Why not Psychology?

It's not one of the most common of the family of "what exactly is the point of your education, anyway?" questions I get asked with obnoxious frequency, but it is the one I've probably had the most difficult answering. It's taken some pointed readings, some difficult self-examination, my desire to get back to writing in this blog, and a job search that has done nothing but question my educational journey (past, present & future) to get me to finally suss out the answer to it.

Not to say I haven't had answers to that question, they've just never been really on point. My freshman year of high school I used to tell my psychology teacher that I "didn't believe in psychology", which was admittedly bullshit (I mostly just didn't want to do the level of work she required for the class); in recent years I've tried to explain to people that my connection to depression and mental health is both intra- and interpersonal; that I didn't ever want to approach the topic from a "clinical" standpoint. But that always felt a little like an excuse for me, though in hindsight one I'm glad I had. See, today my answer is a bit of a synthesis of these two originally insincere ideas; I don't believe in the need for psychology.

Since this is the part of article where I backpedal from my outrageous and extreme position so as to not give the impression that I am some kind of outrageous extremist, I'll clarify that I believe, today, there is a need for therapists and counselors and neuroscientists and the like. I often encourage people I know that there's nothing to fear from these resources; that they can in fact help people, and I still believe that. But here's the thing: why do we need these resources?

My problem is that pills and even therapy are little more than the treatment of symptoms. Yes, therapy can, in some ways, get to the root of the external causes of depression and anxiety disorders; and yes, sometimes these external causes don't even exist, and that depression and anxiety are genuinely biochemical diseases that require nothing more than biochemical treatment. I do still genuinely believe these things. But modern psychology, in what I can only assume is a desire to appear more like a "hard science", is very quickly shifting to explaining things like depression and anxiety as nothing but a biochemical disease, to the point where external influences are being phased out. And I'm not naive enough not to realize how much the pharmaceutical companies are helping guide this transition.

But this isn't a scathing attack on pharmaceutical companies, or even on the institution of psychology, as if there even were some building or group of people one could direct such attacks. I certainly know plenty of people with or pursuing psychology degrees, and I have nothing against them personally or their field of study. This is about why I, Alex, advocate and activist for mental health, am not diving head first into my apparent following as a psychologist. After all, don't I want to help people? Well, I've come to a kind of realization; something I feel like I always knew but never had the guts to come right out and say it. I don't need a degree to be qualified to help people. Also, and here's the real epiphany, neither do you.

I need to preface this next part with a bit of a disclaimer. Therapists are by and large great people, and if you need help, if you really need to talk someone, you could do a lot worse than seeing a counselor. They will help you, and even if they don't, there's always plenty of others out there, and they're usually more than willing to make referrals. Most significantly, I've yet to meet a therapist who didn't genuinely care about people. Oh, I've heard horror stories to the contrary, but I've never seen it myself.

I'm not even saying that there's not any need for therapists. My point is that there shouldn't be; in a perfect world there ought not be therapists. This is not a perfect world where things like depression, grief, anxiety and like don't exist. This is a perfect world where general mental health knowledge is as widespread as general health knowledge; a world where empathy and connection are valued more than independence is. We live in a society that doesn't understand empathy; hell, I consider myself to be pretty empathic, and I doubt I understand it all that well. People simply have trouble fathoming one another. We get so wrapped up in "just being ourselves" that it seems preposterous when the world asks us to consider what it is to be somebody else for a moment. So we can't connect. We can't understand. Combine that lack of understanding with a general ignorance regarding mental health, and you create an atmosphere where it's neither helpful nor even generally safe to talk to others about depression or anxiety. Family members and friends don't know how to act, how to respond, how to help. Usually you're lucky if the things they try simply don't help at all; oftentimes the things that come naturally when trying to help end up doing far more harm than good. In such a world, there's an obvious need for therapists. Who else can you talk to and actually get help from?

