The internet and depression simply do not make good bedfellows. By internet I am referring largely to the network of lost souls who wish to rub elbows or pinch bosoms in the cyber court of chatroom and blog site settings.
It's one thing to go online and seek casual acquaintance, like giving or receiving a shout out here and there. Maybe reading something that speaks to you and speaking back in your own thoughts on the matter at hand. Even posting something that speaks to others and engaging in civilized banter. Whatever works for you, provided you comprehend the value and placement that such actions have in your day to day life. Of course, it IS the internet and if this is ALL that you have in your life you might wish to rethink your existence strategy. If you are so lost and deep in a pool of mire that you find yourself sinking deeper and deeper and thus eventually losing touch with the outside world and only able to function in an online capacity, well then this is just not healthy and it it is not going to benefit you or anyone else that you shall cross paths with.
The perpetually damaged have a tendency for not only seeking out but as well latching onto the perpetually damaged themselves. After all, it does takes one to know one. Sure there are people who have become jaded and frustrated with the reality of their surroundings and are looking for ways to pass the time. Porn sites. Fantasy football. Mah jong. That sort of shit. Me personally, I log in each day because I have to do so in order to write. Lots of people spend all day or night online admiring the architecture of genitalia or playing some mind numbing video game or buying baskets from Baskets 'R' Us. Not my thang at all. But hey, we all got our "thangs."
From my own personal experience, and theories derived from conversations with friends over the years, it is my belief that when somebody spends much of their time on the computer they are lacking something in real life and in turn searching for something online to fill that void. Looking at stuff.... doing stuff.... whatever. Reasons and thangs unique to the individual. But those who house the biggest voids are usually harvested of emotional glitches or social malfunctions and so the first thing these types wind up doing is seeking out others who are equally as glitch ridden and malformed. For those without friend or family to physically lean on or wrap their arms around when they need to be hugged and assured of their worth it might seem like a good idea to go online and find yourself some able ears and arms. Then again, maybe it also seemed like a great idea to share that picture of your cock that you took on your dick2phone with that new girl at the office you think is cute because after all, you did find her cell phone number while casing the employee directory. She must like you, right?
The only way that someone who is drowning is ever going to be able to break free of the vortex pulling them down and breathe in the fumes of restoration is to get out there and in fact breathe in the air. Looking at a picture of Elysian Fields on the internet doesn't count. The internet can be your friend if you let it. But it can also strangle your will to live and suck you dry while you are laying in a pool of self-doubt. The only way that someone who falls under this description can indeed be helped is to know when to turn their computers on and off. Chat rooms and blog sites tend to collect troubled souls. Troubled souls need wide open spaces and human contact. They might not always want these things. But they sure do need them.
Becoming lost in a make believe world such as the internet is no different than drowning ones sorrows in drink. It might seem like it's helping for a little while. Ultimately the course has been set for total destruction and should you not recognize before it's too late then you pretty much have taken something as precious and boundless as the gift of life and pissed it away to sit around stewing in your own misery and dirty underwear, all while talking to a bunch of other miserable fuckheads sitting around in their dirty underwear.
Depression is evil. Believe me, I am well aware on levels that tower over pavements both cracked and littered with debris. I always loathe to say "Been there done that" but well.... you see, I have and I have. The most important thing there is to know about someone with depression is this... inside of that empty shell of a soul they have.... those who cry out incessantly, or just plain cry at all the wrong moments, really do want help. Maybe this hand of theirs is buried underneath a pile of dirty clothes or crawling on the bottom of an ocean of their own bodily fluids. But that hand is there. Somewhere. The make up of some is so disintegrated that maybe their arms have fallen off. But that arm was there and in its place now might only be a stump that occasionally will take to flapping in the wind, sight unseen.
Those with depression know they need help. Face it, if they didn't they would already have fallen off from the edges of their flattened universe. Maybe they don't know how to ask. Maybe they do know but can't speak loud enough over the static and shuffle. Maybe there is another voice altogether in their head that forbids them to speak out of turn. But make no mistake about it.... these people need help and somewhere deep down inside they know it and want it. A lot of people spend their days asking themselves "How?" How can I help someone who feels like their self-worth rivals a piece of manure freshly dropped into the turd bowl? It might seem complex when you look at them from across the street and maybe even while you are standing there holding hands with them in the elevator so they don't have a panic attack while moving on up the shaft to the sky box. But many of lifes complexities are often times quite simple. Obviously circumstances and resolutions vary. But once again, this coming from my own and those of close enough proximity over time.... we want attention. Different strokes for different folks. But attention is the most rational course of action here. After all, the chances of someone jumping in front of a bus while you are delving in conversation are highly unlikely. Maybe in extreme cases not altogether improbable. None the less.... highly unlikely.
I have never agreed with therapy or being medicated for your sanity. I mean, I once knew a girl who said to me "If it weren't for the medication I am on I would kill myself." Certainly if the situation requires drastic measures to prevent ones harming of themselves, or others, than whatever is necessary shall indeed be deemed so. Still doesn't mean that I have to agree with it though.
