I suppose, in the interest of consciousness, that I should preface this post by saying that I'm going to be talking about depression and suicidal ideation (among other things) so if those particular topics are triggering for you, now would be the time to click over to a different post!

Here's something sweet to look at, while you contemplate that...

With that out of the way…

We seem to have a very strange relationship with mental health here in the USA.

Supposedly it makes us good and responsible citizens if we make sure that we go to our medical doctor on a regular basis and get a checkup, but at the same time people worry that something is seriously wrong with us and that we're mentally disturbed if we choose to go to a mental health doctor on a regular basis to get a checkup.

Interesting double standard, don't you think?

Some people immediately get their hackles up and declare "it's not the same thing!" but are you really that sure?

Regardless, society is strange about mental health. One of the things I have really noticed over the past couple of decades (especially) is how much emphasis we place on being "happy and shiny" as the only acceptable way to be.

Well maybe not the only acceptable way — "angry and outraged" is also an ”acceptable” mood.

I was always a rather sad kid, who grew into a sad teenager, who grew into a sad young adult and subsequently as sad not-so-young adult.

The best way I can describe that experience from the inside, is to say that I could find very little to feel cheerful and happy about. My natural temperament was to be introverted and reflective at the best of times, so I wasn't predisposed to constantly be looking for things to laugh about… but I can guarantee you I also wasn't looking for reasons to be depressed.

The interesting thing is that I was never formally diagnosed with clinical depression.

However, a former close friend who was a psychologist described my state of being as ”mildly by pervasively dysthymic.”

Which is a fancy clinical way of saying that you're predisposed to view the world through a somewhat gray filter without it actually being debilitating and preventing you from living a normal life. Check.

Of course, on a more conscious level, I wasn't particularly interested in ending up ”having to sit and talk to a shrink for endless hours,” so when my moods took a deeper dive than usual I typically didn't tell anybody.

I did have a couple of phases where some might have characterized me as ”suicidal,” but it wasn't in a dramatic and violent sort of way… it was more a quiet realization that I didn't expect to look forward to anything much more than just breathing air through a meaningless life until I would eventually die from old age, and perhaps be found by neighbors because there was a bad smell coming from my apartment and they would open up to the horror of my decaying body having been nibbled on by my cats.

I say it like it's funny — which of course it's not — when it's actually a pretty sad and gruesome thing.

It's strange to be 16 and seriously recognizing that you're basically just "marking time" till you'll eventually die... without any major angst-filled drama attached to the situation.

Most of the time, the experience of sadness and colorlessness was much ”lighter,” and primarily involved quietly sitting around and contemplating the utter and complete meaninglessness of existence.

Truthfully, I was far less worried about myself and my own plight than the broader spectrum of overall existence.

Some years ago, I saw a relatively unknown little indie movie called Off The Map in which actor Sam Elliott — in the role of Charley — gives what is perhaps one of the best portrayals of clinical depression as most people really experience it.

For me, the depressive periods often involved things as simple simply sitting and looking at the tip of a pencil for 30 minutes while feeling completely unable to get up and do something even as simple as making a sandwich.

The interesting thing about it is that you can actually feel completely alone even if you are not actually alone.

Perhaps my depressive episodes were easy to handle — relatively speaking — because the idea of just sitting quietly and not doing anything was not an unwelcome feeling. ”Unwelcome feelings” would have been somebody who expected me to constantly be up and doing things and going places and being rowdy and loud!

It took me a couple of decades of adulthood to fully comprehend that there's a significant difference between Clinical depression and Existential depression, something I became quite familiar with, thanks to the work of Dr. James T. Webb (nothing to do with NASA & the James Webb telescope!) and others.

But let's circle back to some of the original thoughts... about "acceptable moods" in modern society.

A hundred years ago I would likely just have been characterized as "having a melancholic temperament," with little further ado. But in the last few decades we have really medicalized large segments of The Normal Spectrum of Human Experience.

I won't get into a whole diatribe about Big Pharma, usary capitalism and all that crap... but it has been a long journey to full understand that there was never really anything wrong, except for having a possibly excessive tendency to ruminate on the frequent meaninglessness of the human condition.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!

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Created at 2023-03-16 01:10 PST
0771/2026