But we cannot let ourselves be content with such a world. For starters, who has several hundred dollars to drop every month for an hour a week? And why is one hour per week the only "dosage" of talk medication we allow ourselves? If people just knew how to listen to one another; knew the basic symptoms of depression and anxiety; know what to avoid; know what to ask; then we could be in therapy, for free, any damn time we wanted. And these things aren't especially hard. You just have to be willing to learn them. And you don't need to college degree. Hell, you don't even need a course. I could probably go over the key pointers in a post shorter than this one, and while you wouldn't be nearly as a "qualified" as a registered therapist afterward (I would never claim to be myself), you could be there for someone you love in ways a $100-200 hour-long weekly session with a relative stranger never could be. That's not nothing.

I had a conversation recently with a person. This individual described themselves as not being qualified to understand or assist with someone's mental health status, and their actions did nothing to make me believe they were selling themselves short. They also said that I too was equally unqualified, and while I understand where that sentiment is coming from (again, I would never claim to be as qualified as someone with an actual degree), I have to soundly reject that notion. For starters, I wouldn't have made the obvious mistakes this individual made. It's a sad world where you need a college degree and post-graduate certification to be considered "qualified" enough to listen to a person's problems and give them encouragement and advice. We're not talking about rocket science here, we're talking about people. Yes, you could make the argument that people are generally more complex than rocket science, but on this point we have a bit of a leg up. You see, we're people too.

This has been kind of a stream of consciousness post and for that I apologize. But my point is this: it's on all of us to make this world a better place for the people we care about living with depression, anxiety, or any other mental health disorder. And you certainly don't need a degree for it.

In Defense of Buffy's 6th Season

For a lot of fans of the show Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, the 6th season is universally considered one of the worst seasons (second only to the 7th season in that regard). There's a number of different reasons, from Buffy's over-the-top, annoying angst, to the de-evolution of Spike's character, to the uncharacteristically heavy-handedness in detailing Willow's drug magic abuse. While I wouldn't argue the last and I won't argue the second here, the first is of particular interest to me.

Fans love Buffy for a number of different reasons, from the excellent writing, a memorable cast of characters (especially supporting characters and villains), and the popularization of the myth story arc, which many of the most critically acclaimed modern shows now employ. It's truly a well-made show, so it's easy to see how many people, including many of its fans, miss what is ultimately the point of the show: it's a series of clever, subtle (well, usually) Aesops regarding all of the tropes and issues so commonly found in more traditional high school/young adult drama. Just, with vampires and demons and magic and the like. This was easiest to see in the high school years (seasons 1-3) which tackled issues ranging from popularity, abusive step-parents, steroid abuse in athletes, and, perhaps most famously, the question "why is my boyfriend acting so differently after we had sex?" Season 4 was all about the typical college issues, ranging from obnoxious roommates, professors who care more about their research than their students, sexuality, and insecurities about not going to college when the rest of your friends do. Season 5 was all about family, including probably one of the best directed episodes in the series ("The Body"). When Season 6 turned into a giant ball of angst, fans reacted negatively. There had always been levels of angst throughout the entire run of the show, but in Season 6 it had reached critical mass (again, at least until Season 7). It was only after listening to the "Once More With Feeling" soundtrack (the popular musical episode in Season 6 and what many fans consider a rare high point in the season) that it finally hit me, not just what Buffy's character arc was an analogy to in the season, but how incredibly obvious it had been the entire time. Season 6 was about depression. Not over-expressed angst or ennui, but serious, full-blown depression. With Buffy's songs such as "Going Through The Motions", "Walk Through The Fire" and especially "Give Me Something To Sing About" it's about as obvious as it gets. But at the same time, it's not, and it speaks to how tricky and misunderstood the topic of depression truly is.


There be spoilers here.