The effects of medication are an illusion and will eventually wear off. This only leaves two options, even for the most inquisitive and creative pill popper. You either take another pill and be happily plastic.... or you don't.... and then you go and kill yourself or someone else. This doesn't seem like any proper way to live ones life. It could even be argued this is not even much of a life at all. Who knows? Maybe someone in such a state should just kill themselves and hope they come back as a bird or whatever warped shit these people tell themselves daily to justify or keep in check their ever present rattling demeanor and its possibly grave consequences.
As for therapy.... well, I would say don't get me started here.... but this being a blog.... my blog in fact.... fuck it. I am going to start it and end it right here and right now. I think the concept of therapy is bullshit. It's like someone else telling you to just clench up your muscles and not piss yourself. It might work. It might not. Regardless of the outcome you are going to fork out your paycheck just to keep from having to stand in front of or sit on a toilet like everybody else and once that prick who sits there and chews pens while you drone on and on about your misinterpreted feelings and noxious childhood tells you that your time is up he is going to drive to his mansion in a Lexus while getting head from a Lindsay Lohan-a-like and giving her a pearl necklace bought and paid for by your inability to cope. There are lots of things way cheaper and far more effective in my opinion to help cuddle ones sanity. Masterbaition and coffee being only two of them.
Another problem that I have with therapy is that it's all books and no experience. I don't care what you or anybody else says, but if you build a house solely based on an instruction manual the motherfucker is going to fall apart well before the house built by the person who is either a carpenter by experience or trade. Many of the people who counsel manic depressives and recovering drug addicts are people who skip to work every day and whose only drug of choice has ever and always will be smoking a pack of Salem ultra lights. Sorry folks, if I am wanting to be lectured on why I shouldn't blow my brains out or smoke another crack rock I would rather have somebody who still has scars and that smoldering fire in their eye from being in the burning building of life's inferno than some dick weed who learned all he needed to know from seeing a movie of the week where Michael J. Fox rode his moped by a crack house and is stirring in his seat while I pour out my soul because he wants to get outside and smoke a stoagie.
I have never studied or so much as read a single book on depression and yet I feel paramount in my confidence of not only diagnosing a pre-existing condition but taking it outside and beating the shit out of it. At the very least, talking it down from a ledge. How can I say this? It takes one to know one, motherfucker. So there.
The internet can be your friend. Sure it can. But friends can stab you in the back or in the front, depending on where you are standing in the elevator heading towards that sky box. Think about this as well.... the internet has killed everything that was way fucking cool and worth remembering from the past. Art being the most obvious victim here.
The mass downloading of music and movies has not only made artists sit on their creative thumbs and churn out mindless tripe in efforts to scramble crowds into empty theaters and concert venues but it's flat out taken the soul away from the whole concept of art because nobody on either side of the screen, the stereo or the stage, even gives a shit anymore. It's all just lather-rinse-repeat. Serve your servant and they will get paid while you eat beans and rice from a can. Yay. Wow.
The internet has killed businesses and dreams because who wants to bother opening a store and actually connecting with their customer base when you can just go on Sleazebay or Glamamazon and buy the same thing or scores of imitation products that are "liked" on Fuckbook by non-experts worldwide?
The internet has taken jobs away from real people who spend their lives working towards achieving something they might actually care about and believe in because after all, who the fuck wants to pay an actual person to do something when you can just hit a few buttons and be more cost effective? In staying with the concepts of how both art and humanity has suffered.... look at CGI. Remember when movies had cool as hell special FX? Now, instead of employing an FX crew, and handing out countless job opportunities, studios will just have some Star Trek nerd in a whacking coat write up a program and BAM! Movie magic. All the eager employees forced to learn the vulcan handshake and buy whacking coats aside, I happen to think that CGI sucks my swampy asshole because it's unrealistic to the nines. If I wanted to play a video game I would simply go online and play one. Certainly wouldn't go into an arcade now, would I?
Sure, the internet has its strengths. Even in a chat room or a blog site, it's a hell of a lot easier to ignore someone than if they were breathing onion breath on you and fogging up your glasses. But the internet comes with a price. It has killed everything under the sun and anything that it hasn't killed will soon be crossed out on the hit list. So yeah, you think that it's a good idea to take something as limitless and lethal as the be all fuck all of society as we know it and put it in the hands of a bunch of people who have trouble even raising their heads from a pillow in the morning?
The mind can be a terrible thing. But it can also be glorious and reap much bounty. The only way to achieve such bounty is to look in the mirror and like what you see and go from there. Once this can be done, then and only then can you and should you interact with the real world. Not the fake world we see on a computer screen and not the cruel world we see on the television screen. Real life with real people who really do care and will actually stand there and listen to you and if you still feel like you need a hug all you have to do is ask them and before you know it.... you will actually feel arms around you.... and THAT is priceless.
***Original blog post date 9/10/2011***
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