what's in a name

may i recommend?
a post by alice bradley;
she's braver than I.

http://www.finslippy.com/

I wish we could give the biochemical imbalance currently called "depression" a new name. Because it's not, as someone once nervously told me when I felt I had to confide, "feeling a little blue." It's not a self-indulgence, a "pity party." It's certainly not an option. You can't "snap out of it" "pull yourself up by your bootstraps," or take any of the other well-meaning but ultimately painful advice offered by those who have no experience with it. Depression is an illness, with a physical cause, just like arthritis or eczema. Only society at large doesn't treat people with this particular disease with the same sympathy and support it offers sufferers with more physical symptoms.

If an Olympic athlete suddenly fell victim to an attack of lupus, for example, most people would feel pity and offer good wishes and hopes for a cure.  If that same athlete woke up one morning devoid of hope and literally unable to summon the will to walk to the starting line, the press would probably call him a spoiled brat, and he'd most likely lose his corporate sponsorship.

No Vons checker has ever asked me if I want to round up my grocery tab to support medical research to seek the cause and ultimately a cure for depression, the way they always want me to ante up for prostate cancer and muscular dystrophy. For myriad reasons, the very word "depression" makes people uncomfortable, so those who suffer from it tend to be stuck with some pretty negative labels.  ("Unstable," was my personal favorite, but I've heard quite a few.) So naturally those who suffer from it are reluctant to 'fess up ... which is really too bad on a number of levels, because we're not unstable or unreliable or any of those things; in fact, we depressives as a lot tend to be pretty smart and competent, kind of like whatever gene makes us occasionally feel unworthy of existence is karmically linked to some really good DNA that also makes us unusually bright and capable of great things. A disproportionate number of authors have suffered from depression; before their tragic self-inflicted ends people like Hemmingway and Plath created works that will live forever.

People like Alice Bradley (and J.K. Rowling, and other writers who have come clean to their public about having depression) offer hope, though.  By giving their disease a different name (Alice's might be offensive to some, but she pretty much sums it up) and framing it in metaphor, these  authors help others look past the stigma of depression and understand its very real physical effects. Anyone who shuddered when they first read about the faceless dementors of the "Harry Potter" series, hooded horrors with the power to suck a soul through a lipless kiss, has gotten a glimpse of what happens when depression strikes.

If greater understanding is possible, then acceptance should be, too. I just read Alice's latest post at http://www.finslippy.com/, and I feel compelled to share, and to applaud her. She's a smart, multi-talented woman - and not afraid to name her Demon and face it, head on.  I'm nowhere near so brave.  I've kept my own depression on the down-low, partially because of the stigma and partially because I'm just as prejudiced as most people ... I've been ashamed.

But Alice has made me feel braver. And inspired me to be more openly honest about the genetic legacy that causes my brain to occasionally misfire. I have depression. I also manage it, I think, with admirable strength, and a lot of love and support from my family and a few close friends. There are times when this physical ailment prevents me from functioning at top capacity, but on the whole I am in pretty great shape. So there you have it. I have depression. I might wish it had a more impressive, multi-syllabic Latin medical name that didn't carry quite so many 19-th century "hysterical" connotations, but I guess I'm stuck with the name, just like I'm stuck with the disease.

And now you know.

Thanks, Alice.