I made it to day 2! I've had the idea for this post in my head for a very long time, but I always worried it wouldn't be as eloquent as I would like it to be and so I kept the potential of it in my head since the potential of something is usually better.
A few months ago a friend of mine told me about a sort of support group meeting that she'd attended that was just for people to come together, talk about how they were feeling and have people willing to listen and support them. She told me about how things took what, in retrospect, was a predictable turn when one member of the group gave a depressed member of the group the ol' "You're being self-indulgent, just get over it" speech. I imagine it happens often enough to depressed people, but it seemed particularly cruel to say that to someone who had done the hard work of showing up to the meeting and being honest about how they felt. It's one thing when someone who doesn't really know what you're going through throws a hurtful platitude at you, it's something much more severe when you open up about what is causing you so much pain only to have the other person trivialise it.
The first psychiatrist I was referred to laughed in my face when I shared something that someone had said to me that had really hurt me. I think about that moment a lot, but I never talk about it because I don't know how to tell anyone the whole story without seeming pathetic for telling the psychiatrist what I told him and then taking his reaction so hard. I also didn't want him to seem too callous or unprofessional; in the back of mind I knew I was being pathetic and so it's still hard to completely blame him for laughing. I never told him anything not related to medication again and after a few weeks he referred me on to a psychotherapist with a note that I don't share things easily. The first boy I fell in love with in high school, I met in a chat room(those were really big back then). He liked my personality and didn't immediately realise I was black. After I told him, things got a lot colder and eventually we stopped talking altogether. He looked me up in our first year at university, after I'd moved to the other side of the country and we chatted for awhile again. One day he said he wanted to be completely honest with me about what he thought of me and I said that I was ready to hear it. He called me pathetic for being so open to such criticism. I don't remember what he said in the end and I never heard from him again. He was just a boy in a chat room and I only spoke to him for maybe 3 months total, but he confirmed what I had always suspected: that I was undesirable and I was pathetic.
A part of me hates that I internalise these sorts of things, but I also know that I internalise them because they are the external confirmations of all the things I already believed about myself. I didn't a professional about my depression for years because I knew all the things that were getting to me were trivial; I finally saw a senior member of the psychiatry department at the best university on the continent, and he confirmed it. All through high school I felt unattractive because of my race and that was confirmed too(with an added "and you're definitely pathetic" bonus for funsies). I've spent the last 5 years feeling useless and worthless until I finally got a job; a job where no one in my office has any work for me to do. That one wouldn't be as bad if the other guy who came in around the same time I did didn't keep getting important projects to work on. It's like they know, they just look at me and they know I'm worthless and useless. Most of my friends don't talk to me much now. I always suspected that I wasn't really fun to be around and I only ever made friends because I pretended to be someone else for a long time. The years wore me down and I can't pretend anymore. Most of my friends are gone. It's no one's fault that I feel the way I do. I think most people don't even realise the harm they could be doing, they just react to what is in front of them. Besides, I already knew these things were true.
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