Entry tags:
Non-fandom post
There's a recently been a documentary on BBC TV called 'The Secret Life of Manic Depressives' or something similar. Anyway, in the blurb there was quite a bit of talk about the presenter, Stephen Fry, and how it was amazing that someone who is as undoubtedly talented as Fry is would be best by the feeling that he was worthless and that he had a little voice at the back of his head telling him he was 'a useless shit'.
That was where I got confused, 'cause I mean, I thought everyone had something similar and that the difference was that people with depressive disorders just had it worse (I'm the first to admit that I know nothing of psychology or psychiatry so if I've got that wrong, would someone tell me). Only the blurb made it sound like the voice of self-loathing was not normal. Which is when I got to wondering what was normal?
I mean, to me, normal does mean I get the occasional voice in the back of my head pointing out that I'm a waste of space, and repeated replays those moments of my life where I've seriously wanted the Earth to swallow me up whole. Then I read one of Topknot's posts about this idea of there being more than one version of you that faces the world, facets like diamond, and that these can be controlled to your advantage.
Again to me, this is normal. There's two of me, the one here who jibber-jabbers like a jibber-jabber doll, and worries and is generally flustered and nervous, and the other one who rises above all of that, Emergency Red to steal a name from someone else, and doesn't have the background chatter. Now noticably that only happens when I don't have time to jibber-jabber, like when I'm in a fencing bout or in an exam, so I can't say she's not useful, even if she does get me into some interesting situations at other times.
I do worry sometimes though that my idea of entirely normal is not, well, normal. I just assume I'm worrying about nothing though and that everyone's idea of normal is skewed by their own experiences.
That was where I got confused, 'cause I mean, I thought everyone had something similar and that the difference was that people with depressive disorders just had it worse (I'm the first to admit that I know nothing of psychology or psychiatry so if I've got that wrong, would someone tell me). Only the blurb made it sound like the voice of self-loathing was not normal. Which is when I got to wondering what was normal?
I mean, to me, normal does mean I get the occasional voice in the back of my head pointing out that I'm a waste of space, and repeated replays those moments of my life where I've seriously wanted the Earth to swallow me up whole. Then I read one of Topknot's posts about this idea of there being more than one version of you that faces the world, facets like diamond, and that these can be controlled to your advantage.
Again to me, this is normal. There's two of me, the one here who jibber-jabbers like a jibber-jabber doll, and worries and is generally flustered and nervous, and the other one who rises above all of that, Emergency Red to steal a name from someone else, and doesn't have the background chatter. Now noticably that only happens when I don't have time to jibber-jabber, like when I'm in a fencing bout or in an exam, so I can't say she's not useful, even if she does get me into some interesting situations at other times.
I do worry sometimes though that my idea of entirely normal is not, well, normal. I just assume I'm worrying about nothing though and that everyone's idea of normal is skewed by their own experiences.