Awesome Things About College

[highlyeccentric]

Y'know what? College is actually a pretty damn awesome place. And formal dinners lately have been pretty damn awesome.

Last week we had an intensely amusing woman whose name I've forgotten, but who was at an earlier stage in her career the only practicing sexologist in Sri Lanka and is now high up in the sexual health unit at Cumbo campus. In hindsight, she was weirdly conservative in places, or at least saying things which fuel conservative tropes about sex.¹ But she was there, she was frank, and she was deliberately funny. The waves of giggling across the hall weren't exactly comfortable belly laughs, but, as the Pauls Boys present later remarked upon with astonishment, they were the nervous laughs of two hundred and fifty girls actually engaging with a sex talk. I dunno about you, but I think it's pretty awesome when the post-speaker question time means intelligent questions about orgasms and oxytocin and what have you bouncing back and forth across the formal dining hall.

This week we had Proffessor Ian someone-or-other, fahye's hero in life and the bigwig behind Beyond Blue, talking about youth mental illness and the problems with making information and assistance available. What was really awesome was standing around in the commmon room afterwards, drinking tea, in a group which fluctuated between five and twenty people, tossing around thoughts and experiences on stress, anxiety, depression and so on.

I realised as I was walking back up here- until tonight, I'd never met anyone who can say I had depression- with the exception of five or six people I knew through school who had depression until they had a spectacular conversion moment.²
I guess a lot of people who have had depression don't go around telling everyone. Might it make a difference if they did? Might it be easier to convince friends to seek help if more happy, vibrant people were out there saying "I got help, it worked!" Might it be easier to seek help oneself? Might it go a long way to counter the 'counselling is for REALLY CRAZY PEOPLE' mentality, and the 'I'm not sure how helpful it really is to keep rehashing things in shrink's offices' mentality that people of my mother's generation are still passing on to their (nearly-grown) kids?

Conclusion: College is a pretty awesome place.

~

1. Masking tape analogy, anyone? Once you've had that one shouted at you by a prancing representative of the True Love Waits Society, you start to become very suspicious of anyone using keywords like that.
2. If it works, far be it from me to decry it. However, in the case of one formerly close friend, all that changed was that she no longer thought she had depression, and as well as demonstrating all the symptoms she had before, she became a sanctimonious so-and-so into the equation, so you'll forgive me for a little skepticism.

Comments

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Thing no. 1 - yes! Sometimes I am very glad I'm at college.

Thing no. 2 - I like the sound of that playlist. What's on it?

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Thing 1- I wish I'd started appreciating it earlier...

Thing 2- Powderfinger (selections from Oddessey # 5, and the entirety of Vulture Street); The Whitlams (all of Eternal Nightcap, some of Torch the Moon); a couple of Finn Brothers songs; selected Matchbox 20; Foo Fighters; Dido (to break up the husky male voices); U2; Maroon Five; Live; a handful of dorky Christian rock songs; some Bernard Fanning (although technically too late for the playlist, as I was looking to compile my favourite songs from 2005); Goo Goo Dolls; Creed; a couple of songs each by Lifejouse, Killing Heidi, Nickelback, Nirvana, Incubus, Silverchair and Metallica; plus a few one-offs like Bittersweet Symphony; something called 'The Freshmen'; Breakfast at Tiffany's; Semi-Charmed Life... and so on the list goes. I think there's some GBS in there as well.

I heard My Happiness (Powderfinger) on the train station this morning, and it reminded me, as always, of a very good friend I haven't seen for years now... So I sat down and stuffed a playlist with all the songs we liked together, and all the songs I was listening to when we were together.

Besides, you can't go past angsty gruff male voices singing tortured lyrics ;)
(especially the lead singer from Great Big Sea... mmm...)

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

re: the masking tape analogy, wouldn't that occur with marital sex as well?

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

yeah, they dodge around that one. Either a) GOD BLESSES YOU or b) sex isn't that important or c) you shouldn't have too much marital sex either.

anyway. *hisses* i don't like it. It implies that a) you lose parts of yourself and b) that you're 'dirtied' by contact with other people. BAH. there has to be a way to talk about sex and abstinence without the scare tactics...

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

a) GOD BLESSES YOU is something you say after you sneeze (almost), not something you say after married couples sex. b) it may not be important, but it happens. c) that doesn't stop it from happening (i.e. see b))

*hisses* indeed. Why does sex have to be so taboo? At least they haven't gotten Shannon Doherty preaching abstinence; have you seen Scare Tactics? It's an absolutely awful show (quality, I mean) where people get thrown into bizarre (rarely, but sometimes)-OMFGWTFH-levels-of-adrenaline-inducing situations, in the style of Candid Camera (i.e. they don't know it's all fake). One girl that was on the show got put in the situation where she was "looking after" a woman "stuck in bed". She later found out that her patient was a "captive", chained to her bed, and that the girl's "employer" was the one "keeping" her there. He "arrives home early" while the girl is trying to "free" the "captive woman" and, upon seeing the girl looking at the woman's chained-up leg, "decides" he has to "kill" her "or" make her a new "captive", and thus begins brandishing a syringe-full of "sedatives" at her.

Um... my point was this: imagine that shit being used to preach/induce abstinence. (Btw, that completely tangetal thought process was your fault. Don't even try pinning it on me. :P)

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

Oh, btw, after he starts brandishing the syringe and she starts nearly wetting herself, he says "AHAHA! You're on SCARE TACTICS!" And she's all WTF?!; they actually had to explain to the poor dear that it wasn't real. (Well, they had to explain to the actor, at least; somehow I don't think they use real people).

