talk is cheap
As someone who obviously suffers from depression, anxiety and other self-defeating ailments, I find myself surprised that I am having a problem with this recent 'mental health awareness' trend that seems to be sweeping the nation. To blanket all 'ill' feelings under the banner of mental illness, I think, is simply too broad and too restrictive a term. I recently spent time with a friend who I suspect feels that I'm a lot more 'worse for wear' than I actually am. His delicate attempts to broach the subject the other day while we watched a Basketball game left me feeling judged and slightly perturbed. His analogy that people who don't feel like going out and avoid people are suffering from mental illness didn't sit well with me. Maybe I'm just not a people person. Maybe I enjoy my own company. Sure, I do have bad days where the world seems like a black ball of horror...but have you looked outside recently? Watch the news for a week and tell me that the world is a wonderful place and that I should 'get out more' and 'explore' all the wonders and smiling faces that await me. This, coming from someone who ended each and every message over the course of 2-3 days with 'I hope we can hang soon' or 'look forward to hanging soon'...to the point where I felt obligated to see him. I didn't drive 45 minutes in traffic to make myself feel better...I did it because he was the one literally crying out for someone to spend some time with him. At first, I thought it was because we just hadn't hung out for a while...he missed talking sports, or going out on the balcony for a smoke...but when I got there, I was instantly regaled with the real reason why he was desperate for me to come over. The girl he had been talking to and seeing the past couple of months hadn't called or texted him in a day and a half and he needed something, someone to distract him. It wasn't about me...it was about him. For him to then turn it around and attempt to probe me for some juicy bit of self loathing or 'feeling' felt forced and totally disingenuous. It pissed me off. Instantly he sensed my awkwardness and attempted to change the subject with a 'sorry to get all serious on you bro', but the damage had already been done.
I feel like this is what's happening with the whole 'Let's talk' movement that has been front and center in the media the last little while. It's as if the people wanting to start the dialogue have their own motives and reasons for wanting to 'break the silence', not for a second realizing that these things run deeper than simply having someone 'open up' about their damage and that that will somehow fix the problem. And when I say the problem, I'm not talking about mental health...I'm talking about whatever big fucking cloud they themselves see off on the horizon over my head. They don't know me. The world bothers me. People bother me. Can that be fixed by talking about it. Bullshit!
I found my corner to shout in. I come here to vent, to attempt to articulate what I'm going through for my own benefit. If it clicks with someone reading it, great. But I don't do it to get a response from anyone other than myself. I'm an intensely private person, and this is my way. That may fly in the face of 'common wisdom' with regards to why people write blogs, or post things on facebook...but i truly, in my heart, do this to understand myself better. To spit it all out on the virtual page and read it back to myself so that I may glean some insight as to why things bother me the way they do. I don't post here so that others may attempt to 'help' me or offer their own insight, though sometimes their insight is insightful and is cause for me to look even more inward.
No, I think this whole fad of talking about and attempting to define the troubles and problems people have is simply another half-hearted band-aid solution for those who desperately want to feel as if they are doing something to help others. When I hear people talk about how helping others or giving their time to the less fortunate makes them 'feel good about themselves' it makes me feel like they're just doing it for their own selfish gratification. Their lives are empty, or not complete, so they seek out sad people to cheer up to feel useful. I am oversimplifying here, obviously, and there are people who genuinely want to help others...its just their thing...but they don't push their agenda. They don't force it on the unwilling and uncomfortable. To me, its the difference between an open door, and having someone outside that door trying to get people to come inside. Why do you want me to come inside so bad? What's in it for you? So they'll continue to pay you to stand outside that door and shepherd more people to walk through that 'open' door so that you feel useful? So YOU can go about your day without feeling sad and useless.
Clearly I'm not a candidate for open dialogue. Maybe I'm in denial. Maybe talking to 'someone' would help...but if there's one thing I've had repeatedly made clear to me in my life, its that most people can't handle 'the truth'. The real, ugly, in-your-face truth of the matter. It instantly changes the relationship. It instantly paints you with a brush you weren't intending. No, I'd rather continue to rant into my corner and attempt to make sense of the echo over talk to some 'friend' who really is more interested in coming to grips with their own shit than mine. The next time I hang out with this friend of mine, I know the inevitable conversation about the elephant in the room will occur...and that just colours the whole experience of hanging out with my friend. I came over to watch a Basketball game and offer you a little company, and instead, I have a spotlight shone on me and my imagined faults, if ever so briefly. Maybe this friend of mine who I've known for almost a decade and seen regularly was more a drinking buddy than a true friend? He's the one who changed the dynamic weeks ago...and now I'm the one stuck attempting to find a way for things to 'stay the same' between us. I'm the prick if I tell him he pushed too hard. I'll be the one who's in denial...the one who doesn't want to face my problems...to talk to him about them. Fuck that!