Season 6 begins when Buffy's friends resurrect her after her death at the end of the previous season. Her friends think they're saving her from some horrible hell, and are surprised that Buffy's not at all happy to be back, mainly because she was pretty sure she was in heaven. Either way she was content, maybe even happy. Let's re-read that a little bit. She was content (almost happy) with being dead, and upset with her friends for keeping her alive. She wanted to be dead and her friends stopped her. It's really easy to miss this subtle subtext, especially because of how dead wrong about Buffy being in some hell dimension, and how easy (at least at first) it is to sympathize with Buffy. So Buffy becomes despondent, no matter how hard her friends try to get her to be happy. She doesn't find joy in the company of her friends, or in the thrill of slaying. All she can really think about is how she wishes she were dead. In this case, the subtext wasn't nearly subtle enough. They kind of hit you in the head with a hammer over it, and now Buffy is being extremely obnoxious, and you lose all sympathy for her. She engages in behavior that is uncharacteristic and even self-destructive . Her friends, in trying to force her to be happy, end up having the opposite effect and are confused as to why their tactics aren't helping. This is textbook depression. Sure, the show should've done a better job of making Buffy more sympathetic overall, but in general it's as obvious an analogy as the show uses. It's no accident that this season emphasizes above all else humanity. Buffy has to remember what it was like to live and function as a human; Spike himself struggles with his humanity until ultimately accepting it; the main Big Bads for the majority of the season are three nerdy kids in a basement (two of which are generally sympathetic), and the ultimate Big Bad is one of the show's (hell, one of TV's) most sympathetic characters, overcome with grief and rage; and the only thing that can save the day is the words and emotional human connection of probably the only normal human character on the show.

Sure, Buffy is a little overly obnoxious with the angst. And yes, the drug abuse references were about as subtle as a brick. And the tvtropes.org's "Badass Decay" trope was originally named "Spikeification" for a reason (I would argue that Spike was never as much of a badass as he liked to pretend to be, which is part of what made him such an interesting character, but I digress). But I always knew I liked the 6th Season, certainly more than most Buffy fans did, and I now I think I finally understand why.

Self Relection on a Difficult Semester

I'm not going to lie, this semester was a rough one for me. I had a lot of struggles dealing with personal issues, and I was faced with two daunting independent projects that I had little idea how to prepare for, as well as the most rigorous and difficult, if rewarding, academic courses of my educational career. Apart from a stretch in November, where personal difficulties causing me to, and subsequently stemming from, taking antidepressants practically sidelined me. There were times were I literally felt like a living zombie. Of course, as soon as I started truly feeling better mentally I got struck with the porcine death (Novel H1N1, to be specific) that knocked me out for a week and still threatens to send me bedridden again. I like to think, however, that I learned great deal about myself. What I am capable of, what I'm not capable of, and what I need to finally convince myself I'm capable of. I wrote the first draft of my thesis play, my so-called defining work, as well as over seventy pages (I'm not exaggerating either) of writing reflecting on the nature of activism and advocacy and the role I play within it. I got my first taste of campus politics, and while essentially fruitless power struggles threatened my sanity, I find myself having an aptitude for it. So there has been a lot of bad this semester, true, but we learn the most from struggles. We find ourselves... or we find ourselves lacking. In my estimation, by the end of this semester I have definitely performed the former. I now know who I truly am, as an artist, as an advocate, as a mentor, and as a leader. And it doesn't matter that this will all change in three or five years. All that matters is I know who I am, right now, in this moment. It's a good feeling.

Thesis Update

No play I have ever written has been nearly as frustrating as my thesis has been so far. There's a number of reasons for this, but the most important is this: this is only major play I've written where the emotional arc of the play doesn't necessarily dictate the physical arc of the play. I Feel Fantastic was about two men struggling with decisions regarding antidepressants. Condition Blue was about a disgraced detective who can't live down his disorder. Both of these contained readily available plots. My thesis, at least how I originally conceived of it, is about a young man struggling to overcome grief and depression in a world that has little tolerance of the former and zero tolerance of the latter. As an emotional arc it works well, and I've pretty much had that arc plotted out from the beginning. And while that would work fine it and of itself as a novel, but as a play it's lacking of the one thing any solid play needs to get an audience following along: action. I can't stage internal monologues, and if the play is just the emotional arc as I've envisioned it, the play would be so rife with monologues that it almost might have well been a one-man show, which is not what I want. So I've had to come up with some kind of physical action- a backdrop in which to display and accentuate the emotional arc I've established.