[ahsavka.livejournal.com]

I'd never met anyone who can say I had depression

I know people who say "I got help, it worked!", but they wouldn't say the above, because most of them are still taking medication or receiving other forms of therapy. I went to camp with a girl who was diagnosed with depression at age nine -- at nine, full of sadness, she went up to her mother and said "Mom, I am so unhappy, I don't even want to live anymore". At nine! This story shocked the holy hell out of me, when she told it, because she was such a cheery, normal person. Smiling a lot, laughing a lot. Why? Because she had a pretty severe chemical imbalance and got it straightened out early on. She said "I have depression" even though she hadn't felt a symptom for many years because she was still being treated.

I know of alcoholics who talk like this, too. They haven't had a drink in ages, but they don't say "I used to be an alcoholic", they still are alcoholics. They can't drink, now. But they're sober, so the problems of alcoholism don't affect them except in needing to avoid alcoholic beverages.

I think I am just nitpicking on your language, maybe -- I agree that successful cases should speak out more. The girl I spoke about really made a big impression on me. I wish other people could hear her story, because ... I don't know why, exactly. She was so earnest, and the fact that the medication worked, 100% effectively, to stop her problem ... I wish it would happen like that for everyone.

(I posted this in a reply to a comment, by accident, the first time. XD For some reason this particular layout confuses the crud out of me, sorry.)

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I know there are perfectly functional people who still 'have' depression- but when you're trying to convince someone to go to therapy, that doesn't help. If they're going to have to live with it FOREVAR, why even try to fix it? (I know it's bad logic, but depressed and anxious people have bad logic.)

But for some people, depression does pass. If you have cancer, and go into remission, you know it could come back, but you don't still tell people 'I have cancer'- you tell them 'I HAD cancer, but I went into remission x years ago'. None of the girls who had HAD depression were saying they're invulnerable now- as one of them said 'if things come up, and I don't process them the right way, I could end up there again'. But right now, they *don't* have it, and I've never ever met anyone who could say that.

[ahsavka.livejournal.com]

Me neither. But if it's possible, I wish that kind of reversal on anyone who's suffered with depression.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I guess the thing is that not all people with clinical depression have *chemical* depression... And if there's no permanent chemical imbalance, then it comes down to the right therapy at the right time, plus a bit of luck, and so on...

[iremos.livejournal.com]

Heehee, I miss Women's!

Speaking from personal experience...

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

It's possible that a lot of people who have had depression don't feel 100% sure that it's gone forever, and so don't feel comfortable (or honest) talking about it in the past tense. It's also possible that some people are afraid of jinxing it by announcing that they're definitely cured.

I am reasonably open about my history (periodic depression, ranging from mild to moderate, for the last five years) but I really think of it as being under control now, rather than cured. Like asthma, rather than mono. And I'm fine with that, and very grateful – but it wouldn't sound particularly encouraging to someone who was in the midst of a bad depression.

i agree - it's complicated...

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

i "had" depression last year, in first semester.

i'm not depressed now, but i do feel that it could come back; and also it's kind of hard to say at what point you're officially depressed? because mine only lasted for a semester, and the only counsellor i saw was a trainee type one at uni, and i never had to get 'officially' called 'depressed'.

but i had this kind of general level of sadness and despair that was not exactly worse than 'normal sadness', but different. it had a different quality to it, you could say.

it was certainly the first time i've ever thought that i'd rather die - that death was a viable option. the thought scared me at the time but it had never seemed real like that before. now when i'm feeling down i sometimes think in a similar spiral, which is that i'm unhappy with what i'm doing or whatever and can't think of a good alternative and so then i think i may as well die - but now, in my non-Depressed state, i do realise that that is silly and that i don't really want to die. but it does worry me a little that i still think that way.

not sure if that makes sense.

but anyway it's not easy to talk about, not only for the whole making-yourself-vulnerable thing, but also because there are all sorts of blurry edges and what not.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

... although it was worse than 'normal sadness', as well. hmm. not explaining that well. it was more permanent-feeling, i guess.

Re: i agree - it's complicated...

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I know... one of the things the oldest 'recoveree' was saying is a problem that there's no vocabulary to talk about grades of mental health, like there are anything else. You can be 'a little overweight', 'overweight', 'obese', 'morbidly obese', but people want to think about 'having depression' or not- if you Have Depression you're screwed, and if you don't, you should just buck up.

Professor Ian Someone-Or-Other was complaining that if people are a little bit sick, they go to the doctor and get it fixed before it's life threatening (or someone makes them)- but if your mental health is a little bit out of alignment, no one goes to get it treated *on the spot* and everyone expects you to buck up until it's a REAL PROBLEM, but which time it could be too late to really fix it.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

'zactly

Re: Speaking from personal experience...

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Both of the girls last night were talking about it like cancer- I don't *have* it now, but it can come back. Some people, I guess, go into remission and still wander around saying 'I have cancer, I'm in remission now but it could come back at any time'- most, though say they *don't* have it, even while acknowledging that the celestial dice are weighed against them.
There's no *word* like that for depression, and perhaps there ought to be.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

I think sea_of_tethys kind of gave you a term for that, above: "under control now." Depression can be treated.

Thing about cancer in remission, is that it gets smaller and vanishes altogether. Depression, in my experience, never really 'goes away.' You just get better, become functional, etc.

And sometimes that hard work can be undone. :(