It's especially frustrating when people tell me all the stuff I already know as if I must not know or I'd've done it by now. Then I just end up feeling worse or else pissed off at them for simply Not Getting It.
I am so there. I remember having a friend explaining to me, over her third or fourth beer, that I didn't need anti-depressants because I was a good person the way I was and she hated to see me try to change myself like that. I was tempted to ask her how she knew what I was like without meds, since I'd been on them for years before I first met her. The idea, though, that there's some essential "core" that is more important and should not be tampered with, is just plain annoying. Patrick's called it essentialism. I'm me. Me is a lot of things, including history, food cravings, and head chemistry. No one of those is the only me. If I change my diet, I'm not changing me, even though I'm making profound changes to my body.
People who haven't been through depression can be remarkably clueless in such an honestly helpful way that it makes me want to bite them. What it comes down to, in the end, is that they won't believe my self-reporting. They think that they know how I feel more accurately than I know how I feel. They think that their experiences generalize. If life were that simple, we'd all live in total harmony.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-04-11 09:30 am (UTC)I am so there. I remember having a friend explaining to me, over her third or fourth beer, that I didn't need anti-depressants because I was a good person the way I was and she hated to see me try to change myself like that. I was tempted to ask her how she knew what I was like without meds, since I'd been on them for years before I first met her. The idea, though, that there's some essential "core" that is more important and should not be tampered with, is just plain annoying. Patrick's called it essentialism. I'm me. Me is a lot of things, including history, food cravings, and head chemistry. No one of those is the only me. If I change my diet, I'm not changing me, even though I'm making profound changes to my body.
People who haven't been through depression can be remarkably clueless in such an honestly helpful way that it makes me want to bite them. What it comes down to, in the end, is that they won't believe my self-reporting. They think that they know how I feel more accurately than I know how I feel. They think that their experiences generalize. If life were that simple, we'd all live in total harmony.