Just a warning, for those who might care, but there's going to be future spoilers ahead.

This has been the hardest part, because usually plays are designed with a physical arc in mind, and the emotional arc develops as the story fleshes out. I've been tripped up because I haven't been able to conceive of a physical arc, certainly not one worth using, because for me the physical arc isn't all that important in this piece- in my mind it is clearly about Thomas (the protagonist's) emotional development. But that physical arc is the skeleton of the play- without it I can't even start writing. Sure, I've got an important plot element: Jocelyn (his best friend's) suicide- but this is what kicks off the emotional arc, and is the event that throws Thomas' physical arc out of whack. This means that I have to give Thomas an ultimate objective, some real-world goal that transcends his internal well-being. Knowing what I know about the emotional arc, this needs to be an objective that is multi-staged, something that he has a specific series of tasks to accomplish to reach his goal.

An important aspect of the play's concept is the idea that his struggles with grief depression are simply not tolerated (let alone accepted) in the world that he lives in and hopes to succeed in. Based on my own personal experiences as well as the stories I have gratefully been told, I determined that Thomas' ultimate objective ought to be career-oriented. While I originally conceived of Thomas and Jocelyn as high school students, this development caused me to shift the story ahead to make them college students. Thomas' ultimate goal is a post-graduate program, something that will set him on the fast-track of his desired career. This, I determined, was too large a goal for the scope of the play. So I took it one step back in Thomas' plan. He wants to get into a fairly prestigious internship; this internship, in Thomas' mind, is what will guarantee his placement in the post-grad program of his dreams. It is whether or not Thomas succeeds in getting into this internship that will provide the central question of the play's physical arc. Thomas is currently in a summer job that he is heavily focused in performing above and beyond expectations in; he hopes this will give him a killer recommendation for the internship, which will in turn determine whether he gets into the post-grad program he wants to get in to, which will in turn determine whether he gets the jobs that he wants to, which will in turn determine whether or not he will be successful and happy in life. For those of you who are fans of Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story (a book that provided a great deal of inspiration for me,) this precarious house of cards Thomas has based his future and potential for happiness on is a classic example of a tentacle: a present source of stress that bears with it the added pressures springing from a series of future events. It is this summer job that is thrown out of whack by Thomas' grief and subsequent depression.

Once I had worked all of this out, the next step was easy: what kind of job, internship, career is Thomas trying to pursue? And the answer: education. For the most part, I prefer to stick with what I know when I write, at least as far as subject matter goes. But it goes much deeper than that too. One of the traits I have that I am most proud, and I know developed in large part due to my experiences overcoming my own depression, is empathy. Empathy, and along with that a desire to help others, had to an integral aspect of this career field. Furthermore, it has to be a field where depression can, to the unaware, appear to be a major liability. All of these factors contributed to what I felt was an easy decision.

The beauty of this structure is that it allows two arcs, the physical and the emotional, to exist simultaneously while at the same time taking different directions. It wasn't hard to determine his relative success along the two arcs. It also allows me to have Thomas fail to achieve his physical goal (after a tumultuous end to his summer job, he is flatly turned down for the fall internship) while at the same time coming to a positive conclusion to his emotional arc (ie, coming to terms with his grief and depression.) After all, this story is, ultimately, my own story. And my story, at this point, is about having hope for the future, pride in my experiences, and the advocacy against oppression towards those with depression. So this story should end on a similar note.

Even with this structure in place, this play isn't going to write itself. I've still got a number of other plot elements to develop, the most important at this point is the development of Jocelyn as a physical character in the play as a ghost/vision/dream/hallucination. I definitely want this happen at some point, if not at multiple points through the play. This will allow what would otherwise be Thomas' internal monologues into an actual dialogue with dramatic action.

