The Lie of Self-reliance
A post I read in someone's LJ got me thinking about this. He was complaining that some of the LJs he was reading depressed him because the people in them had essentially given up - that they saw themselves as "left behind" when of course, they weren't - from his perspective.
I'm not actually going to comment on that per se - that's grist for an entire post of its own, but the responses he got riled me. Most of the replies were of the 'people have to help themselves' mindset that I've complained about before.
I'd like to draw an analogy and hopefully, you'll see my point.
The Physical Injury
You're out in the woods alone. You stumble and your leg slams into a boulder and snaps. It's a clean break - the bone is now in two parts. The pain is unimaginable. You're trapped in the middle of no where - and there's no help coming. You have to be totally self-reliant.
What do you do?
Well, most of us would die. Horribly.
Some - a very few - would be able to endure the pain while pulling their leg back into alignment, holding the bones together while forming a primitive splint out of sticks and bark. Even then, now in less pain, but still in pretty amazing pain, and probably unable to stand on the leg, they would lie there until they starved or died of thirst or exposure.
An even smaller number would actually manage to split it well enough to stand on it, make up a set of crutches and limp in agony out of the forest to get help, assuming sepsis and gangrene hadn't set in and they weren't TOO far from civilisation.
I think it's fair to stay very few would survive the experience.
Now, you're walking down a street in a major city and you make a turn and tumble down a flight of stairs. Your leg is broken exactly the same way.
What do you do?
Well, if you have a cell phone you call 911, but the odds are someone around you will already have done it and a bunch of people will be there to try and help until the ambulance shows up. They'll whisk you to the nearest hospital where you'll get an injection of a powerful painkiller as the doctor X-Rays your leg and either splints it, or does quick surgery to set a pin into the bone to hold it together as it heals - and probably will lavage the area with antibiotic to prevent sepsis.
Then he'll put it in a cast and within a few hours, you'll be on your way home. A month later, you'll have the cast off and be as good as new.
Which is better? Self-reliance or having a support system you can rely on?
The Psychological Injury
It may be hard to believe, but there are mechanisms that are the psychological equivalent of a broken leg. Clinical depression is one of the most common.
In your brain, there's a chemical called seratonin. It's sometimes called the "Sunshine Chemical" because, among the many things it does, it regulates your sense of well being and happiness. People with low seratonin levels feels lethargic, depressed, tired. People with high seratonin levels are energetic, cheerful, have a positive outlook.
[The following description of the seratonin mechanism has been corrected, thanks to Zetawolf]
This is all done through receptors in your brain that are triggered by seratonin molecules, so the system is composed of three parts: the seratonin emitters, seratonin receptors and the seratonin uptake mechanism which works to flush out seratonin. If these aren't working correctly, you'll slide into clinical depression. In clinical depression, the uptake mechanism goes into overdrive and constantly flushes out seratonin, leaving too little to active the receptors, causing depression (and other symptoms).
Now, some people are genetically predisposed to depression. They have a genetic defect either in the emitters or uptake system. Typically, they just don't make enough seratonin. But one of the biggest surprises of the last fifty years, in terms of pharmopsychology is that when a person undergoes a major emotional trauma, the body reacts by increasing seratonin uptake, leaving too little to trigger the receptors.
It's been suggested that this is actually an evolutionary glitch - the actual mechanism is the 'give up' reflex that most animals have that spares them when they're in a hopeless situation. Many animals, when placed in a hopeless and fatal situation (being attacked by a larger predator, for example) simply give up. It's actually useful in another way - often, a predator can only attack prey that's actively resisting - like running away - so if the brain shuts down your fight mechanism and forces you to 'play dead', you may actually survive.
But in humans, because we have SO many artificial and virtual threats that we have allowed to become real enough that they affect our psychological and physical health, the 'give up' reflex has actually become a liability. So in moments of extreme and seemingly hopeless trauma - the seratonin uptake mechanism essentially goes into overdrive, plunging the person into a deep depression.
This is where the glitch comes in. In humans (and in some other animals as well, it turns out), the sudden loss of seratonin itself becomes a trauma - and you end up with a self-sustaining chronic condition.
And this is the most important part: the person cannot just will themselves out of it. This mechanism isn't attached to any voluntary mechanism. Once it happens, the odds are very good you'll be stuck there for a long time - if not indefinitely.
Fortunately, we've found some drugs like prozac and paxil that actually help. They kick-start the seratonin uptake system back into operation. They don't actually make you happy - they get the mechanism in your brain that lets you be happy working again. The downside is that they don't work on everyone - and they don't even always work on people the same way all the time.
Worse, there's a catch 22 - a person who is clinically depressed is.. well, very depressed and feeling hopeless. They don't believe there's anything that can help. And sadly, the people around them can't force them to get help (well, they can - but it's rare that works). All you can do is try to convince the person to get help.
