QueerMelancholy
Mage
- Jul 29, 2023
- 534
I am older now. Older than I ever thought I'd be or become. It's a strange feeling, a strange idea. I'm almost in my mid-30s now and it feels like a twisted fairytale.
I don't understand it, it boggles my mind how much suffering is medicalized here in the US. Mental illness especially is hit with every drug possible and anyone who has been to a psychiatrist and a therapist knows that it can take years to find the right cocktail of medication to "help". But then you have all of these placebo effects to consider as well. How much of this medicalizing of suffering is actually fighting the disease instead of simply masking the symptoms?
I've been battling with bipolar disorder now for almost 20 years ever since I was first diagnosed when I was 16. I had been dealing with depression earlier than that going back to I was 8 years old. What finally broke the camel's back when I was a teen was the years of verbal abuse, physical abuse, and SA. My mother bless her heart was a mean spiteful woman who made my life hell a lot of the time. And anyone who's been raised by a parent dealing with bipolar disorder can probably attest to how difficult is. To never know what kind of day you're going to have as a kid. Whether or not things are going to be calm or filled with rage. Most of my days were filled with rage. My mother was cruel a lot of the time. It got so bad my sister eventually left as soon as she hit 18 and with her gone, there was no one to blunt the chaos. To round out the sharp edges and it overwhelmed me.
Looking back on now as an adult I try my best to find the silver lining in it all. She didn't know what she was doing. She loved me she couldn't have known what she was doing. A mother isn't supposed to be evil or cruel to her children. My grandmother her mother wasn't a very good mother herself so maybe she was trying to be different but she couldn't because her brain wouldn't allow her to. I watched my mother grow old and fight her demons before they finally won and she died in her 50s. She had a hard time taking her medications. She would use her addictions to find joy and when she wasn't happy she would take it out on us. I don't want to end up like her but I've realized that I am her.
I didn't ask to have bipolar disorder or have these predispositions built into my genes that poison my brain and make me more susceptible to comorbidities like depression, eating disorders, addiction, etcetera. I didn't ask to grow up being abused and hated. People forget about all the diseases that feed on each other. It becomes a cycle of in and out feeding the beast under your skin.
The lows can get so low you lose everything. Your livelihood, home, friends, family, community, savings, self-respect, health, everything. Stability in life can disappear with just one episode on either end of the bipolar spectrum and you can find yourself in circumstances that are very hard to recover from like homelessness. I've dealt with homelessness myself and it is an ugly soul-crushing experience. The trauma all adds up and all these experiences mix over a lifetime which can result in PTSD that never goes away. Jail time, mental institutions, job loss, homelessness, thousands and thousands of dollars of medical debt, rejection, physical disformity, shame, loneliness, social stigma, etcetera. It's a never-ending cycle of boom or bust with numbness and apathy in between.
There's also so much toxic positivity in the world that romanticizes suffering because people enjoy playing the hero. They want to hold onto hope that anyone can be saved. That love and faith conquer all. "Don't be a quitter!" they say. "You can do it!" they cry. "There are other people in this world suffering more than you." as if your suffering is lessened just because someone else is suffering more than you. This whataboutism that seeks to force you into finding happiness knowing that other people somewhere else are suffering far more than you. It's woefully disgusting how much society praises suffering. That people believe suffering serves some sort of divine purpose irritates and confused me. That people would rather focus on finding the silver lining in suffering than on getting rid of the cloud that is fundamentally causing it. Those who take suffering on themselves are merely adding to it instead of minimizing it and while they quote God as either an author or rescuer. They teach overcoming suffering to children as if they want people to continue suffering. Suffering has become a part of teaching others the value of equality by insisting that you have to experience inequality firsthand to understand it. Faith and religious tradition, Hollywood movies, and media such as books and even cartoons praise suffering. It disgusts me. The world disgusts me.
One would think with all the documented cases throughout history that cover suffering and its impact on human culture or society would be enough to learn from. But half the world continues to find divine purpose in pain and anguish and suffering and old the ugliness in the world because faith is the goal of their teachings. Not hope based on data or scientific evidence but hope being based on faith in a God or Gods. A divine purpose, a divine punishment, and a divine release. Religion affects more than people realize.
I'm sorry for my rambling. I'm supposed to be telling the world why I think suicide is a valid option for me. Right? That I should have to argue my side of the story. But science and history and even religion does that enough for me. Humans are bizarre creatures filled with wonder for the world and the mysteries in the universe. But humans are also filled with greed and selfishness that they use to poison compassion to suit their own biased ideologies. It truly is a crazy world out there. Minds greater than mine have been trying to understand it since antiquity and beyond. It's madness to know something is wrong and continue repeating it. Freedom of choice is a blade that should cut both ways. And yet many people use freedom of choice as a scapegoat for themselves and as a weapon against other people. Inequality is a valuable resource in a culture or society where social and economic systems rely on it to remain profitable. The right to fail is as important as the right to succeed. This is absolute madness to me. And as this crazy train hurdles down the tracks through a world that is on fire I believe I have become mature enough to understand I don't want to have any part it.
