I just read this thread. Warning: it is pathetic and the OP admits as much.
My plea to Beware of Doug: Find some self-awareness and inner strength. Some dignity. Gain some perspective and some clarity. Stop going to message boards like the one linked to in that thread.
I know you are depressed. I don’t know how your depression feels for you, but I know how it makes me feel. Hopeless. Like whatever I say about my situation is pointless, too hard to put into words, and bound to be misunderstood, so there’s no sense in talking. About anything. Sometimes I feel like it would be ever so nice for all the happy-shiny people to just roll off the face of the Earth and leave me alone. Sometimes I wish I could get away with walking around with a scarf wrapped around the lower half of my mouth so that I don’t have to show facial expressions or be expected to speak. Actually, I feel like this a lot of times. That’s why when it’s time to leave work, I don’t waste a single second. I instantly retreat into a nice, comfortable bubble of quiet and inner-ness. Self-imposed autism.
When the urge to escape reality becomes almost irresistable, I find someone who understands. Like my doctor. Because I know that the feeling is not right, that I’m not being rational. I know that it’s up to me to upright things and make the world okay again. As long as I can hold onto this token of reality, then I will never willfully lose myself. I give myself permission to skate on the edge, but not to dip my toe into the pool of the abyss.
I guess I’m posting this because I believe you are not doing yourself or other depressed Dopers any favors. You are not intentionally being a drag–I don’t believe–but that’s what you are being. And it’s gettin’ on my last nerve. Based on your posting history, I still don’t know if you’re really interested in getting well or just wallowing, as evidenced by posts like this one that serve no good purpose at all. Why do you do this? Does it really make you feel better? It makes me not have sympathy for you. It actually makes me despise you, to be honest, which is a feeling I do not like to feel. I am trying to be a more compassionate, empathetic person. But you’re kinda making it hard, man.
So I know that if I, a person who understands how it feels to be depressed and borderline crazy, is feeling this way, people who are not and have never been in this situation have got to be feeling something similar. Which really sucks. For you. And for anyone else who has mental health issues.
This isn’t a Pit thread born out of meanness, and I am asking posters not to pile on with vitriol. But I am sick of you playing the helpless victim card. I want you to get help and start posting some interesting stories about your life. I simply cannot imagine that your life is as horrible and sucky as you make it sound; it is your perception of it that is warped. I just want you to acknowledge this and try to combat it somehow. Or at least make an effort by not posting trollery foolishness…even if you do later apologize for it. I don’t think it’s good for your health and I do not want to see you banned. And like I said, it’s also workin a sista’s nerves. We can’t have that.
I read that thread, and then I went to the thread linked to. It was a rough experience, and I had my shields up.
I used to lurk a bit over at intpcentral, but I don’t anymore because of some of the posters in threads like that. Some of those people are some of the most insidious trolls I’ve ever seen. Some of those people aren’t INTPs, but would instead fit better with an INXJ classification*; people who get a kick out of manipulating the “weaker” (more open, more earnest) P types, and consider it a win for themselves if they can sow doubt and self-recrimination in others. It’s disgusting. It’s all the more disgusting that some of them are incredibly adept and subtle in doing so.
Doug , if you read this, I hope you get on top of things again soon. And for everyone struggling with depression in whatever form, please be discriminating in where you turn for whatever sort of information input you are seeking - some people out there are really fucking sick bastards.
*I no longer believe that the Meyers-Briggs system has much merit, but I still understand the mindset and the lingo. I don’t wish to disparage all people who would identify with the INFJ or INTJ types, but it seems to me people with sadistic or sociopathic tendencies would adopt an INXJ persona as opposed to an INTP type.
I checked out that thread on the other site that Beware of Doug linked to, and I can understand why stupid comments like “depressed people disgust me” might have set him off.
Without specific reference to Beware of Doug, that’s what major depression is.
It sounds like you’re telling him to suck it up and be an accomplished depressed person, like you. :rolleyes:
Piling on is what Pit threads often turn into. I think you could have displayed concern far better by contacting him in private.
I’m not going to try to judge a person whose travails and level of support I am in no position to evaluate. I wish him the strength to tune out jerks and hang in until the black clouds lift, which they will.
Of course. And that’s why I told him to stay away from those kind of threads and/or message boards.
