Friday, October 26, 2007

Quote of the Day

"Honestly, I think the only difference between depression and disappointment is your level of commitment."
- via Stephanie, who heard it on "some show."

16 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

Jackie M. said...

Them's fightin' words, you know.

Kameron Hurley said...

I'm not saying it's a personal belief or philosophy, you know - just amusing word play.... :)

Perpetual Beginner said...

In my experience, the only difference between anger and depression is who you're angry at, and how you show it.

Jackie M. said...

In my experience, anger goes away after three days; depression goes away after 9 months of anti-depressants and daily exercise and eating right and blah blah blah.

clindsay said...

Depression is not something I ever find a laughing matter anymore.

Kameron Hurley said...

And see, in my house, we're all so fucking batshit and heavily medicated that it's all just fucking funny. You can laugh or cry. We've got mental illness, chronic illness, depression, and I'm dating a guy with a host of other mental health issues.

You just gotta laugh. The third time you end up in the emergency room in three months, the fourth severe low sugar episode in three days, the re-leveling of bipolar meds and resulting Crazy... oh yeah, we laugh. We laugh and laugh, and we make it through.

clindsay said...

I guess I laughed for the first fifteen years after finding out I had screwy brain chemistry. Now? I'm just really tired of it. Really, really tired.

Kameron Hurley said...

You seriously need a better support network; I think being on your own is taking a big toll, seriously.

I couldn't do this on my own. Ian and Steph were right to bring me out here. As much as I wanted to be gutsy and gung ho by myself in Chicago, this was the better choice.

I couldn't be as stable as I am without their help, and their humor. They've taught me a lot about myself.

clindsay said...

I had one, and then it fell apart over the last five months. It's still sort of in the process of falling apart. It's awful when one person decides to start telling lies about you; I've lost so many friends the past five months.

I came out to New York to be with my best friend and his fiance originally. It was great, and I started to build a strong support system. Then they married and moved to Seattle. By then, I'd met more people, and thought things would be okay. Among those new people were the folks I've called friends the past few years, many of whom have stopped talking to me because of one person's insane and destructive allegations about me.

It's hard to build a new support system up so quickly.

I really am trying but I seem to be making a hash out of things lately, ya know?

Kameron Hurley said...

I know, stuff changes. It's always a clusterfuck when everything goes wrong at once, you know? And when you're in the middle of it, no path looks like the right path.

It sucks.

clindsay said...

I know it'll get better. I'm just having a low energy couple of days. :-)

Yes, clusterfuck. That is an apt description.

Jackie M. said...

Kameron, are you chronically depressed? To the point of needing meds? La Gringa isn't taking any offense, but I gotta warn you: not many things annoy a chronic depressive quite as much as a non-depressive telling them they know what that's like, and that they need to get a sense of humor about it.

Kameron Hurley said...

I am sorry if I've offended, Jackie, as ever. I do deal with chronic illness, and I live in a house with people who suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, and I'm dating somebody who also deals with chronic depression and a host of other issues.

I was sharing the strategy that we've employed in this house to deal with our host of issues. I would certainly never tell someone else who had a chronic illness or any of these other issues that the only way to deal was to have a sense of humor. But for me and the people in my life, humor has helped us a lot.

That was all I was saying: Humor (and yes, certainly, drugs!) has helped us.

Kameron Hurley said...

P.S. Also, whether chronically ill, manic depressive, or anything else under the sun, having good support networks is really invaluable.

I was saying that, too :)

clindsay said...

Well, I certainly didn't take offense. :-)

Jackie M. said...

And I see that side of it. It's just that there's this other side of it, in which all that combined with the first "humorous" quote comes off as privileged.