From: llama@tramp.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.suicide.holiday
Subject: helplessness and powerlessness
Date: 29 Dec 92 21:47:07 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

a conversation i was having about another topic (arguing someone out
of suicide was the subject, i think) made me start thinking about how
much control we really have over how we feel.

for one thing, people who are depressed and suicidal usually don't
think they have any control over anything, much less how they feel and
think. that seems to be a large part of what i was being told in the
other thread: "i can't do anything about this, i've tried, it doesn't
work, no matter what i try, it won't work."

and it's really hard. it seems almost foolish to say "well, i'm going
to decide not to be depressed anymore. i'm going to decide to be
happy." yeah, right, if it were that fucking easy, we'd all be happy
and prozac sales would plummet. i mean, yeah, some people get
something or other out of being unhappy, but most people, if you
offered them a magic potion that would undepress them, would gladly
accept (thus, prozac sales are rather high).

on the other hand, something in me rebels against saying, "i'm the
victim of the things that happen in my life and i have no control over
how i feel about them and how i react to them and i'm just doomed to
be the way i am until i die, which i should make happen as soon as
possible." that doesn't work any better than "i'll just decide to be
happy" does. if i'm that much at the mercy of the world, then what's
the point for *anyone*? why bother to be an individual if you have no
way to control anything in your life?

so the reality must lie somewhere in between these two extremes. (gee,
it works out that way a lot.) there may be some things in my life i'm
powerless over. i can't control what other people do, i can't make
people love me if they don't want to, i can't do a lot about all sorts
of things in the world at large. but there are a lot of things i can
control. i can decide how i feel about things, i can decide how (or
if) i'm going to act on those feelings, i can decide what things in my
life are good things i want to keep and what things are bad things i
want to throw away. and i can act on those decisions.

so far, so good. but i can also decide that things are pointless, that
i'm hopeless, that nothing i do will help, that i have no control over
anything in my life. i can make myself into a passive lump drifting
through my life and undergoing the minstrations of other people who
are trying to keep me from drowning. and if i really believe all those
things, they become true for me and things really are hopeless. there
really isn't anything that can be done.

and before the charges of "this is just another way to accuse poor
depressed people of just not trying hard enough and saying that if
they did they'd be okay" are raised, let me add that getting into this
state isn't a willful, conscious act and getting out of it isn't as
easy as just trying. it takes a lot of work and it takes a moment of
insight. sometimes it just won't happen, no matter how hard you try.
sometimes you're just not ready for it. it's not a statement about who
you are as a person that you're in that place.

i don't believe that i've ever encountered anyone whose emotional pain
was incurable. i've encountered many people who, because of feelings
of hopelessness and helplessness, felt that theirs was. some of these
people still feel that way; some of them have reached a point where
they were able to let go of that feeling. that doesn't make them
"better" people, just less depressed ones.

--
sine nomine | deb martinson
sigh again

Newsgroups: alt.suicide.holiday