Dressing Up.
Eight years ago, a dear friend shot herself.
The proximate cause was a vicious campaign of sexual harassment at work, but she'd struggled with depression for at least a decade prior to that.
"Struggled with depression" is a common phrase, but it doesn't really capture what happens when you wake up one day and realize that you turned into the abyss when you weren't looking. I think it should be something like "Anna held out for fifteen years against a vicious anaconda attack that slowly strangled her essence," or maybe "Anna finally succumbed to an autoimmune disorder of the will," or maybe "stave 4 soul cancer" or . . . or . . . Every once in a while someone will write a book like Prozac Nation or Unholy Ghost or write a tearful article in the Guardian or New York Times attempting to articulate what happened to them and the figurative language flows long. How do you describe not being you for months, years, decades on end, and how do you describe what replaces you during that time?
I think part of the struggle for a perfect metaphor stems from the fact that depressives are really, really hard to empathize with. The DSM diagnostic criteria for major depressive order don't really capture the fact that the symptoms mostly manifest as unlikable or problematic traits. It looks like self-centeredness, flakiness, poor judgment, not having your shit together, bad hygiene, aloofness, complete apathy, or, in Anna's case, an underlying fragility. I remember rolling my eyes at something she said about ten hours before she died. Come on, just get over it, document that shit, call your fucking lawyer, and take 'em to the cleaners.
All this is bullshit, of course. Anna was not fragile. Any normal person suddenly struck with everything Anna faced on an average day would have to be hospitalized.
And you know what? Even with all that going on at her center, it wasn't her defining characteristic. Anna was clever, witty, beautiful, kind to at least one dumbass teenager who didn't deserve it, and wholly dedicated to public service. AND she had the mental strength to successfully play defense in a war of attrition her own goddamn brain was waging for twenty-seven goddamn years. Do not go gentle.
Eight years ago, a dear friend shot herself.
The proximate cause was a vicious campaign of sexual harassment at work, but she'd struggled with depression for at least a decade prior to that.
"Struggled with depression" is a common phrase, but it doesn't really capture what happens when you wake up one day and realize that you turned into the abyss when you weren't looking. I think it should be something like "Anna held out for fifteen years against a vicious anaconda attack that slowly strangled her essence," or maybe "Anna finally succumbed to an autoimmune disorder of the will," or maybe "stave 4 soul cancer" or . . . or . . . Every once in a while someone will write a book like Prozac Nation or Unholy Ghost or write a tearful article in the Guardian or New York Times attempting to articulate what happened to them and the figurative language flows long. How do you describe not being you for months, years, decades on end, and how do you describe what replaces you during that time?
I think part of the struggle for a perfect metaphor stems from the fact that depressives are really, really hard to empathize with. The DSM diagnostic criteria for major depressive order don't really capture the fact that the symptoms mostly manifest as unlikable or problematic traits. It looks like self-centeredness, flakiness, poor judgment, not having your shit together, bad hygiene, aloofness, complete apathy, or, in Anna's case, an underlying fragility. I remember rolling my eyes at something she said about ten hours before she died. Come on, just get over it, document that shit, call your fucking lawyer, and take 'em to the cleaners.
All this is bullshit, of course. Anna was not fragile. Any normal person suddenly struck with everything Anna faced on an average day would have to be hospitalized.
And you know what? Even with all that going on at her center, it wasn't her defining characteristic. Anna was clever, witty, beautiful, kind to at least one dumbass teenager who didn't deserve it, and wholly dedicated to public service. AND she had the mental strength to successfully play defense in a war of attrition her own goddamn brain was waging for twenty-seven goddamn years. Do not go gentle.
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Depression is the worst kind of killer.
It corners you at night,
or when you're all alone,
and slowly eats away
at any shred of happiness it can find
until there's nothing left
but pain
and…