I'll post more as I develop, but I think I'm close to being able to sit down and pound out a first draft. I'd love feedback; how do you guys feel about this idea so far?

An Advocate's Creed

Dear world, I live with depression. It is something that impacts me every day, though not in the way that you think. It has made me a stronger, more passionate, more empathetic human being, and I would not be nearly the person I am today had I not had to struggle with and overcome the depression that plagues me.

I will no longer accept any of the shame or guilt you have attempted to pile upon me. I am proud to be who I am today and nobody can take that way from me. I will no longer remain silent and I will no longer allow you to shame those who suffer through what I've suffered through into silence. I will shout my story to the world, and I will encourage others who share my experiences, though I may not know them and though they may not know me, into shouting their stories to the world as well. And we will continue to shout, and continue to grow, until there is no one left who feels that they have to remain silent. We will allow you to shame us or anybody else no more, and we will no longer tolerate or abide you punishing us for daring to share our experiences.

And once we have obliterated your culture of shame and disgrace we will finally be able to come together as a community, as a culture of our own, a culture of pride and strength and caring, and we will reject and overcome the intolerance you bear down on us just as you bear down on any who make you uncomfortable. And we will be free of your oppression, free of both the internal prisons you have crafted and forced us into as well as the very real institutions you have directed us to and from that you, in your ignorance and in your arrogance, have decided are or are not appropriate for someone in our condition. While we will never fully be free of that which afflicts us, we will be free of the conditions that you have invented to limit, embarrass and degrade us. We will finally tear down the walls you have built for us, against us, between us, and we will be free.

But we will never stop shouting our stories.

Musings On the Nature of Happiness

I'm trying to allow myself to give advice more often.

I try to avoid dispensing advice, even to my closest friends, partially because I'm worried I'll give the wrong advice, and partially because I don't feel qualified to give advice in specific situations. But again, I think my unwillingness to give advice is in large part a reason why I'm not closer to my close friends than I am now. That, and how worried I get about opening myself up to others. Since the latter is something I want to work on as both a person and an advocate, I figure I should be working on the former as well. I didn't really know the situation, and to be honest I don't really know the friend that well yet, but as I've said, I'm trying to be more a outgoing person.

So if you're struggling between doing what you think is right, and doing what you know you want, I'm probably going to give the same advice at all times: follow your heart. I followed my head to near exclusivity for a good 20-21 years and it brought me nothing but anguish and depression. Granted, I wasn't being super serious when I offered my advice- I mean, "follow your heart" has become kind of a catch phrase among my friends, but I still think it's fair advice.

Then someone else chimed in, and their response was so dripping with cynicism that I had to stop myself. I don't believe in hell, but if it does exist I think there's probably a place there for cynics. I try as best as I can to not to place value judgments on people, but there are few things in life more worthless than cynicism. So naturally the response got me riled up, and when I get riled up my mind races, and it brought me to some fairly interesting conclusions.

Usually when we're thinking following our head we're thinking about doing what's right. Now this is usually a matter of morality, but morality has become so socialized and normalized that to have one's own moral code (and morality is supposed to be individual) is to be seen as a hedonist. So really, most often the choice becomes doing what you want and doing want other people think is right. Now, for some people following this societal moral code may be important, and in some situations I would certainly argue for following your head. I often rail against extreme ideological points of view and this is no different; arguing you should always follow your head is as worthwhile as arguing you should always follow your heart, which is to say not at all.

But I have a theory that people are fundamentally unhappy when they choose to try to follow their head as much as possible. Now, this is subjective and based entirely on my own experiences, but I think pretending to be able to give objective advice is a fairly dishonest practice. Objectivity, certainly on an interpersonal level, is an absolute myth. But try to follow along. The head will tell you a lot of things; it will tell you what should do, what you shouldn't do, what other people will think of you, what you feel you're required to do, and so on and forth. The heart, on the other hand, will tell you one thing and one thing only: what will make you happy. When people talk about whether they should listen to their heart, it is practically always about something that would make them happy. Now, this isn't always a lasting happiness, and the momentary happiness may not actually be worth whatever it is you lose to achieve it. And it's important to live that life of balance. But it's just as important to do what makes you happy.

