing and loss. Even this attempt at description falls short of the complex, irreducible nature of Lionel Richie’s crappiness. Thus, by comparison, he becomes a safe and useful tool for expressing a type of disdain too rich with nuanced specificity to be expressed directly through description toward a given phenomenon through either the vehicle of sarcasm or that of irony. Someone of my generation would likely utilize sarcasm to invoke Lionel Richie as a vehicle for expressing an irreducibly specific disdain, and through it, perform hipness into being as follows, “Wow, that was some Lionel Richie level edgy shit! Way to push the envelope.” Whereas, a member of Generation Y/The Millennial Generation would more likely use their disdain for Lionel Richie to perform hipness by covering their walls and filling their turntables with Lionel Richie posters and albums painstakingly collected from the dankest recesses of the Internet, professing their love for all things Lionel Richie, and subjecting visitors to their domicile to Lionel Richie sing-along-marathons. While the means of affect are very different, the intended effect is the same.

Alternative universe me,
Sister from another dimension
We lay ourselves upon the edge
In a forest where others rarely tread
Radio in tune
Sharing narratives like a bed
Reflected back it feels–
when I felt you up or was it you, me
sticky lips, unclothed, thrusting hips
–so real

Afterward we sat on the sofa
With cats, under the blanket
Snacking on sunflower seeds and gluten-free chips
Drinking ‘Fokken’ rooibos tea
Writing, reading, together
Distilling the essence of the particular, minutia
into something more whole
An aesthetic identity
Another type of poetry
Circling the stars
Not needing to explain
The words’ context jump full thought from brain to brain

I’m thinking there are (at least) two (ideal) types of motivation:

1.Positive Motivation – Doing something for the reward (enjoyment, engagement, mastery) of doing it.
–and–
2. Negative Motivation – Doing something to avoid the punishment of not getting it done (guilt, shame, self-loathing).

The first is a focus on the present or near present act of doing; resulting in a focused mindfulness, patience, resilience and success. The second is a focus on the future; resulting in a rushed carelessness, frustration, and frequent injuries (to self and objects at hand).

Both of these forms of motivation tend to form self-reinforcing cycles. Positive motivation arises from being nurtured in a secure environment where life is viewed as constructive play and mistakes are viewed as a natural part of the learning process. Negative motivation arises from deprivation and/or chemical depression–a lack of ability to feel reward (a la serotonin and all that good stuff), although it can also be inherited, to some extent, through upbringing. The latter engenders an anxious orientation toward life, an avoidant personality, and a dependence on external validation. The former encourages engagement, self-confidence and healthy interdependence.

Neither of these forms of motivation are destiny and, like most things, each one contains a little bit of the other.

On Attraction and Rejection

We live in a culture that bombards us with messages about who we are almost all our waking moments. One of the main themes behind these messages is, “you are not good enough.” I don’t know if it is possible to grow up being bombarded by this message–not just from the media, but from the people in our lives (friends, family, teachers, coaches, bosses, etc.)–without coming to believe it about ourselves, at least a little bit. I think this is the reason that most of the people I know put a lot of effort into making themselves more desirable to others in order to attract the people they want as friends and family. I do this too.

In order to describe this phenomenon I am going to use the metaphor of food, specifically, of coating oneself in sugar in order to be more appetizing to the real and imagined objects of our desire. The problem with coating oneself in sugar is that it doesn’t only or even necessarily attract the people we want into our lives; it attracts anyone who is hungry; the hungrier the more attracted by the quick sugar rush we offer. The inevitable consequence of this strategy seems to be that we become increasingly surrounded by the starving, because they will try the hardest and the longest, forming a plaque around our person, blocking access for the merely peckish and frightening away all but the most desperate competitors. If this state of affairs is allowed to continue to its logical conclusion we will be eaten alive. I’ve seen this happen, and it’s not a pretty sight.

Fortunately, for most of us, our survival instincts kick in and, after escaping and repairing the damage, we develop filtering strategies to protect us from such cannibalism. The two main filtering strategies I have come across as well as employed myself are: 1) becoming a more acquired taste — by reducing the amount of sugar coating, substituting a less immediately gratifying and addictive substance, and/or mixing some (high quality, well-aged) vinegar in with the sweet; and/or, 2) building a more closely guarded gate by learning to spot the warning signs of potential danger in those surrounding us and rejecting these threats, either actively or, more commonly because it’s easier, passively.