You open a serious can of worms prying into other peoples lives...friend or no friend. Does he seriously think I'm so far down that I'd kill myself? That I'm a walking time bomb of misery waiting for the spark that sets me off. Maybe I should just appreciate the gesture...the attempt...but all it did was make me feel like I was pitiful. I can do that all by myself thankyouverymuch...I don't need my 'friends' to remind me when all I want to do is give the guy a few hours of my time to get him off my back about hanging out.
See what happens when I try and do the 'right' thing? This is my life. I'm fucking cursed.
I feel like this is what's happening with the whole 'Let's talk' movement that has been front and center in the media the last little while. It's as if the people wanting to start the dialogue have their own motives and reasons for wanting to 'break the silence', not for a second realizing that these things run deeper than simply having someone 'open up' about their damage and that that will somehow fix the problem. And when I say the problem, I'm not talking about mental health...I'm talking about whatever big fucking cloud they themselves see off on the horizon over my head. They don't know me. The world bothers me. People bother me. Can that be fixed by talking about it. Bullshit!
I found my corner to shout in. I come here to vent, to attempt to articulate what I'm going through for my own benefit. If it clicks with someone reading it, great. But I don't do it to get a response from anyone other than myself. I'm an intensely private person, and this is my way. That may fly in the face of 'common wisdom' with regards to why people write blogs, or post things on facebook...but i truly, in my heart, do this to understand myself better. To spit it all out on the virtual page and read it back to myself so that I may glean some insight as to why things bother me the way they do. I don't post here so that others may attempt to 'help' me or offer their own insight, though sometimes their insight is insightful and is cause for me to look even more inward.
No, I think this whole fad of talking about and attempting to define the troubles and problems people have is simply another half-hearted band-aid solution for those who desperately want to feel as if they are doing something to help others. When I hear people talk about how helping others or giving their time to the less fortunate makes them 'feel good about themselves' it makes me feel like they're just doing it for their own selfish gratification. Their lives are empty, or not complete, so they seek out sad people to cheer up to feel useful. I am oversimplifying here, obviously, and there are people who genuinely want to help others...its just their thing...but they don't push their agenda. They don't force it on the unwilling and uncomfortable. To me, its the difference between an open door, and having someone outside that door trying to get people to come inside. Why do you want me to come inside so bad? What's in it for you? So they'll continue to pay you to stand outside that door and shepherd more people to walk through that 'open' door so that you feel useful? So YOU can go about your day without feeling sad and useless.
Clearly I'm not a candidate for open dialogue. Maybe I'm in denial. Maybe talking to 'someone' would help...but if there's one thing I've had repeatedly made clear to me in my life, its that most people can't handle 'the truth'. The real, ugly, in-your-face truth of the matter. It instantly changes the relationship. It instantly paints you with a brush you weren't intending. No, I'd rather continue to rant into my corner and attempt to make sense of the echo over talk to some 'friend' who really is more interested in coming to grips with their own shit than mine. The next time I hang out with this friend of mine, I know the inevitable conversation about the elephant in the room will occur...and that just colours the whole experience of hanging out with my friend. I came over to watch a Basketball game and offer you a little company, and instead, I have a spotlight shone on me and my imagined faults, if ever so briefly. Maybe this friend of mine who I've known for almost a decade and seen regularly was more a drinking buddy than a true friend? He's the one who changed the dynamic weeks ago...and now I'm the one stuck attempting to find a way for things to 'stay the same' between us. I'm the prick if I tell him he pushed too hard. I'll be the one who's in denial...the one who doesn't want to face my problems...to talk to him about them. Fuck that!
You open a serious can of worms prying into other peoples lives...friend or no friend. Does he seriously think I'm so far down that I'd kill myself? That I'm a walking time bomb of misery waiting for the spark that sets me off. Maybe I should just appreciate the gesture...the attempt...but all it did was make me feel like I was pitiful. I can do that all by myself thankyouverymuch...I don't need my 'friends' to remind me when all I want to do is give the guy a few hours of my time to get him off my back about hanging out.
See what happens when I try and do the 'right' thing? This is my life. I'm fucking cursed.
posted by neil at 10:00 PM
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