“American energy is the energy of violence, of free-floating resentment and anxiety unleashed by chronic cultural dislocations which must be, for the most part, ferociously sublimated. This energy has mainly been sublimated into crude materialism and acquisitiveness. Into hectic philanthropy. Into benighted moral crusades, the most spectacular of which was Prohibition. Into an awesome talent for uglifying countryside and cities. Into the loquacity and torment of a minority of gadflies: artists, prophets, muckrakers, cranks, and nuts. And into self-punishing neuroses. But the naked violence keeps breaking through, throwing everything into question.”
-Susan Sontag, 1966
O give thanks for this endlessly flowing spring of negativity which allows this great nation to continue to exist strong and free. Although not as strong and free as it could if it didn’t need toxic bullshit like babies need milk.
Turn for a moment from the collective to the individual. I am a depressive; I am addicted to fear, anger and resentment like a smackhead to his heroin. The negatives in my life give it meaning and certainty in a way the positives never seem to equal. I have life energy when I am angry and hopeless that I can never tap when I am open and relaxed.
Have you lived like this? Do you want to talk about it?
in this fashion. The Buddhists are correct when they say we create our own reality. Until you can stop defining yourself this way, it will always be your reality.
The words that follow, “I am…” have magical powers. They create your future.
The difference between, “I am a depressive.”, and, “I wish I were less of a depressive.” will literally change your future.
Stop wearing it like a badge, and you’ll finally be able to rule it, instead of it ruling you.
It is difficult for people who haven’t suffered from depression to understand the extent to which it governs the sufferer’s reality. Your aphorisms are literally nonsense to a depressed person Elbows, as is evident by Doug’s reaction.
Doug, I haven’t suffered from depression in the true clinical sense, but I have suffered from crippling anxiety. I understand the crippling effects of overwhelming negative emotional states and thoughts.
Please know that what you experience isn’t uncommon, and those of us who share your pain are sorry you have to go through it too.
I think I write because I’m depressed. I could be trying to exorcise the demons or re-write my experiences in order to take control and make them…different, if not better. Maybe it’s a good use of free-floating anxiety and negativity; at least it keeps me busy and sometimes out of trouble. I’m an optomistic depressive, if that makes any sense. I’ve decided I have “survivor’s joy” which gets my motor started after I’ve stalled out. It’s just that I have to relearn the gears every day. Want to share some passions you throw yourself into?
Not total nonsense, but we’re awfully good at finding reasons that people’s advice doesn’t make sense. That’s true even when we’re counseling with professionals.
Thanks. You’re very kind. I started this thread as a frustration-fest (kind of a pity party with a nasty edge), so it’s big of you to respond so caringly.
Well in the spirit of the thread, I channel that free flowing negative energy onto obstinance. Even now, at a job I can tolerate but do not like (does anyone have a job they actually like?), I’m engaged in a fully open game of passive aggression that will likely lead to me losing my job. Certain buerocratic requirements press upon me, myself along with all my peers and supervisors know the uselessness of these things. But everyone does does them anyway as it is part of the job. Well I prefer not to. We have to look for the little places we can take control.
Maddie, you are in a toxic workplace. Toxic to you anyway. (I think of all the institutions in our society, the workplace needs toxic bullshit the most.) I hope you can find a more laidback kind of work situation, because you’ll have a hard time not making the worst of it otherwise. I was always helpless in the face of all that free-floating negativity, myself.
Becky, when I’ve got negative energy, nothing positive really helps. It feels tenuous and un-alive. Negative energy is strong energy - you can’t turn it off. It’s real energy - like a fire, you can’t say no to the heat and pain. My highs are never as strong or as lasting as my lows. I usually just have to let negativity keep churning till I’m mentally exhausted. Then, relief, for awhile.
elbows…well, fuck. I’m almost used to your well-meaning kind of not-getting-it. It’s better than the tough-love shit people start flinging when I get on their nerves. That makes me want to commit psychic murder-suicide.
All the self-help motivational Dale Carnegie woo kind of people remind me of the people of got rich somehow (usually in real estate) (or at least who claim they did) and then write “get rich” books telling all readers how they can too.
Just because somebody somehow got rich in real estate, doesn’t for a minute mean that anyone and everyone else can do so also just by reading rich-guy’s book where he tells how he did it. Otherwise, wouldn’t we ALL be rich now?
Same with all the self-satisfied people who think they can wave away someone else’s depression or anxiety with the incantation of some pithy but shallow Dale Carnegie slogans.