Appreciating your growth experience is one thing, loving the illness is another

[firecat]

In the depression community people are talking about an article in The Independent entitled "Is depression actually good for you?".

I left a comment there, that I'm unpacking/editing somewhat here.

I have chronic anhedonia and mild depression. I think it has affected my personality in some positive ways (I can think outside the box, I'm somewhat compassionate, I'm interested more in intellectual pursuits than purely sensory or emotional pleasure pursuits because much of the time I don't experience sensory or emotional pleasure very strongly [the last couple of months somewhat to the contrary]).

But it has sure also affected my life in negative ways.

There's a general trend these days to conflate an illness with the learning experiences that come with having an illness, and then to say "The illness is good!" Fuck that. Learning to be a better human being is good, but there are plenty of ways to do that without having an illness.

I noticed this tendency before, but since reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided, which discusses it at great length, I notice it more often. I used to belong to an Alzheimer's forum (my Mom had Alzheimer's). I was sort of appalled to see a thread entitled "I love this disease". I actually could relate to the content of the thread—people feeling like they became closer to their loved ones who had dementia, changed their views about what was important in life, learned that they could do things they didn't know they could do. OK, fine. But (with all due respect to YKIOK) saying that because of this, you love the disease? That doesn't make sense to me.

Comments

[snippy]

It's a strange comment on their characters for them to say "I could only learn this (important human thing) by having a horrible disease/having a relative with a horrible disease!"

[sonia]

Agreed! I make a similar distinction when someone says an event occurred "for the purpose of" teaching me a particular lesson. I may have chosen to learn from an event, but that's due to my efforts, not due to some background Lesson Plan. I'm not willing to believe in a Universe that would devise such cruel lesson plans anyway.

[firecat]

'm not willing to believe in a Universe that would devise such cruel lesson plans anyway.

Yeah, there's a lot about life that's hard and unpleasant, and I'd really rather not believe it was deliberately designed that way.

[meloukhia]

Oh gosh, this ties in so much with the conversation we're having at my place about this 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' rhetoric and where it comes from and who perpetuates it. There are less damaging ways to grow.

(icon is for the peopel who post crap like that article)

[amethystfirefly]

I really really hate people who think of our illness as something good. I would love to get rid of this constant struggle, even if it made me a "weaker" or "less interesting" person or... whatever.

This isn't good for the individual person. Maybe it's good on an evolutionary scale, but ffs...

just... argh.

[laughingrat]

It's all so complicated, and so personal. It seems ridiculous for anyone, especially some random columnist, to try to tell people living with an illness how to feel about that illness.

For me, in a way, I do "love" the depression/anxiety/PTSD/etc. because I've spent my whole life being told how bad and horrible I am, and then being told how bad and horrible I am because I developed responses to being told that the first go-round (that is, I became ill as a result of living with constant emotional abuse from a young age), and so now, with things having gone on as long as they have, and developed for the reasons they did, it's actually anti-therapeutic for me to Other the illness and hate it.

But that doesn't mean it's made my life better, necessarily, and it doesn't mean someone else in the same set of circumstances is obligated to feel the same way I do. And that sure doesn't mean I want some columnist, not even a columnist who is dealing with similar stuff, to tell me what to feel about my own experiences. That's just Not On. 0_o

[firecat]

it's actually anti-therapeutic for me to Other the illness and hate it.

That makes LOADS of sense.

[laughingrat]

And yet for some people, that would be the worst possible approach! Really, the multiplicity of human wossname is amazing. :-D

[shehasathree]

I feel much the same way about my own history of self-injury.

[jesse_the_k]

You nailed it!

[firecat]

Love the icon :)

[trixtah]

I love that Ehrenreich book. Love it to bits.

It's interesting this post's timing: we were having a discussion at work today about how any negative situation can be an "opportunity". I don't what the equivalent term is for a Godwin with this analogy, but I could not help saying, "So people locked up in concentration camps were experiencing an 'opportunity'"?

I frigging well can't stand that wanky Pollyanna-ism. Sure, no-one wants to deal with constant Eeyore-ish behaviour in the workplace all the time, but if you are experiencing a shitty situation with no immediate relief, then let's not wank about "opportunities".

[firecat]

There should definitely be a term for this behavior.

[flarenut]

You mean a term other than "$%@%@ you, don't tell me about opportunities"?

I have mixed feelings about this, because it's been my experience that people who haven't experienced some unspecifiable level of some kinds of adversities tend to be somewhat more likely to be hollow/shallow/incomplete/callous/whatever. (And of course people who are constantly cheerful and perky and looking on the bright side of things can be incredibly unpleasant for the rest of us to be around, especially in situations where being sad is a perfectly appropriate response to the situation.) So I sorta think it's a good thing for people to go through trauma, sorta.

At the same time, it's so incredibly much easier to treat something as a growth experience if you're not stuck with it for ever. (E.g. when I ripped out one ankle long ago, I got a lesson in how effing difficult it is for not-thoroughly-abled people to navigate a big city; that lesson made me a better person in a lot of ways, but after 12 weeks it was over and I could go back to not being in pain, not being mobility impaired, not losing the sensation in my cane hand and so forth.) The thing about learning experiences: once you've learned that thing, it's OK for them to end. But that's not the way actual illnesses work.

[firecat]

it's been my experience that people who haven't experienced some unspecifiable level of some kinds of adversities tend to be somewhat more likely to be hollow/shallow/incomplete/callous/whatever. (And of course people who are constantly cheerful and perky and looking on the bright side of things can be incredibly unpleasant for the rest of us to be around, especially in situations where being sad is a perfectly appropriate response to the situation.) So I sorta think it's a good thing for people to go through trauma, sorta.

My experience is somewhat different; I find a lot of people don't learn compassion from trauma. Maybe it's a necessary condition but not sufficient.

[flarenut]

Maybe even not necessary. Some people, I think, can be compassionate without trauma. But having been scarred, I just sometimes find it weird to be around people who apparently haven't...

[firecat]

having been scarred, I just sometimes find it weird to be around people who apparently haven't...

I know what you mean.

[aquaeri]

I think I'm exactly with you on this. Adversity can lead to growth experiences, that sometimes are hard to reach any other way, but there's no guarantee, and it's the growth that's good, not the adversity.

[shehasathree]

There's a general trend these days to conflate an illness with the learning experiences that come with having an illness, and then to say "The illness is good!" Fuck that.

This this this.
And I love the Barbara Ehrenreich book. Although for some reason they named it 'Smile or Die' here in Australia.