[stylist] Writers and depression

[Vejas Vasiliauskas]

Helen,
I think that your point makes a lot of sense.
I feel that people do not really understand the degree to which 
one is unhappy because they can't step into your head and really 
understand it.  The last half of junior year, for various reasons 
I did not like going to my school (meaeaning the particular 
high-school campus I attend), and I hated/dreaded going back 
after taking a vacation but always went in anyway.
Well I've pulled through, still go to the same school and am 
happier with it, but if my family really knew how unhappy I was 
at the time, I think I'd be at this school today.  Much of it 
just had to do with what was going on there at the time.
I'm just giving this example because people know you are unhappy, 
but just don't know HOW bad.
I want to be an English teacher and an advice columnist for a 
newspaper, and like reading Dear Abby in my spare time.  If 
someone wrote about being unhappy, Abby would just advocate 
medicating them.
Honestly, no matter how badly that I am feeling, I would never 
want to be medicated.  I would be perfectly willing to talk out 
my problems but no, I would not want to use medicine that would 
change me into some mechanical person.  I've also heard that 
medication stalls your creative writing.
I think that some of the time when we are unhappy it is about one 
specific issue and if that issue is resolved, it is better.  But 
sometimes when we are unhappy about multiple things, they all 
blend so much that it is hard to know the exact reason.
Vejas
----- Original Message -----
From: EJ Kobek via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:33:35 -0500
Subject: Re: [stylist] Writers and depression

If we're thinking about depression = unhappiness, then writers' 
heightened
consciousness could be an element.  Consciousness of injustice, 
suffering
(ours and others')....

As Alice James was quoted as saying in her journal, however, 
(included in
my book *Everyday Cruelty) *"Ah, those strange people who have 
the courage
to be unhappy! Are they unhappy, by-the -way?"

I know there are biological underpinnings (I.e., neurotransmitter 
problems,
poor uptake, adrenal gland burn out, thyroid issues, etc.) 
*sometimes* to
unhappiness, but I think our culture far too often labels mere 
misery
and yawning consciousness as depression, thus neutralizing our 
voices,
relegating those such folks to, oh, "mentally ill," instead of 
aware and
articulate.  Another favorite quotation, related: "Societies 
honor their
live conformists and their dead rebels." Something like
that.....Medicalizing unhappiness is a superior and effective way 
of
silencing people's deep and true voices.

Oh, joy.  Sob.  Whimper.  Sigh.  Be okay.  Be fine.  Be great.

Helen
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