"A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether."
Where have the smart men gone?
I don't understand it, it boggles my mind how much suffering is medicalized here in the US. Mental illness especially is hit with every drug possible and anyone who has been to a psychiatrist and a therapist knows that it can take years to find the right cocktail of medication to "help". But then you have all of these placebo effects to consider as well. How much of this medicalizing of suffering is actually fighting the disease instead of simply masking the symptoms?
I've been battling with bipolar disorder now for almost 20 years ever since I was first diagnosed when I was 16. I had been dealing with depression earlier than that going back to I was 8 years old. What finally broke the camel's back when I was a teen was the years of verbal abuse, physical abuse, and SA. My mother bless her heart was a mean spiteful woman who made my life hell a lot of the time. And anyone who's been raised by a parent dealing with bipolar disorder can probably attest to how difficult is. To never know what kind of day you're going to have as a kid. Whether or not things are going to be calm or filled with rage. Most of my days were filled with rage. My mother was cruel a lot of the time. It got so bad my sister eventually left as soon as she hit 18 and with her gone, there was no one to blunt the chaos. To round out the sharp edges and it overwhelmed me.
Looking back on now as an adult I try my best to find the silver lining in it all. She didn't know what she was doing. She loved me she couldn't have known what she was doing. A mother isn't supposed to be evil or cruel to her children. My grandmother her mother wasn't a very good mother herself so maybe she was trying to be different but she couldn't because her brain wouldn't allow her to. I watched my mother grow old and fight her demons before they finally won and she died in her 50s. She had a hard time taking her medications. She would use her addictions to find joy and when she wasn't happy she would take it out on us. I don't want to end up like her but I've realized that I am her.
I didn't ask to have bipolar disorder or have these predispositions built into my genes that poison my brain and make me more susceptible to comorbidities like depression, eating disorders, addiction, etcetera. I didn't ask to grow up being abused and hated. People forget about all the diseases that feed on each other. It becomes a cycle of in and out feeding the beast under your skin.
The lows can get so low you lose everything. Your livelihood, home, friends, family, community, savings, self-respect, health, everything. Stability in life can disappear with just one episode on either end of the bipolar spectrum and you can find yourself in circumstances that are very hard to recover from like homelessness. I've dealt with homelessness myself and it is an ugly soul-crushing experience. The trauma all adds up and all these experiences mix over a lifetime which can result in PTSD that never goes away. Jail time, mental institutions, job loss, homelessness, thousands and thousands of dollars of medical debt, rejection, physical disformity, shame, loneliness, social stigma, etcetera. It's a never-ending cycle of boom or bust with numbness and apathy in between.
There's also so much toxic positivity in the world that romanticizes suffering because people enjoy playing the hero. They want to hold onto hope that anyone can be saved. That love and faith conquer all. "Don't be a quitter!" they say. "You can do it!" they cry. "There are other people in this world suffering more than you." as if your suffering is lessened just because someone else is suffering more than you. This whataboutism that seeks to force you into finding happiness knowing that other people somewhere else are suffering far more than you. It's woefully disgusting how much society praises suffering. That people believe suffering serves some sort of divine purpose irritates and confused me. That people would rather focus on finding the silver lining in suffering than on getting rid of the cloud that is fundamentally causing it. Those who take suffering on themselves are merely adding to it instead of minimizing it and while they quote God as either an author or rescuer. They teach overcoming suffering to children as if they want people to continue suffering. Suffering has become a part of teaching others the value of equality by insisting that you have to experience inequality firsthand to understand it. Faith and religious tradition, Hollywood movies, and media such as books and even cartoons praise suffering. It disgusts me. The world disgusts me.
One would think with all the documented cases throughout history that cover suffering and its impact on human culture or society would be enough to learn from. But half the world continues to find divine purpose in pain and anguish and suffering and old the ugliness in the world because faith is the goal of their teachings. Not hope based on data or scientific evidence but hope being based on faith in a God or Gods. A divine purpose, a divine punishment, and a divine release. Religion affects more than people realize.
I'm sorry for my rambling. I'm supposed to be telling the world why I think suicide is a valid option for me. Right? That I should have to argue my side of the story. But science and history and even religion does that enough for me. Humans are bizarre creatures filled with wonder for the world and the mysteries in the universe. But humans are also filled with greed and selfishness that they use to poison compassion to suit their own biased ideologies. It truly is a crazy world out there. Minds greater than mine have been trying to understand it since antiquity and beyond. It's madness to know something is wrong and continue repeating it. Freedom of choice is a blade that should cut both ways. And yet many people use freedom of choice as a scapegoat for themselves and as a weapon against other people. Inequality is a valuable resource in a culture or society where social and economic systems rely on it to remain profitable. The right to fail is as important as the right to succeed. This is absolute madness to me. And as this crazy train hurdles down the tracks through a world that is on fire I believe I have become mature enough to understand I don't want to have any part it.
"A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether."
Where have the smart men gone?