Blaming the Victims on Both Sides
However - and this is actually the point - we live in a society that sees mental illness not for what it is - an illness, just like breaking a leg or getting cancer - but as a weakness - a lack of character. Good people, strong people, worthy people don't get mental illnesses. You obviously have some lack of character that made you weak enough to get a mental illness.
In other words, they see mental illness and depression as the victim's fault. The depressed person should be self-reliant and snap out of - understand that life isn't hopeless and stop bothering others with their self-inflicted problems.
Which is like blaming the person with the broken leg for not sucking it up and getting on with life with their broken leg. A real man doesn't need support or a doctor - they'd just grit their teeth and limp on.
Which is bullsh*t.
It's equally interesting that no one can simply say '*I* cannot handle your depression, it's my fault that I can't - but I can't and so I cannot take on any responsibility for you. I'm sorry.' - which is really the case and completely reasonable, but instead we have to make the other person the bad guy for having problems.
It's very strange.
There's nothing wrong in saying 'Man, you have problems - I want to help, but I can't... I don't know how.' or 'I have too many things going on in my life of my own to help right now.' But again, that would be an admission of personal failure... rather than an acceptance that not everyone can help everyone. So it's easier to blame the other guy for having problems and 'forcing' you to be aware of them.
John Donne, in my opinion, said it best: "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
No man is an island... because I am involved in mankind.
It touches me. It affects me. It supports me. It harms me. It asks of me - and it gives to me. I am involved in it and it is involved in me. We are connected.
The universe is neither fair, nor unfair. It just is. It shows us no compassion, but no malice either. It is we who define fairness and it is we who act or fail to act to make the world a fairer place.
But if the world is not fair, not just, not a paradise - or even just not a great place to be - that, my friends, is really our fault collectively.
Because when we can say we're tired of helping those who are left behind - whether for real, or in their own perception, it is we ourselves who have left something behind: our humanity.
ADDENDUM:
I think I may not have gotten this across well enough. I am NOT saying that everyone is obligated to help everyone in everyway anytime we're asked. That's impossible and unfair.
What I'm saying is that each of us chooses who we help or don't help and so it's as much our life as the person we help. When we refuse to help, we are taking an action. But that doesn't mean that action isn't justified.
Where I draw the line is not that some people (heck, everyone at some time) will have to say 'No. I cannot help you.' - and there are many valid reasons to say this - it's when we turn it around to say 'I refuse to help because it's your life and you have to live it. It's all up to you.'
The former is like saying to the fellow with the broken leg 'I'd like to carry you to the hospital, but my back can't take it - I'd be crippled...' while the latter is like saying 'Get up you lazy bastard - endure the pain and walk to the car and then I'll drive you.'
I'm not actually going to comment on that per se - that's grist for an entire post of its own, but the responses he got riled me. Most of the replies were of the 'people have to help themselves' mindset that I've complained about before.
I'd like to draw an analogy and hopefully, you'll see my point.
The Physical Injury
You're out in the woods alone. You stumble and your leg slams into a boulder and snaps. It's a clean break - the bone is now in two parts. The pain is unimaginable. You're trapped in the middle of no where - and there's no help coming. You have to be totally self-reliant.
What do you do?
Well, most of us would die. Horribly.
Some - a very few - would be able to endure the pain while pulling their leg back into alignment, holding the bones together while forming a primitive splint out of sticks and bark. Even then, now in less pain, but still in pretty amazing pain, and probably unable to stand on the leg, they would lie there until they starved or died of thirst or exposure.
An even smaller number would actually manage to split it well enough to stand on it, make up a set of crutches and limp in agony out of the forest to get help, assuming sepsis and gangrene hadn't set in and they weren't TOO far from civilisation.
I think it's fair to stay very few would survive the experience.
Now, you're walking down a street in a major city and you make a turn and tumble down a flight of stairs. Your leg is broken exactly the same way.
What do you do?
Well, if you have a cell phone you call 911, but the odds are someone around you will already have done it and a bunch of people will be there to try and help until the ambulance shows up. They'll whisk you to the nearest hospital where you'll get an injection of a powerful painkiller as the doctor X-Rays your leg and either splints it, or does quick surgery to set a pin into the bone to hold it together as it heals - and probably will lavage the area with antibiotic to prevent sepsis.
Then he'll put it in a cast and within a few hours, you'll be on your way home. A month later, you'll have the cast off and be as good as new.
Which is better? Self-reliance or having a support system you can rely on?
The Psychological Injury
It may be hard to believe, but there are mechanisms that are the psychological equivalent of a broken leg. Clinical depression is one of the most common.
In your brain, there's a chemical called seratonin. It's sometimes called the "Sunshine Chemical" because, among the many things it does, it regulates your sense of well being and happiness. People with low seratonin levels feels lethargic, depressed, tired. People with high seratonin levels are energetic, cheerful, have a positive outlook.
