People with Depression Use Language Differently
I&#x27;m basically currently losing my shit over my intractable personal problems and the ways in which sexism help keep them intractable. So I don&#x27;t think I can be rational or socially acceptable at the moment.<p><i>However, we don’t know whether these findings reflect differences in attention or thinking style. Does depression cause people to focus on themselves, or do people who focus on themselves get symptoms of depression?</i><p>My belief based on first-hand experience is that social factors drive some people to this.<p>I&#x27;m very socially observant. I&#x27;ve apparently been casually announcing that <i>the emperor has no clothes</i> since I was about three years old. I often don&#x27;t realize I know someone&#x27;s &quot;secrets&quot; that they imagine they have covered up very successfully. When I casually remark on such things, it gets me hated on. No, I will never ever ever ever be forgiven for it.<p>So, over the years, I have gradually worked at saying less about other people because it&#x27;s such a mine field. Talking about me and only me as much as I can convinces other people I&#x27;m a narcissist, but it&#x27;s less problematic than me casually asking &quot;The emperor? You mean the deluded naked guy whose delusions everyone is feeding by going along with his bullshit claim that he has some amazing new wardrobe? Is that the guy we&#x27;re talking about?&quot;<p>This is backed up by data. I mean, the fact that I only talk about me and everyone hates me for it -- or, more accurately, everyone hates me and identifying this habit is one of the excuses they use to justify it. When I was on Metafilter, if you checked their infodump, I used &quot;I&quot; vastly more than any runner up. And I was hated on, which was just a thing Metafilter chose to do to certain people because the site has serious issues. When I joined, it was policy for the mods to pin the drama on one person, blame them, tell them you shut up and stop commenting and then let other people continue attacking them under circumstances where they would get in trouble if they came back to defend themselves. I quickly got on the short list of people where public bear downs by multiple people were not only the norm, God help you if you tried to defend them because that could mean you&#x27;re next.<p>Depression is often a female issue and, on average, woman tend to be (perceived as) more social. We get tasked with doing emotional labor and get dismissed a lot and can&#x27;t make as much money for the same job, etc. It&#x27;s a very crazy-making situation and it&#x27;s common for therapists to offer women medication instead of advice on how to stop being victimized.<p>I think most men don&#x27;t really mean to victimize women, so it goes bad places when women point fingers and blame men who are part of the problem. They feel wrongfully accused. Doing so just makes the problem more intractable.<p>But trying to find the right words before you can speak to the problem winds up being a silencing mechanism. It makes it extra hard to try to solve it at all.<p>When every door slams shut in your face no matter what you do, it&#x27;s hard to not start thinking in absolutist terms of &quot;always&quot; and &quot;never.&quot;<p>Even so, I think the absolutist terms are more likely linked to wonky brain chemistry.<p>I have a medical condition. On bad days when I&#x27;m feverish, etc, I engage in more absolutist language and I&#x27;m not rational.<p>My sons have learned to &quot;not engage the crazy.&quot; I say something extreme and irrational, they say &quot;Mom, are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Are you warm enough?&quot;<p>Most of the time, when I&#x27;m irrational, getting me fed, hydrated and warm results in me falling asleep in short order. Trying to argue with me about crazy stuff I&#x27;m saying just puts out the fire with gasoline. Insisting on only engaging me constructively is more effective.<p>They do sometimes rebut my irrational remarks, but they don&#x27;t get dragged into arguing it with me. I say &quot;I have no friends&quot; they say &quot;That&#x27;s not true.&quot; They rebut it,but they dont get tired in it.<p>That seems to be a best practice that helps keep me grounded in reality without pissing me off, fueling a sense of hopelessness and despair, etc.<p>Getting healthier and making my life work better has proven to be the best solution. My mental health has gradually improved.<p>I still have days when the bullshit in the world that makes it seemingly impossible for a woman to get anywhere just makes me postal. I&#x27;m there right now. The past few days have been terrible in terms of my head space.<p>But most of the time, I&#x27;m overall more rational.<p>Most depressed people have serious intractable personal problems that no one knows how to solve. Medicating their feelings ends up de facto being dismissive.<p>Think of it like if Susan B Anthony were put on Valium and told &quot;Women don&#x27;t need the vote. You&#x27;re merely crazy. Here, take this. You&#x27;ll feel better.&quot; No, that&#x27;s not going to figure the myriad problems that grow out of being disenfranchised and disempowered and having no real say in your own life.<p>I think social factors fuel the use of first person pronouns. I think social factors and brain chemistry fuel the use of absolutist terminology.<p>Both get better when the social factors driving it improve. The second seems to also be helped by addressing physiological factors, like exhaustion.<p>&#x2F;2 cents