i didn’t get the job with AMD. the boss told me that he would keep me in mind for other jobs. but isn’t that what they all say? even if i decided to stick with nursing school and didn’t take it, it sure would have been nice to be wanted. the unemployment rate for those with a college degree or better is 4.4% supposedly. that makes me feel like an even bigger loser in that i haven’t found anything. ok, i haven’t applied for anything in the last 12 months. but still. talk about making someone feel unwanted.
my mother has wanted me to go on anti-depressants for years. i have always resisted, because like i told her, i don’t burst into tears in public, so i think i am doing just fine keeping it together. could i be doing better? hell yeah. should i be doing better? i would say yes to that too. but it is hard doing it alone. i have friends that love me, but i am really not sure what that means. katie has been stellar. fantastic advice, the right timing and tone. and everyone that has read about my sadness has been really verbally supportive. but is that enough? should that be enough? should i be ok with simply knowing the improv community are my friends, event though they don’t reach out to me personally at this time when i can’t stand the sight of andreas? if i can’t be ok with that, is that an appropriate response? i think this takes me back to that conversation i never finished with my mom. what does your love mean? if you won’t help me when i need you the most, when I ask for your help, what does your love mean? it just dawned on me that my mother seems to think about helping a loved one like andreas does. that you can’t always help them. you just can’t. but i believe differently. i believe you can always do SOMETHING. it may not be exactly what they are asking for, but it would be something that means you haven’t just failed or given up on them. it says that you care. i BELIEVE that with all my soul. this world isn’t worth inhabiting if we can’t help each other somehow. but i have strayed from the subject…it seems a bit like the welfare system. we only catch people when they have lost almost everything. we don’t help them before it all falls apart or once they start putting it back together. (this isn’t everyone, though it is the welfare system). if i am on food stamps and housing subsidies and i get a job at mcd’s, i am cut off from help. i can’t make enough money at mcd’s to live, but now my help is gone. so i lose my job, start to slide down the ladder. when do my friends DO something to help me? (i am not saying i expect all my friends to call me tomorrow and offer me free room and board or anything…but what about pimping me to their finance departments? to be fair, andreas offered to let me move into his house right after i lost my job. i know he was just trying to help, and i appreciate that, but it was also sort of insulting. he offered to help with health ins too. but never followed through on that, ultimately.) maybe my problem is i have moved around too much and don’t have deep enough roots. i can respect that. it’s hard though. i want someone to draw up a list of what my expectations should be. how people will respond to my expression of need. that would make this a lot easer. back to antidepressants…well, i now do burst into tears randomly. it has only been a couple of days, but it is really hard and really embarrassing. i don’t think people know what to do when i cry. everyone sees me as so strong, that can’t believe i would cry. maybe that is my problem, i am normally just too good at taking care of myself. how does one change that exactly?
Late last year, I read the book . To make it quick, most of my Amazon review appears below. The book is entirely credible and based on clinical study data in the public record…
I think that crying is pretty normal among people who allow themselves to fully feel emotions that come their way, especially when they experience sad, painful things — or intense joy. In my experience, if you let an emotion come freely and don’t cling to it, then it will often leave pretty quickly on its own. (Of course, there’s usually no point in dredging up painful memories.) Actually, I cry quite a bit, but seldom in public, except at movies. Also, crying is very good for the eyes, especially if they tend to be dry.
Cheers,
~P.
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This book gobsmacked me by being exceptional in many good ways. I recommend it highly. It relies on careful analysis of scientific evidence and data, and it presents several major themes:
* Antidepressant drugs are placebos with side effects.
* Placebos are effective, genuine medicine, but they bring a dilemma: the enormous power of belief, expectation and conditioning vs. ethics, honesty and scientific truth.
* Antidepressants came to be marketed as cures for a supposed chemical imbalance, resulting from collaboration between corporations and the FDA. This reaped vast fortunes for big pharma. The relationship between the FDA and corporations it is supposed to regulate — is at times counter to the best interests of the American people, specifically, their health, safety and wallets.
* Depression is a disorder of thinking, not a medical problem per se. The most effective treatments don’t involve drugs.
If depression is a disorder of thinking, then what is to be done about it?
Think different(ly)? Yes, and behave differently, too, but we need to learn how. We also need to prevent and remedy conditions that result in depressed thinking. The book outlines the methods, and they are its message of hope.
Gee, I don’t know what happened. I put the book’s title, The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, in angle brackets, but it disappeared when I clicked “Submit Comment.”