Depressed is no longer the benign word it used to be, meaning down or sad. It is now a DSM label that can get you a mental health file, one that can stand in the way of promotions, or so I am told.
The Europeans have a better, more humane approach. No one is taken seriously unless they have been depressed, at least once in life. Depression can be expected at transition times and times when one questions anything ... identity, purpose, politics. Question is the operative word there. So? One can only wonder who would want to put the kabash on questioning. Still, considering the political climate in which we have been living, since the Code-Red/Yellow/Oranges, the vote recounts trying to flush out Diebold and Tri-Star vote-flippers, and recent Crisis Managers in Michigan, where people's votes don't have to figure-in at all, questioning isn't something generally encouraged. After all, we don't want anyone getting depressed. So. Pulling my tongue out of my cheek, now, and speaking in earnest, I think people ARE questioning, just the same. I do l o v e that independent spirit that leads people to do what comes so naturally. Somehow, in fact, just thinking about people doing what comes naturally warms my heart, lightens my own mood! We can trust ourselves, imperfect as we are, to be human, can't we! And I don't think we need anyone else's permission for that. It's that place where, more than any other, it doesn't matter much what people think of me. A place where it seems safe enough. Not that I don't care at all what others think of me. But early-on, I didn't ... I just needed to tell people I was hurting.
After the inevitable happened (i.e. finally saying 'ouch') __ people really liked my confession because 'they'd felt exactly that way, themselves. They went on, to open up about their own similar experiences. __ I have seldom gone back to micromanaging my facade, or to 'putting my best foot forward' after that ... I probably realized that the things I had tended to do (& probably still do) in social situations, was the very thing that had ended up turning me off to social situations! It's good for me to see that I always have s o m e place where what I do or say just doesn't matter all that much :0 |
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