Of these two strategies, I believe the first one is more compassionate, as the second one involves rejecting someone who was attracted, however unintentionally, by our actions. It is easier for other people to hurt their feelings on this strategy. That’s right! I don’t believe it is necessary to be hurt by rejection, or at least to remain hurt after our initial reaction. We remain hurt from rejection for two reasons: 1) we hold the other persons rejection of us as externally valid; and/or, 2) we feel loss at the removal of our imagined future with this person in it enriching our lives.

In truth, the person we desire owes us neither acceptance nor their company. To think otherwise is to be presumptuous and entitled. Furthermore, and more importantly, both of the aforementioned reactions occur entirely within ourselves and, as such, remain under our control if we so chose to exercise it.

I’m far from mastering this control, but what seems to help is being appreciative of all the good things I have in my life and, as much as modern life permits, being fully present. In order to develop and maintain an appreciative attitude I leave notes, both physical and mental, to remind myself to be thankful – for all the people and hard work that led to the food I am putting into my mouth when I eat it; for all the brilliance, innovation and dedication behind the technology that enables me to connect to the rest of the world and be a part of communities of affinity, unhampered by physical limitations, when I am online; for my good fortune at having a soft, warm bed in a safe, comfortable apartment when I lie down; etc. etc.. In order to remain present and focused (as much as my damaged and deranged flea brain allows) I also leave physical and mental notes reminding me to look, listen, feel, smell and taste what is around me (as appropriate, of course~). Holding something in my hand and trying to feel not just its shape and weight, but also its temperature and molecular make-up is another strategy that works well for me. Feeling the weight of gravity on my feet and legs when standing and on my butt and back when sitting also helps me stay in the present moment. Finally, trying to make sure I fully understand why I am (re/inter)acting in the way I am (re/inter)acting really cut down on unintentional hurt feeling–both mine and those of the people around me.

Of course, like you, but even more so, I am far from perfect. That’s why in doing this I think it is essential to remember that you are just a silly, fancy monkey, and so are all the people around you, so don’t try to be a machine or a god, just try.

Wow, it looks like this essay started out as one thing and turned into something else. That seems to be the way of things when you let them happen.

Society as a whole is designed so that most people oscillate between feeling they are juggling too much too long, and that it is unsustainable (“must…keep…going…a…little…longer”), or not meeting their expectations (“I am inadequate”), or feeling both, (“I can’t keep going and it’s still not good enough”). Since we are not good enough and we don’t meet these expectations, then the only way we can survive in this society is to cheat. And because people do cheat to survive a lot of resources are spent on surveillance. By cheating I mean doing something against agreed upon rules–usually agreed upon under the duress of the street or prison. Because there is this unsustainable build-up of internal pressure in our lives due to inhumane expectations of discipline (against our natural inclinations) that pressure must be released somewhere in the form of “cheating.” Because we live in a surveillance society there are very few places this cheating can the place, so by necessity it takes place where figures of authority have chosen trust over surveillance. It’s as if you pumped a balloon with a number of microscopic holes in it too full. Guess where the air is going to come out?

This cheating will “confirm” the authoritarian view of human nature as fundamentally corrupt and in need of constant manipulation and monitoring. And the people who are under the most unsustainable pressure will cheat the most in order to survive, which justifies even more surveillance of these populations (usually retail and factory worker and those not fortunate enough to be able to do even the most undesirable jobs), so fewer holes in the balloons with more pressure. And all you have to do to control these populations even more is to purposely poke a hole of two in the balloon and place cops around the holes, and voila, ready made population of prisoners/indentured servants/examples for the rest of them. And don’t worry about the other balloons, sure most of them will burst from the pressure eventually, but they keep making more new balloons. So brilliant!

Both ciscentrism and ableism are rooted in the foundation upon which structures are built. Biological facts are just collective beliefs that are “proven” valid based on an epistemology (or epistemologies in heterogeneous societies). The dominant epistemology in the modern World System is science (it is a World System, not “Western,” as all of the globe has been subsumed under global capitalism, although in very different positions). Science does not prove facts; rather, science provides interpretations of data, which are affected by the often unquestioned beliefs of a culture. What data is gathered is determined by the questions asked and the design of research that are–you guessed it–affected by the often unquestioned beliefs of a culture.

