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Feb. 7th, 2021 04:29 pmI want to write about depression, sadness, grief, anguish: all active things. I have a very large, notched axe to grind around the marketing of "depression" as something one has, rather than the adjectival form of the verb "to be depressed" (I have similar axes for "anxiety" and "gender disorder").
I am prone to sadness, a sense of loss, of what could have been fading into the lowest common denominator shades of what is, what others allow because they think they're alone in wanting something different, something better, something more. I live in my head more than most, based on some decades of experience and connection. I still maintain that at heart I'm an optimist, but one that is burdened by seeing what is possible, if only... people cared, were less selfish, saw outside of themselves, carried through on what they said they believed... if only.
Depression isn't something that I have. It's not a state of being for me, and it pisses me off like someone trying to take away my agency when the frame is "Oh, you have depression" rather than "Oh, you are understandably hurt and angry at the unfairness and injustice in the world, and the alienation that prevents friends and loved ones from realizing their connection to one another as a part of the solution to so many of life's problems".
I do not "have depression"; I have what I think are a conscious, thinking, feeling person's reaction to a world made intentionally cold and lonely so a few sociopaths can have a little more than the sociopath in the next mansion. It's a fury without outlet, matched with the constant ache of seeing so much possibility, so much hope, buried in the quotidian defense strategies of people for whom the core impulse is to help, to make better, to pull together and elevate.
The medicalization under capitalism of state of mind is a crime against humanity. Rather than focusing on the sources of disconnection, alienation, feelings of powerless and loss of meaning, it's easier and more profitable to externalize the symptoms to individuals by way of inherent capacity. We are a social, meaning making, collaborative species. Contemporary life under capitalism robs us of the very things that give us survival advantages; is it any wonder we are collectively depressed and miserable?
I am prone to sadness, a sense of loss, of what could have been fading into the lowest common denominator shades of what is, what others allow because they think they're alone in wanting something different, something better, something more. I live in my head more than most, based on some decades of experience and connection. I still maintain that at heart I'm an optimist, but one that is burdened by seeing what is possible, if only... people cared, were less selfish, saw outside of themselves, carried through on what they said they believed... if only.
Depression isn't something that I have. It's not a state of being for me, and it pisses me off like someone trying to take away my agency when the frame is "Oh, you have depression" rather than "Oh, you are understandably hurt and angry at the unfairness and injustice in the world, and the alienation that prevents friends and loved ones from realizing their connection to one another as a part of the solution to so many of life's problems".
I do not "have depression"; I have what I think are a conscious, thinking, feeling person's reaction to a world made intentionally cold and lonely so a few sociopaths can have a little more than the sociopath in the next mansion. It's a fury without outlet, matched with the constant ache of seeing so much possibility, so much hope, buried in the quotidian defense strategies of people for whom the core impulse is to help, to make better, to pull together and elevate.
The medicalization under capitalism of state of mind is a crime against humanity. Rather than focusing on the sources of disconnection, alienation, feelings of powerless and loss of meaning, it's easier and more profitable to externalize the symptoms to individuals by way of inherent capacity. We are a social, meaning making, collaborative species. Contemporary life under capitalism robs us of the very things that give us survival advantages; is it any wonder we are collectively depressed and miserable?