But you know what? Sometimes people get something out of being kicked in the nuts repeatedly, as strange as that sounds. And it seems like BoD is one of these people. Study his posting history if you doubt me. He frequently sings a sad song about how mean and hateful people are, how the world sucks, how life is hard and everyone is a fool for trying to hang in there. And then he shows us where he hangs out. Sounds like wallowing behavior. Not productive behavior.
Well, duh. But you do recognize the difference between a post like “I’m really depressed. Everything just feels bad right now” and “Life sucks and you’re a sucker if you disagree.” The first is something I sympathize with. The second just makes me want to scream “SHUT UP!” I want BoD to see that when he posts like that, he’s either going to be ignored or be treated badly because it is just so over-the-top delusional. If he doesn’t want people to be mean and hateful, he needs to realize that his patterns are creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. If he wants people to be sympathetic to depressives, he needs to stop telling them they’re suckers for simply refusing not to stare into the abyss (because it eventually stares back at you!)
You can interpret the OP any way you like. But I don’t think that’s my intention because I hate the whole “suck it up/tough love” stuff. Fortunately no one has ever told me to “suck it up” but I imagine it would make me angry if they did. I also imagine that the reason no one has ever told me to “suck it up” is because I don’t beat people over the head with my “woe is me”. I may talk about my history of depression and my on-going drama with my wonky brain and and my weird personality. It all may bore the hell out of people, and I can only apologize and hope that people’s scroll keys work. But I don’t try to take people down with me when I post. I try to keep my head. Not stay positive (I hate that phrase). But keep it real.
All I’m saying is BoD ain’t keeping it real. He’s living with family who is supporting him indefinitely. He’s bright enough to be able to get into graduate school (don’t know if he’s still there). He doesn’t have any qualms about not having a job and his lack of work ethic. He doesn’t see anything wrong with not working against his mental health issues. Just because a person is depressed does not mean they automatically deserve sympathy and understanding. You can be a bastard and be depressed. You can even be depressed about being a bastard. That doesn’t mean your ass doesn’t deserve to be taken by shoulders and jolted back into reality.
I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been seeing too much sordid stuff in the news, locally as well as internationally. It just seems like when I hear a constant drum beat about how much life sucks, I can’t help but to get curious. I start thinking, “Are they right? Does life really suck?” I think about my pain and discontent, the confusion about myself that I experience, the embarrassment that I deal with on a daily basis but don’t really express because there’s no one to express to. Maybe they are right. Maybe tying that noose and “practicing” isn’t such a bad thing after all. But then I think, “Do I really need to be thinking about this? Life may or may not suck, but there’s nothing to gained by thinking about it. I just have to live. For whatever reason, I just have to live.”
So I guess I’m asking BoD to consider his audience. There are other depressives on this board too. And yes, some of them are trying to be “accomplished.” Is that such a bad thing? To try to fix yourself? Is it such a bad thing to live? Why should someone who’s struggling with that basic question be blasted by someone else’s “woe is me” schtick…when they just want to read a mundane thread and not think about escaping for once in their freakin’ adult life? BoD doesn’t like when people are mean towards depressives. I don’t either. and I don’t like when depressives make other depressives feel worse. I stopped going to message boards where this always happened and no one ever complained. I don’t need it infecting the StraightDope.
So if all of that means “suck it up”, I guess that’s what I’m saying.
No, because this thread isn’t just about BoD. It’s about other people like him. And I’m tired of people tip-toeing around, afraid to tell him the truth. It needs to be told out in the open. BoD is a grown-ass man. He has strength and brains and he has the capacity to come here and talk. I think that’s what he needs. A thread where he can talk it all out. I want him to explain why he thinks life sucks and why we should agree with him. I want other people to convince him he’s wrong and convince him to keep trying, if he’s trying at all. I also need to know if he’s for real and not just a troll. I’d hate it if he’s just been trolling.
Yes, they can lift. But as trite as this sounds, he has got to want them to lift. Again, if me saying that means I’m telling him to “suck it up”, then I guess that’s what I’m telling him. But I think I’m actually telling him something a little bit more nuanced than that.
I tend to agree with you, monstro, and I was going to post to the thread linked in your OP but it got locked before I had the chance. I actually thought the INTPcentral thread that **Doug **linked to started off with a valid topic of discussion, even if it did shortly go off the rails into “suck it up and don’t be a pansy”, which I agree is not at all helpful. But the starting premise of that thread was basically sound - depression doesn’t grant you permission to use and abuse other people in your life and it doesn’t mean you don’t ever have to take responsibility for anything.
