Remember when I told you all that Wonder and I had been talking and I couldn't think of a single grown woman I know who doesn't have some depression/anxiety problem?
Perhaps that is just the natural consequence of our brains having too many synaptic fires while trying to hold onto the idea of the spectacle while also being confronted daily with it's falseness.
If depression is not pessimism but realism, then depression is what happens when we see the world for what it is and realize how utterly powerless we are to change it for ourselves (meaning in each individual case, not that the world is unchangeable).
I know that is a huge part of it for me. I know I have enough education and thoughtfulness and understanding to see how the world works, but that also means that I see how utterly powerless I am to make it better for me and the Kid. (I have joked that I have enough education to see the system and how it all works, but not enough education to make any of that knowledge profitable). I can write here, and hopefully sometimes it makes it better or easier for someone out there to see it too, or at least to feel less alone as a hunk of meat in the ever churning sausage factory that is the modern world. That is good, great even, but doesn't do anything to stop the daily fear of how are we just going to survive, put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads.
I think that explains why women, and particularly poor women, suffer from mental illness at higher rates than men. Having that oppression check on the kyriarchy means that we start seeing the truth from the lie very early and have to come up with ever more elaborate ruses to trick ourselves into disbelief. From the first time we're catcalled (I was 10 I think) or groped (6 or 7) we realize that being a good girl has nothing to do with whether or not you'll be bothered by men.
Or maybe it's just me who is depressed not because of anything particularly personal but because THE ENTIRE WORLD SUCKS ASS!
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