The Circle Jerk of Despair
For most of my life, I’ve battled with depression. It’s been heavy and unrelenting like a flu of the brain, and it’s been lingering and nagging like a dry cough that just won’t seem to fully go away. The medication that once made it better, suddenly made me itchy, severely itchy, a few years ago, and I thought that was it. I’d just have to drag around my brain flu in all its various stages for the rest of my life.
Then, I found a new — or rather old — medication that once did nothing and now works well. The nagging cough in my brain that I’d come to think of as “normal,” and “well” went away. Thinking positive thoughts and getting on board with the self-help mantras of manifesting and self-care and believing in oneself suddenly didn’t seem like crazy impossible things. I mean, the idea of “manifesting” money by “putting out energy” still sounds a little illogical, but the happiest people I know are a little illogical. They embrace all kinds of magic that they actually generate themselves.
And a lot of them are the kind of sensitive souls I once thought couldn’t possibly be happy, walking around absorbing other people’s energies and emotional states all the time.
I’m not talking about the “overly-sensitive” internet commenter looking for a fight about something, the kind who isn’t actually sensitive so much as looking for trouble to stir up. That’s kind of the opposite of highly-sensitive people who don’t need — or want — to stir up anything else, and often enjoy quiet spaces away from people and social media to recharge.
“Overly sensitive” is often used as a weapon these days by people who, frankly, want an excuse to be a dick. They don’t want to consider other people’s feelings or concerns. They often rally against “political correctness” and probably spent last month rudely yelling “Merry Christmas” at unsuspecting cashiers because nothing says holiday cheer like a weaponized greeting.
Being upset by children not having health care, by hate speech, by the waves of women speaking out about abuse and harassment, about the possibility of more war, about pollution and the destruction of the environment doesn’t make one a “pussy” or “overly-sensitive.” These are things people should be concerned about. They’re things people should care about. It’s being human.
But humans are hard-wired, too, to blend in. Which means if you get a bunch of people together who tend to act a certain way, they perpetuate that behavior. Even if you only have a few jerks, if their personality is strong, they’ll influence the group to be more jerklike overall.
I follow (online, not in person; that’d be weird) a lot of writers and people in the writing/publishing industry. Or, people who are connected by blogging or reading or public relations or what have you. Writers, in particular, can be a maudlin bunch. Like most artists, they’re either riddled with self-doubt or obnoxiously sure of themselves — and sometimes one is a mask for the other.
Most aren’t jerks. Most don’t spent their time posting memes to “roast” strangers. They’re busy cobbling together a career out of projects that pay, per hour, less than picking vegetables. Which means most spend a lot of time eeking out a living out of freelance gigs that pay better, day and night jobs in service and retail, or alternative careers ranging from lawyer to plant manager. They’re busy, but they still have time to complain about the state of the industry and the world and people they think are doing it all wrong.
In other words, you have to take a lot of what they say with a grain of salt. Even me. Here, have some salt.
But you also have to protect your mental space. Especially if you’re prone to picking up other people’s energies. Because time spent with people who are simultaneously projecting a well-adjusted happy face while seething about perceived injustice or on the verge of a breakdown or depressive dip can be exhausting. Being one of those people is even more exhausting.
And it can get inside your head. If you’re already prone to bouts of melancholy, depression, or questioning your self-worth, spending time with others who suffer the same thing — and project judgment or victimhood to assuage their fears — can exacerbate the condition. It’s important to know when to walk away and recharge, to reclaim your own headspace.
Artists, in general, can be a judgmental lot. Much of it is projection. They’re worried they aren’t doing it right or they’ll never be as good as they want to be or as good as their idols or their own imagined greatness. They’re scared they’ll get left behind while their artist friends find success and take off to become ba-jillionaires on the cover of magazines.
And they waffle between these feelings and knowing they need to just buckle down and do the work, to get better incrementally, to quit worrying and comparing and finish their projects. When they succeed in getting over the hurdles in their mind, they want to tell everyone how they did it or judge everyone who’s still mired in mental bullshit.
There’s also a lot of mental illness that runs rampant through the arts that fights artists at every turn. It’s an idea that’s been romanticized over the centuries and no matter how many mutilate or murder themselves, there’s a cultural belief that to be talented one much be crazy — and that to get help, to find medication that works or therapy that retrains bad habits, is to throw talent away.
Even people who intellectually know better can fall prey to this. Especially those who’ve read accounts from past artists — whether painters, writers, actors, or musicians — who tried medication and lost their muse or minds. It’s easy to believe the anecdote over the evidence and it’s how there are whole communities experiencing measles epidemics.
Anecdotes “feel” better than statistics. (It’s also why no amount of economic proof will outweigh the cry of “they took our jobs,” which South Park has used repeatedly.) It’s also human nature to look for things that back up our own biases. Even when those biases hurt us.
Thing is, new medications are released often and so much of the public experiences symptoms of a mental illness that bringing new drugs to market is profitable. Beyond that, what failed for a person a few years ago might suddenly work — or stop working. Body chemistry and sensitivity changes, which is why we can develop an allergy to something even as adults or we can find our favorite childhood foods no longer hold appeal.
Depressed, frustrated people who get together to talk about the things frustrating them can be downright toxic — whether it’s writers discussing how no one reads anymore or it’s eighteen-year-old boys who hate women they fear won’t date them. It can feel supportive to find others who agree, but if all you’re doing is participating in a circle jerk of despair or hate, it’s toxic.
That toxicity is rooted in self-doubt, their own fears about worth and terror of never achieving their dreams — whether those dreams are secret wishes for bestseller status or a supermodel to go to Olive Garden with them. Both groups are also pinning their dreams on others. One is at the mercy of the market, of cultural trends, and marketing. The other is at the mercy of women who may not even exist paying them attention in front of others.
Rooting our important dreams in other people’s gardens is bound to be depressing and frustrating. We’re not in control and it makes it easy to lash out at those we feel aren’t giving us the things we want.
Having dreams that we turn to goals that we work toward through daily tasks are great. Dreams that are just fantasies we expect to turn real are not.
Maybe the problem is in the word itself. Funny thing about English in that we use dream for the inventions of the subconscious when we sleep, for the fantasies and worries we entertain when our mind wanders in meetings, but also our loftiest goals, the things we hope to achieve. By using the same word, we dupe ourselves into thinking our daydream of winning the lottery is the same as our dream of being a great kindergarten teacher.
If we fantasize about the bestseller list, but we dream of just writing the best book we can and work toward it, we can eventually achieve a book. And each subsequent book will likely be better than the rest. We have to believe in ourselves enough to do that, though.
Belief in oneself is also how frustrated eighteen-year-olds can eventually get dates. Even without power and money, love comes to those who love themselves first.
(Well, unless you’re a certain “stable genius,” but that dude looks miserable, so maybe don’t make him a role model. Seriously, I don’t think he’s smiled in two years if not longer and when he tries, it’s the kind of creepy smile serial-killing clowns give in B-rated IT knockoffs.)
Cut off the toxic for a while. Learn to love you. Learn to love your work. Learn to love your passions.
Don’t confuse fantasies with dreams or goals. And do the work.
Wow, that was a lot. You made it to the end. That makes you awesome! Hell, put this on your to-do list and then check it off. Now, seriously, go do your work. Meet your goals. Love you. Be the best you, even if that’s being your own dork.
