monofandom: I've never quite understood people who are interested in only a single thing. I'll get temporarily obsessed with something to the exclusion of all else for a few days/weeks, but outside of actively marathoning something, I'll still happily discuss other things and I usually have dozens of different things that I'm into at any given moment. I even have a few people in my Dreamwidth circle where we have zero fandoms in common and still manage to happily interact talking about the generic concept of fandom or just about real life stuff.
re: depression, paraphrased from actual conversations…
sister: "You know if you didn't have such a negative attitude all the time, you wouldn't be so depressed." me: ::internally screaming::
me: ::tries to describe my depression to someone who doesn't seem to be getting it:: her: "I'm going to go out on a limb here, but have you ever considered that you might be depressed?" me: ::blinks:: her: "No, really. You should think about it."
me: ::desperately trying to reach out to someone asking for help:: (because of all that "asking for help is the first step" advice or even "asking for help is the hardest part" b.s.) friend-who-was-apparently-not-my-friend: "This sounds like something you should talk to your friends about."
friends: "Remember that we are always here for you if you ever need us!" me: ::begs for a shoulder to cry on when I'm having a bad day:: friends: "Sorry I'm really busy and you're being kind of a downer right now anyway and you are perfectly capable of dealing with this on your own. We believe in you!"
One ex-friend of mine gave me the suck-it-up speech once (when all I was asking for was to hang out with someone sympathetic) and just a month or so later posted to LiveJournal about how she had a rough week and was going to go stay with her mom for the weekend because sometimes you just need to be around someone who'll love you and take care of you for a few days. And I just remember staring at my computer screen numbly thinking, "Bitch, you wouldn't even have dinner with me and you know I can't just go home to my Mom when I'm having a bad week."
I do get that depression has this feedback loop where you don't have the energy to do anything fun or even take care of yourself properly and then that makes your depression worse leaving you with even less energy to do anything fun or take care of yourself and I think from the outside people don't understand which came first. But you can't just break that loop by going "Today I'm going to suck it up and not be depressed." and having someone imply that you can and are just too stubborn/lazy to try makes the depression worse.
The worst negative internal monologue I have is a combination of every "helpful" person who told me I just need to try harder.
humans and fandom and depression
re: depression, paraphrased from actual conversations…
sister: "You know if you didn't have such a negative attitude all the time, you wouldn't be so depressed."
me: ::internally screaming::
me: ::tries to describe my depression to someone who doesn't seem to be getting it::
her: "I'm going to go out on a limb here, but have you ever considered that you might be depressed?"
me: ::blinks::
her: "No, really. You should think about it."
me: ::desperately trying to reach out to someone asking for help:: (because of all that "asking for help is the first step" advice or even "asking for help is the hardest part" b.s.)
friend-who-was-apparently-not-my-friend: "This sounds like something you should talk to your friends about."
friends: "Remember that we are always here for you if you ever need us!"
me: ::begs for a shoulder to cry on when I'm having a bad day::
friends: "Sorry I'm really busy and you're being kind of a downer right now anyway and you are perfectly capable of dealing with this on your own. We believe in you!"
One ex-friend of mine gave me the suck-it-up speech once (when all I was asking for was to hang out with someone sympathetic) and just a month or so later posted to LiveJournal about how she had a rough week and was going to go stay with her mom for the weekend because sometimes you just need to be around someone who'll love you and take care of you for a few days. And I just remember staring at my computer screen numbly thinking, "Bitch, you wouldn't even have dinner with me and you know I can't just go home to my Mom when I'm having a bad week."
I do get that depression has this feedback loop where you don't have the energy to do anything fun or even take care of yourself properly and then that makes your depression worse leaving you with even less energy to do anything fun or take care of yourself and I think from the outside people don't understand which came first. But you can't just break that loop by going "Today I'm going to suck it up and not be depressed." and having someone imply that you can and are just too stubborn/lazy to try makes the depression worse.
The worst negative internal monologue I have is a combination of every "helpful" person who told me I just need to try harder.