Because all structures in a society are rooted on this foundation of reified beliefs (hegemony), they reflect the biases of that society from the core outward. These structures determines where one can live, socialize and work (if at all), among other things. Inside these structures–giant mega-cities of them–exists the interactions that make up our lived experience. As such all interactions are not only shaped by the biases of society, the type of interactions that *can* take place are delimited by the biases of society. So the experiences people (can) have and how they are valued and treated by others while experiencing it are rooted in a foundation of collective beliefs.

[For an excellent explanation of the World System see the work of Immanuel Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi]

Now I just need to add enough verbiage that I can fluff this up into something long enough to be taken seriously~

“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” –Carl Sagan

All things begin with what’s already been
Staying too small to see
An injected disease
On the skin of the beast
And our words are like hands
That never quite reach
All the things that will end with a where and a when
While the rest of the tribe
Well they’re still listening
For a wind that tells why
But most of the time
They can’t understand by definition
The place that we go
Laying down in the snow
Growing cold

The fault was mine
you never said so much
carefully treading our finger tip touch.
For a while there it felt like remission
hard work and perseverance
paid price of admission
Isn’t that how the story goes?
But no
that summer was a sucker-hole
a moment
when I was high and you were low

And when my health
stopped
getting better
and then got worse again
I held on to the hope
–increasingly fantastic–
that there could be a place for me
inside
at your table.
By then so used to luke warm
I forgot how much my shrunken stomach deviates from the norm.
By then so used to looking up from below
I believed your maybe later was much more than a Seattle no.

Thank you
for your friendship.
You have shown me beautiful places
outside my comfort zone
and above my station.
Thank you
for your generosity
all the research and repairs you’ve done for me.
Enabled
I have grown a great deal
in the shelter of your patronage.
But I blew the chance of lasting friendship with that first kiss
the fault is mine
and if I could go back in time I would turn away my hungry lips
and say, “we should start heading back”
to the safety of the platonic path
if I could’ve seen beyond the bend
and known that mine goes up and down while yours goes down and up again

* * * * *

I’ve been living off the tepid leftovers of friendship for eight long fucking years
and I want
so badly
to get inside that door
but my weak knocks were ignored
and now I’ve had that door casually closed in my face
without a moments thought
without a glance behind
one too many times
to try

I’m left with all these words
pages covered in notes
my only currency
worse than counterfeit
without a stable state behind it
useless
reduced to pure art
busking for friends
in the parking lot

Let me state clearly at the start that: 1) no one has a right to another person’s romantic affection; and, 2) there is a valid feminist critique of the concept of friendzone, in that it is largely a product of men’s sense of entitlement to women’s affection. But these realities also serve as a convenient veil for the very real sociological effects of inequality on a relationship level. To put it simply, there is no randomness to who gets “friendzoned” the most, it is based on what/who is valued the most in our society and what/who is not.

This is not about the specifics of any particular interaction, this is about who in our society gets to have the possibility of romantic intimacy and to what level (how many options are available). I think it is more useful **not** to think of the “friendzone” as a phenomenon of interactions, an unfortunate side-effect of our human desires; but rather to think of it as a **social location**, one from which the formation of a romantic relationship is extremely difficult if not impossible. And this concept of the friendzone as a social location can come in handy as a tool for analyzing oppression and privilege.

It becomes even more interesting and illuminating toward the contours of oppression and privilege in our society when you throw in the friends-with-benefit zone, which, trust me, sucks worse than the friendzone. In the case of the friends-with-benefits zone there is sexual attraction, but the desire for a romantic relationship is absent in one member of the dyad. More pronounced cases of physical desirability in the absence of emotional and social intimacy are the one-night stand, and the longer-term version of this I like to call “benefits-without-friends.” In all of these cases, who is considered sexually desirable deviates from who is considered desirable as a romantic partner in very specific and sociologically informative ways. For instance, trans women (and let’s get real, provided penis not sold separately) are an object of desire to a significant percentage of cis men but are rarely considered desirable as romantic partners by these same guys. Could it be that cis men who are sexually but not romantically attracted to trans women feel that way because (often subconsciously) they don’t want to get infected with the stigma, oppression and marginalization faced by trans women? Can you think of a better explanation (on a sociological, not a snowflake level)?