The Desert Mermaid

Rereading one of my old notebooks from when I was sixteen/seventeen--a bit of old research. I remember Teen Me as being an insufferable know-it-all. Turns out I was, but I was also extremely smart and funny. I was right in my religious awakening, which for me consisted of reading Stephen Hawking's books and thinking DAMN science is cool and also kind of being baffled to realize that other people seemed to actually believe their weird religious nonsense.* I was witty and full of wonder and excited about life and kind of a jerk with my friends. Also, there was a little bit of bad poetry, because of course there was.

And I was depressed.

I think I had my first bout of depression at age 15. A year and some change later, another came along. It's a little difficult for me to read some of those entries--though I seemed to recognize the moods/thoughts were not right, and commented on them with a lot of snark, they were still very THERE, and I remember the sadness. I also remember a more difficult-to-describe emotion: when trying to pull myself out of it, I would try to do things with my family, and they would not be enjoyable even though I knew I enjoyed them in the past.** This led to a sort of dread of those supposed-to-be-fun times, because they wouldn't be fun and would I ever be able to connect again? (This came to a head in October when we went to get pumpkins--there might have been some yelling.)

So amidst my snark on high school and enjoyment of AP European History and my awe at what I was learning from Professor Hawking, this particular notebook discusses my going on antidepressants.

Here's what I said:

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I feel just great today! I've made an important decision that may get my life back on track!

Here's the thing: Mom, Dad, my teachers, my counselors, [my psychiatrist], and I are very worried about my state of mind right now. It's a little scary--a few are afraid that I may wind up doing something stupid--they're afraid that, because of depression, I may resort to doping myself up. So, in order to stop me from doing this they decided, in an incredible display of logic, to: dope me up!

Yes. I'm going to go on antidepressants. I got sick of having nervous breakdowns at school every single goddam day, so Mom called [my psychiatrist], and they decided that, if I didn't object, they'd give me some medication.

Hell, yeah, I don't mind. I'd volunteer for a brain transplant to get rid of this desperation right now. I'm drowning in myself right now, and I'd really rather not be. I've tried solving it the tough way; now I'm going to try it The American Way (pills)

What puzzles me is the aversion people have to antidepressant pills. "You're not yourself when you're on those," they point out. But why is the self assumed to be a constant in the first place? The depression is dictated by chemicals [scribble] what's wrong with introducing other chemicals to get a different balance?

If someone has diabetes, then non one begrudges them insulin. Why, then, is seratonin different?

I'm personally fine with it. I'll ask a lot of questions, of course--but if I can get a firm footing in my whirlwind life, I'm willing to go for it!!

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Why do I bring this up now? Well, because antidepressants are getting another bum rap in the news today. Or depression is. It's hard to tell sometimes. Antidepressants have that weird backwards-logic stigma where admitting you take them makes people MORE afraid of you--the "only sick people take pills; if you don't take pills, you won't be sick" fallacy. (Me, I'd rather find out that somebody was taking the pills they needed than that they weren't.)

Slate already has an article arguing that "depression" does NOT make you murder 149 other people (and discussing the difference between depression and "depression" in a wonderfully sensitive way--yes, we need to fix situational problems AND chemical imbalances). But I just wanted to point out from a depressed teenager's perspective, antidepressants were the SAVING GRACE. I was not going to murder anyone, but I was desperate and anhedonic, and antidepressants fixed that.

So to naysayers I will say: teenage me knew what the deal was. Maybe she can persuade you.


*Till then I was under the impression that Church was just a really DEDICATED book club, where they discussed Biblical stories as literature, which seemed strange but hey, if they liked it, good for them. I was extremely confused when I realized that people believed it in a far more "literal" sense.

Evidently, some Christians do treat it like literature, and they make a far better case for it that way. Hell, the way Fred Clark describes it, especially in his incredible dissections of Left Behind vs. his theology I actually do agree with a lot of Christianity. Except for, y'know, the whole "whether there is a god" thing.

**For a brilliant description of this detachment, check out Allie Brosch's Depression Part Two at Hyperbole and a Half. It is the best description I've ever read of depression. And it has an interesting effect: everyone who has never been depressed reads it and earnestly says, "This has taught me a lot! I will try to be more sensitive in the future!" Everyone who has been depressed reads it and says, "OH GOD I LAUGHED MY ASS OFF."

