Tue
01Loose Lips Can Sink Ships.
The human mind is an amazing thing. It can accept and cope with tragedy, it can handle the immense pressure that life often throws at us. It can find catharsis in creative release, and bring forth an amazing spectrum of ideas and thoughts. It can be overwhelmed with love, and also with seething hatred. I once read a study that stated that we as human beings, only have usable access to 20% of our minds. Whether or not that statistic has any truth to it, I don’t doubt the capabilities of the human brain.
The point of that paragraph was to illustrate how much we as human beings can go through, and still maintain hope. I’ve dealt with clinical anxiety and depression my entire life, and since I was a child I’ve been very adept at understanding my own psychology, and why we do the things we do. I guess that’s also a big part of the reason why I chose photography for my career. I’m an observer. I remember seeing home videos of myself at around age 4 or 5, and even then I was in my own little world. Sitting, in quiet fascination of all of the people and things around me and taking mental notes, that would later in life put themselves together into something that made perfect sense.
Which leads me to the reason for this post. I deal with depression and anxiety on a daily basis. I use a combination of medication, talking, and creative expression to fight it and keep myself afloat. The holidays have always been very messy and emotional for me, and I struggle a lot during them. A week ago, a friend of mine looked me square in the eye while we were out to eat and said “Why can’t you just fucking snap out of this?!” It took me completely off guard, because I hadn’t even realized I was doing anything. Normally, my difficulties are on the back burner, and I’m able to live some semblance of a normal life without turning into a pile of useless goo. Not that day, however.
The point is, is that for someone who struggles with these issues, much like I do, is that the phrase “oh its no big deal, just get over it!” is the most infuriating thing someone could possibly say. Depression and anxiety in clinical form, create real, actual imbalances in the chemical levels in your brain. You wouldn’t walk up to a cancer patient, and shout “LOL! GET OVER IT OMG YOU’LL BE FINE YOU’RE OVERREACTING!” would you? Thought not. Anxiety and depression, much like cancer, are actual diseases. A depressive can no more “just get over it” than a cancer patient can cure tumors that ravage their bodies. It takes a lot of effort to be able to cope with it. I’m not talking about your cliché morose teenager who is “depressed” because they had a fight with their parents. I’m talking about people who genuinely struggle with the disease. A lesson in realizing what comes out of your mouth, and how it can affect the people around you.
Even with the wealth of knowledge that things like the internet provide us, sometimes it takes a biased, un-medical personal account to set the record straight involving things of this nature. I consider myself extremely lucky, to have grown up in a healthy atmosphere with family members and friends that support me, and help me through the rough patches. Not everyone has a support network like that, so that one time you say “Oh get over it, you’ll be fine!” to someone, could be the breaking point. I’ve always used hope as my biggest tool in battling these diseases, knowing that even though I will struggle with them until the day I die, there is so much to look forward to.
I’ll finish my bachelors, and then move on to receive my masters degree. I’ll get a job with some magazine like National Geographic or Time that will allow me to travel all over the world, photographing the people I see and writing stories about them. It will give me a chance, in my tiny way, to encounter people who suffer, and to give them a tiny slice of the hope that I’ve always had. That’s my gift, and the sole reason that I get out of bed some days. My point is, watch what you say. Live your life, love the people close to you, and know that no matter how barren and empty things can seem, hope is always there. Love is also always there, if one only knows where to look.