I’ve been through the wringer of serious clinical depression myself, and it still rears its ugly head from time to time, so I’m not clueless about it. And I know, dear god do I know, that sometimes it all just seems so terribly pointless and you can’t bear to get out of bed and do *anything *to make yourself feel better. There is a dark place inside that doesn’t ever completely go away and fighting it can be exhausting. But wallowing (or worse, trying to get others to wallow with you) and using “but I’m depressed” as an excuse for everything and scoffing at anyone who doesn’t ‘see the truth’ of how much the world sucks is not going to make anything better. There is something to be said for taking even the most minor steps towards feeling somewhat better.
I’m not saying that Doug should ‘snap out of it’ and suddenly just not be depressed any more. Far from it - it’s a long hard road out of depression, and one filled with a seemingly infinite number of potential pitfalls. It’s a problem I still struggle with and probably always will. But I know a major component of learning to deal with my feeling was realizing that ultimately I was the only person responsible for myself and no amount of blaming my problems on other factors - my parents, the past, the generally cold unfeeling world - was going to improve anything.
The other day I was reading an I Ching related thing about how water doesn’t complain about the boulders in it’s path. I laughed, and immediately thought of a white water stream and how it COULD be interpreted as the water screaming and frothing in agony at slamming into the rocks over and over. I guess it just depends on how you look at it. But it also made me think of how much I hate stupid advice like that, like we should all just realize that we chose to be depressed (which isn’t true) and give it up.
The truth of it isn’t in the “oh just think another way”, but rather in realizing that the one power we do have is in what we choose to do with or about what we do feel.
Once you are outside of your depression, it is hard to remember it as it was. It affects your brain. It affects that part of the brain that makes judgments. You are blaming someone for bleeding at the wound that he has. That pisses me off. But I have to remember that Monstro has a wound in the same place and isn’t thinking clearly.
Each person’s depression is different from someone else’s. Just because you have depression that doesn’t mean that you know what someone else is going through.
Yes it damn well does. Just like people with any other serious and sometimes terminal illness. Everyone deserves sympathy and understanding. And for some people, depression is a disabling disease that keeps them from working. No one but their doctor is in a position to judge them. You may want to get hold of them and shake them, but that is a very inappropriate response even when it is figurative.
You don’t have to baby them or spoil them, but those who live with them do need to be kind and patient. It’s not their fault. It’s no one’s fault.
Ease up! You are no psychiatrist! Don’t pull off the scabs or open any boils. You don’t pit someone when they have clinical depression.
If you have influenza and I have a compromised immunity, I don’t want you sneezing all on me. Is that bad?
That’s what I’m trying to tell BoD. Of course I sympathize with people with depression. I’m always in a thread relaying my experience about how I have dealt with it and how bad it can be sometimes. I’ve never been one of those “suck it up” people. If there’s one thing that I can understand, it’s how disabling and delusional depression can make a person.
But that doesn’t mean a person with depression is a hopeless amoeba unable to change anything that might help themselves and that sympathy for them means, saying, “Oh yes, I know that life sucks too. Let’s just cry together.” That’s not compassion. That’s enabling. I think that’s the biggest misunderstanding people have about depression. That if you are depressed, you can’t bear ANY criticism–no matter how gentle stated. That it’s somehow mean to hold up a mirror to them and say, “Look at what you’re doing to yourself. Please, for the love of pete, do something.” Do you think this true?
I admit that sympathy and empathy don’t flow out of me often. I often don’t feel other people’s pain. I don’t get tears in my ears when I read a sad post. I don’t jump into Rescue 911 mode when someone says they’re going to kill themselves.
But I do feel sympathy for most of the depressives here. And even when he had that annoying thread about how he had it good because he didn’t have to work (which he attributed to his ADD) and how the rest of us were losers for being “productive” members of society, I had some sympathy because I could recognize he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Ignorance is always kind of pathetic.
But now, it’s just taxing. It seems like an act. Like I said, he seems like he wants to stay at the bottom and look at the world from that dark hole of his. Not only that, but pull this guilt trip/matyrdom thing on us…like the rest of us have put him in that hole. That is not the behavior of someone who wants sympathy. Perhaps I’m reading BoD all wrong. Maybe he’s exhausted everything to fight his depression and to change his perspective on things and he’s just frustrated. But it sure seems to me he’s given over to it and doing it in an obnoxious way. He’s asking too much of your average person (your average Doper) to be compassionate by going this route. And that’s why I’m saying his patterns are not doing him any favors.