So why do people consistently choose against their own happiness? There's so many reasons, and this is something I wouldn't understand if I didn't live a vast majority of my life living it. Speaking from my own experience, I often chose against my own happiness because I thought I was choosing the happiness of other people. Here's something I've learned: the heart certainly is concerned with your own happiness, but the head is not, it is not concerned with other people's happiness. It is concerned with other people's expectations, and this is a huge difference. And I really feel that no one should putting other people's expectations above their own happiness. Now, there may in fact be people for whom other people's expectations are of most importance to them, and if that fulfills them, gives them a sense of pride, then I would say that they're happy and leave the point at that.

Of course, the head has something the heart doesn't have, which is a brain. The heart may know what makes you happy but it can also be supremely stupid, and it's important to recognize when your heart's being stupid so you can ignore it, or better yet find some other way to find happiness. If step one of the advice is to follow your heart, then step two is to have no regrets. If you are following your heart, it has to be something you know you won't have to regret. And we regret a lot of things we don't have to. So do indeed follow your heart, because if you do you will find, even if only for a moment, happiness. Don't regret it, don't wallow in it, and certainly don't carry it as such a huge burden that you feel the need to advise a younger generation to steer clear of personal happiness in lieu of society's expectations for them.

It's not perfect advice, but it's a start.

Monologue Feedback

So, I presented my monologue to the advanced playwriting course, and the feedback, while generally positive, pointed to a lot of issues with the piece. I'll recap:

1. Most people were either not with the story about Grandpa, or were lost when the monologue transitioned into the story of the character's friend. This is perhaps the easiest to remedy as a matter of practice, but the hardest for me to actually commit to. Obviously, the monologue has to be about the character's friend, and obviously the bulk of his storytelling is about his grandfather, so obviously I need to trim the story about the grandfather. I may have to work this story in later in the play, or maybe just cut it completely, and leave it as a little piece of information I know (and you guys know) that informs in some small way the protagonist's character. It's still painful to cut any of it, though.

2. People want to learn more about the protagonist's friend. This will easily be solved by, well, the entire rest of the play, but I think I can give the audience a little more about her here in the monologue as well.

3. There needs to be dramatic action. This is something the professor insists on that most students tend to roll their eyes about but for the most part I agree. As I wrote the monologue I wrote as if it were an internal monologue at the beginning of a novel, and that kind of narration works wonderfully in a novel. But I believe that audiences want to see something happening. They want to watch rather than be told. And there is dramatic action in the piece, it just comes at the tail end after several minutes of talking about his grandfather. So the action of the monologue needs to come earlier, but that shouldn't be too difficult if I refocus the story to be about his friend rather than Grandpa.

4. Maintain the disjointedness. This was actually positive feedback for the section about his friend, but was also reverse engineered into constructive criticism for the section about his grandfather. The feedback, and I'll paraphrase because it was probably the most poignant and helpful feedback I got from the class, was that when the character's thinking became more disjointed when talking about his friend: "that was when it felt like he was talking to me, rather than at me." I was worried that I'd lose people when his thinking would bounce back and forth between death, jokes and the three wishes game, but the class pretty much universally agreed that was when they felt most connected to him.

5. Maintain the contrasts. The contrasts between death, grief and humor resonated well with the class, and is something I plan on making a major theme throughout the play. The second contrast in this piece, and something that didn't work as well as I had hoped, was in his reactions between his grandpa's death and his friend's death. We need to know how he reacted to his grandpa's death and we need to know it in this scene, that much I am sure of. We also need to see some more hints about why this death is affecting him so much harder, and it has to be more than just age. That's some work I need to put into it.

My plan is to revise this monologue sometime before the end of the week, and then move on the rest of the act. What do you guys think about this feedback?