My favorite non-conventional bit of wisdom is this line from the Bob Seger song, "Against the Wind"
"wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then"
sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. But I think about that line a lot.
I think writing a sub stack and being honest about yourself is a great way of coping! And to me it shows courage and strength. (and I know I'm not objective, because I've been writing one for the past five weeks).
I'm catching a vibe of FdB here in the critique, with your characteristic wit. I love your graphics, and I, too, have wondered why my family was going through massive amounts of mac n' cheese per week. Milk duds are my guilty pleasure.
This is a really great post. Also, I know this is not the point at all but my sons love WWE and so I know much more about it than I ever thought I would. And I don't watch makeup videos but I do enjoy the occasional hair video, or "how to style a scarf" video.
Great post. I genuinely think depression-memeing your way through life messes with your ability to think of yourself as someone who can work through it. Anyway it made a real, noticeable difference in my daily anxiety-management when I cut jokey relatable memes about it out of my diet.
A similarly poignant piece of advice from an extremely trivial source has also stuck with me for a long time... it was a radio commercial for Laverne Cox's podcast where she shared that her therapist once told her, "You can only control two things in this world: your actions, and your perceptions. That's it." I have never actually listened to Cox's show, just that soundbite, but man, it has stuck with me.
This was a lovely essay, as always. For nearly all of my life, I have been an extremely sunny, cheerful, optimistic, happy person. The one exception happened after my son was born, when I had severe post-partum depression. I felt like my brain had been taken over by an evil demon, and there was nothing I wanted more than to be restored to my regular, bouncy self. (Thankfully, with the help of a terrific psychiatrist I did get better.)
I think our society treads a dangerous path when we confer enhanced social status on people for their putative mental illnesses. If you truly have a mental illness, you know how terrible it is, and you want it to be obliterated so you can get back to the person you know you truly are, deep down. I was saved by a psychiatrist who helped me access the strongest, not the weakest parts of myself. We should be letting young people know that they will be better off encouraging each other for their triumphs, and not for their weaknesses.
My favorite non-conventional bit of wisdom is this line from the Bob Seger song, "Against the Wind"
"wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then"
sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. But I think about that line a lot.
I think writing a sub stack and being honest about yourself is a great way of coping! And to me it shows courage and strength. (and I know I'm not objective, because I've been writing one for the past five weeks).
I'm catching a vibe of FdB here in the critique, with your characteristic wit. I love your graphics, and I, too, have wondered why my family was going through massive amounts of mac n' cheese per week. Milk duds are my guilty pleasure.
This is a really great post. Also, I know this is not the point at all but my sons love WWE and so I know much more about it than I ever thought I would. And I don't watch makeup videos but I do enjoy the occasional hair video, or "how to style a scarf" video.
I hope you're doing okay.
Great post. I genuinely think depression-memeing your way through life messes with your ability to think of yourself as someone who can work through it. Anyway it made a real, noticeable difference in my daily anxiety-management when I cut jokey relatable memes about it out of my diet.
A similarly poignant piece of advice from an extremely trivial source has also stuck with me for a long time... it was a radio commercial for Laverne Cox's podcast where she shared that her therapist once told her, "You can only control two things in this world: your actions, and your perceptions. That's it." I have never actually listened to Cox's show, just that soundbite, but man, it has stuck with me.
This was a lovely essay, as always. For nearly all of my life, I have been an extremely sunny, cheerful, optimistic, happy person. The one exception happened after my son was born, when I had severe post-partum depression. I felt like my brain had been taken over by an evil demon, and there was nothing I wanted more than to be restored to my regular, bouncy self. (Thankfully, with the help of a terrific psychiatrist I did get better.)
I think our society treads a dangerous path when we confer enhanced social status on people for their putative mental illnesses. If you truly have a mental illness, you know how terrible it is, and you want it to be obliterated so you can get back to the person you know you truly are, deep down. I was saved by a psychiatrist who helped me access the strongest, not the weakest parts of myself. We should be letting young people know that they will be better off encouraging each other for their triumphs, and not for their weaknesses.