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You don’t have to baby them or spoil them, but those who live with them do need to be kind and patient. It’s not their fault. It’s no one’s fault.
Do depressives need more kindness and patience than any else fighting a disease? Does this apply just to depressives or anyone with an wracked brain? If it’s alright for a depressive to post craziness on the board, why isn’t it alright for another depressive–one that is highly sensitive to other people’s batshit craziness–to tell him to shut the hell up, you’re driving me up the wall? Why does the first depressive deserve free reign to dump on the rest of us, but no one else gets to tell that depressive to stop what you’re doing and go get some help?
I have a fantasy that I sometimes clutch to in times of need. I love trees, and I’ve anthropomorphized my favorite ones. The tulip poplar is the big, strong-willed lady in the forest. Like, the big sister you can always depend on to take on a big project, like planning a wedding or cleaning up a disordered house. The rosebud is beautiful and kind, but frail and a little neurotic–shedding those pretty flowers the moment the sun gets too hot. Then there are two matriarchs. The silver maple is the grandmother of the forest. You run up to her and she’ll embrace you with her strong branches and then cheer up you by baking a batch of your favorite kind of tree cookies. If you tell her your worries, she’ll say, “Oh, baby, that’s not that big of a deal! Just go down to the river and ask for an extension.” Or whatever. Nothing’s ever wrong in the world with her. Life is sweet and you’ve just go to open your eyes to see it. You can escape your problems by nursing on her sap for awhile, but eventually it runs dry and you have to go home.
The other force is the gingko. Now the gingko is the oldest tree in the forest–a living fossil that hasn’t changed in millions of years. That means it’s the wisest of them all. And also a force that has seen it all. You go to Gingko when you realize your problems are much too serious for Silver Maple to handle. You go to Gingko when you need the truth, not cookies. Gingko won’t give you a hug. She’ll lower her sturdy branches and shake you by the shoulders and say, “What is wrong with you, human?” And when you can’t find the words to speak, she will read your mind. That’s how powerful she is.
If your problems are trivial, she’ll lift you up and toss you over to the copses of rosebuds and tulip poplars across the forest, where maybe the two of them can help you. But if you’re really messed up, Gingko will stow you away in her canopy and let you stay there as long as it takes for you to figure out what the hell you need to do to get out of your hole. She doesn’t do the thinking for you. She just gives you a place to do it. Every so often she’ll poke you and see if you’re making progress. Occasionally she’ll say, “Only you can fix this, human. You just have to find the strength that all living creatures have.” Maybe if she likes you, she’ll let you tap into energy well for awhile and you see what the world looks like from her eyes.
Guess which tree I admire the most.
I don’t think BoD needs a tulip, rosebud, or a silver maple. He’s in too deep and they’ll just pat him on the head and say “everything’s gonna be alright”. He needs to find a Gingko and really try to get this thing fixed. If that means leaving the nest and finding a hospital, that’s what he needs to do.
I was surprised it was a troll thread. I thought he was just playing a particularly nasty devil’s advocate.
Edit: by that I mean you could tell his heart wasn’t in it by his choice of language, if that makes sense.
I thought the reasoning in the linked OP was interesting. Depressed people are the realists, and so those who are seeing the real world as is are the ones who should be… exterminated? Is the idea that objectivity is in itself a form of incurable mental illness which threatens the well being of the genuinely crazy optimists?
That makes it sound like you feel that Beware of Doug should write his posts so he doesn’t trigger depression in other people because they may be in the audience. I don’t think that’s possible. People can be triggered by any number of things. People can’t change their style or writing to account for all the different ways people on the board may be triggered.
I would suggest that you put Beware of Doug on ignore if he bothers your sensitivities. If you’re trying to help him, I don’t think Pitting is the best way to go about it. I’m not sure there’s any way to help him unless he wants to help himself, so insisting that he change to help himself doesn’t seem helpful to me. There’s always a chance that he could read this and be enlightened by your words, but a PM might have done the same if that was going to work.
I thought his thread brought up some interesting points also, until he revealed he didn’t believe them.
A depressed troll is still a troll; if he’s trolling, there’s no reason not to pit him, whether he means it or not. Mental illness isn’t a blank check to be a douche.