[The following description of the seratonin mechanism has been corrected, thanks to Zetawolf]
This is all done through receptors in your brain that are triggered by seratonin molecules, so the system is composed of three parts: the seratonin emitters, seratonin receptors and the seratonin uptake mechanism which works to flush out seratonin. If these aren't working correctly, you'll slide into clinical depression. In clinical depression, the uptake mechanism goes into overdrive and constantly flushes out seratonin, leaving too little to active the receptors, causing depression (and other symptoms).
Now, some people are genetically predisposed to depression. They have a genetic defect either in the emitters or uptake system. Typically, they just don't make enough seratonin. But one of the biggest surprises of the last fifty years, in terms of pharmopsychology is that when a person undergoes a major emotional trauma, the body reacts by increasing seratonin uptake, leaving too little to trigger the receptors.
It's been suggested that this is actually an evolutionary glitch - the actual mechanism is the 'give up' reflex that most animals have that spares them when they're in a hopeless situation. Many animals, when placed in a hopeless and fatal situation (being attacked by a larger predator, for example) simply give up. It's actually useful in another way - often, a predator can only attack prey that's actively resisting - like running away - so if the brain shuts down your fight mechanism and forces you to 'play dead', you may actually survive.
But in humans, because we have SO many artificial and virtual threats that we have allowed to become real enough that they affect our psychological and physical health, the 'give up' reflex has actually become a liability. So in moments of extreme and seemingly hopeless trauma - the seratonin uptake mechanism essentially goes into overdrive, plunging the person into a deep depression.
This is where the glitch comes in. In humans (and in some other animals as well, it turns out), the sudden loss of seratonin itself becomes a trauma - and you end up with a self-sustaining chronic condition.
And this is the most important part: the person cannot just will themselves out of it. This mechanism isn't attached to any voluntary mechanism. Once it happens, the odds are very good you'll be stuck there for a long time - if not indefinitely.
Fortunately, we've found some drugs like prozac and paxil that actually help. They kick-start the seratonin uptake system back into operation. They don't actually make you happy - they get the mechanism in your brain that lets you be happy working again. The downside is that they don't work on everyone - and they don't even always work on people the same way all the time.
Worse, there's a catch 22 - a person who is clinically depressed is.. well, very depressed and feeling hopeless. They don't believe there's anything that can help. And sadly, the people around them can't force them to get help (well, they can - but it's rare that works). All you can do is try to convince the person to get help.
Blaming the Victims on Both Sides
However - and this is actually the point - we live in a society that sees mental illness not for what it is - an illness, just like breaking a leg or getting cancer - but as a weakness - a lack of character. Good people, strong people, worthy people don't get mental illnesses. You obviously have some lack of character that made you weak enough to get a mental illness.
In other words, they see mental illness and depression as the victim's fault. The depressed person should be self-reliant and snap out of - understand that life isn't hopeless and stop bothering others with their self-inflicted problems.
Which is like blaming the person with the broken leg for not sucking it up and getting on with life with their broken leg. A real man doesn't need support or a doctor - they'd just grit their teeth and limp on.
Which is bullsh*t.
It's equally interesting that no one can simply say '*I* cannot handle your depression, it's my fault that I can't - but I can't and so I cannot take on any responsibility for you. I'm sorry.' - which is really the case and completely reasonable, but instead we have to make the other person the bad guy for having problems.
It's very strange.
There's nothing wrong in saying 'Man, you have problems - I want to help, but I can't... I don't know how.' or 'I have too many things going on in my life of my own to help right now.' But again, that would be an admission of personal failure... rather than an acceptance that not everyone can help everyone. So it's easier to blame the other guy for having problems and 'forcing' you to be aware of them.
John Donne, in my opinion, said it best: "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
No man is an island... because I am involved in mankind.
It touches me. It affects me. It supports me. It harms me. It asks of me - and it gives to me. I am involved in it and it is involved in me. We are connected.
The universe is neither fair, nor unfair. It just is. It shows us no compassion, but no malice either. It is we who define fairness and it is we who act or fail to act to make the world a fairer place.
But if the world is not fair, not just, not a paradise - or even just not a great place to be - that, my friends, is really our fault collectively.
Because when we can say we're tired of helping those who are left behind - whether for real, or in their own perception, it is we ourselves who have left something behind: our humanity.
ADDENDUM:
I think I may not have gotten this across well enough. I am NOT saying that everyone is obligated to help everyone in everyway anytime we're asked. That's impossible and unfair.
What I'm saying is that each of us chooses who we help or don't help and so it's as much our life as the person we help. When we refuse to help, we are taking an action. But that doesn't mean that action isn't justified.
Where I draw the line is not that some people (heck, everyone at some time) will have to say 'No. I cannot help you.' - and there are many valid reasons to say this - it's when we turn it around to say 'I refuse to help because it's your life and you have to live it. It's all up to you.'
The former is like saying to the fellow with the broken leg 'I'd like to carry you to the hospital, but my back can't take it - I'd be crippled...' while the latter is like saying 'Get up you lazy bastard - endure the pain and walk to the car and then I'll drive you.'