The hypomanic idea storm of a couple of weeks ago has died down somewhat, to the point where I can actually focus on other stories besides ALL THE GOOD IDEAS. It's admittedly unpleasant to have those episodes, but the good part is that then I'm left with a year's worth of material to process when I'm in my less crazed state.

This time around it's left me with some supertangential characters in OGYAFEland. I don't know if they'll ever see the light of day beyond one short story that should work, because they're a little bit melodramatic. However, following my recent post on creative truths, I'm finding these characters interesting to work with because they really do follow the casual animism of OGYAFEland a little more literally than my main OGYAFE characters do.

The idea in OGYAFEland is that they proudly insist they don't have gods, but have a hugely extensive belief in spirits and fairies. The idiom reflects this, and a lot of people are willing to follow the traditions of leaving offerings to the spirits, but some are more attuned to it than others. And this is a somewhat modern society--kind of mid-20th-Century, give or take--which means that the fairies are willing to adapt to the changing nature of magic and technology. I like seeing how a belief that they have a lot of little personal, localized spirits hanging around affects these somewhat modernized characters' actions.

Plus, it's just fun to be able to have a character casually say something like "Sure, you can borrow my car, but beware of the bad fairies living in the transmission" and have others take them seriously. It's the little things.

“When I say I realized I was an atheist when I was a teenager, I’m simplifying things a bit, because I was always an atheist. My big revelation wasn’t so much a realization that I was an atheist as it was a realization that other people weren’t.”

This quote was brought to you by our discussions of churchgoing at work. My coworker was totally cool with my being an atheist, because he’s one too, but he was also puzzled by the idea that I had been raised that way. Who knew atheism could be the default setting?

Why do I love Sir David Attenborough so much?

“It never really occurred to me to believe in God—and I had nothing to rebel against, my parents told me nothing whatsoever.”

Planet Earth on Blu-Ray is amazing. And yes, he is one of the reasons my sister and I are planning a senior trip* to the Galápagos.


*Either when she’s a senior in college, or, if money is harder to come by, when we’re both seniors.

I love PZ Myers,* I gotta say. He’s bombastic, aggressive, hyperbolic and can at times be a colossal douche.

He can also tear your logical fallacies up one side and down the other.

Every once in a while I get really steamed and want to point out some of the errors people are making in what we will generously call their thinking. But dear Jesus Prime in a tasteless magic cracker, it’s hard to keep up with this relentless pile of stupid. So I link to PZ because he says everything I’d have said, except perhaps with a bit more hyperbole.

There. I’m glad I got that off my chest.


*Yes, you’ve heard the name in the news recently: he’s getting mentioned along with the news that the Vatican has released its list of the worst sins EVARZ. And according to the Vatican, PZ Myers made news as one of the worst sinners in all of history—worse even than, to borrow a phrase from Eddie Izzard, genocidal fuckheads. What is this heinous crime, you ask? Well, PZ tossed a cracker in the trash. And not even a very tasty cracker, at that.

The backlash is enormous.

Y'all may have seen this already, but the Boston Globe has a pretty good article on His Dark Materials: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2007/11/25/god_in_the_dust/?page=full

I am definitely an atheist, but I still believe in the Universe, and I can see where she's going with this concept--it's a kind of god that makes more sense to me, which probably means it's somehow heretical. I remember thinking along her lines myself when I read the books--that it wouldn't be hard to make them theistic, although he clearly didn't mean them that way. I even guessed that Hollywood would take this route to avoid the untouchable concept that maybe atheists aren't all hardened bitter immoral jerks: that this evil church was a false church supplanting some true god.

Also, of course the crazy religious people* would be up in arms. We can't have our kids reading anything that might make them think, after all. Atheist kids are perfectly welcome to come see The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, even if it clashes with their ideology because the Christians agree with it.** But we can't have those damn atheists enjoying stories that agree with THEM while the CHRISTIANS are left out. That's immoral.

What cracks me up is that they just now seem to have really noticed this series, and it's with the damn movies, which will amaze me if they've left ANY possible interpretation of anti-religion in it. *sigh* The power of Hollywood.


Also: DAMMITALL, I WANT TO SEE THIS MOVIE. WHY MUST I WAIT OVER A WEEK AFTER IT COMES OUT?! I am GOING to find a theater here, see if I don't.


*As opposed to the not-crazy religious people, and I'd like to thank all of those.

**Unless they're the frothy-mouthed Christians who think it's somehow WRONG because everything except their own incoherent interpretation is correct.