Hello to Dr. T and the couple of classmates that may or may not be reading this blog!

Assignement Five-0

 

 This week we were asked to join a community. I have been a member of Tribe for several years, but there are lots of individual tribes and niche’s within the site where you can join their communities. I joined the Depression Tribe, mainly because I am a person who suffers from depression. For me it’s more like extreme ups and downs throughout my day/week/life, classify it what you will, it all falls under the general depression category. That I have depression is probably not a surprise to anyone who read my book and knows me as a recovering addict/alcoholic who’s been in the program since Feb. 6, 1996, which is, incidentally, also the last time I was arrested. It’s interesting to me how many sobriety dates often correspond with tragic events in people’s loves. I mean lives. Hmmmm, any correlation there? I think so.

(Wahhh-hoooo! Tragedy!)

 So because I am in a few sobriety communities already, the Depression Tribe was an excellent and natural offshoot to join for the two-week duration of this assignment. The people in this group are… well… depressed. Many don’t know where to turn, many have no medical insurance, many self medicate and many can’t get help from the medical coverage they have without it overlapping into their day-to-day care with a normal physician. Once a person falls under the depressed label, the way you are handled by the medical complex changes. Doctor’s “… rely more on machinery than on their own experience and insight” and because of that machinery, like the stethoscope, “medicine is about the disease, not the patient” because “…what the patient knows is untrustworthy; what the machine knows is reliable.” (pp. 99-101) My conflict with Postman this week is his conclusion that doctor’s perform too many tests and over-diagnose.  I would like to know where those doctors are in the real world so I can become one of their patients.

 Being classified as depressed, it’s difficult for me to know that insurance companies now have access to this information (I was denied because of it, yes that’s illegal), credit card companies too, and all this is in spite of HIIPA laws and regulations. Most depressed people self-medicate and then these issues get pushed into the prison system. For instance, the population of the State Hospitals around the country in the 1960s & ‘70s were more than twice the population they are at now. The reason? People were treating drug abuse as a mental health disease to be treated up until Nixon went crazy with the ludicrous amounts of money he could funnel into the DEA. Blah, blah, blah, you might be thinking that is all conspiracy theories and tin-foil hats, right? Do your own research – those hard-to-hear paranoid statements you hear from rappers in the ‘hood, might actually be speaking the truth. Fight the power! 

 So I am going to add some relevant quotes in here from the reading, mainly because last week (and each week) I tried taking the class assignment to another level and linked to topics and articles that actually referenced or expanded the class reading. (For instance: take a look at this article and tell me I didn’t do the reading and then take it to a whole 'nutha level by applying it to this class with supplemental research)
That, however, doesn’t mean you get the premium grade in this class because it doesn’t reflect the requirements of the syllabus. And nope, I’m not bitter or holding a grudge, we’re (collective “we”) just conforming to the rules in order to preserve the integrity of the University system. Even if I spent most of last week arguing with the OSU system because it wouldn’t apply my financial aid unless I signed up for extra classes and dropped them because you are not allowed to apply govt. aid when you only take one class in the summer. My advice to students: wait to have children – you get no lenience or sympathy for having them. I suppose that’s how it should be, that way I can look down on the young kid who decided to deny applying my Government Aid award when he comes to the State of Oregon looking for help in the future with his children. We’re all paying it forward right?  So have fun storming the castle (or at the DMV) Mr. _____ from the OSU financial aid office. But I’m not bitter because it all fits into this weeks’ theme of joining a new community thing, right?

 Oh yes, so we were talking about the class reading, not the indication of taking that assigned reading to the next level and applying it to real life outside of school. Straight and true: right from the get-go Postman discusses the type of testing that often causes a difficult time for people with depression. Intelligence tests have flourished “… and have been supplemented with vocational aptitude tests, creativity tests, mental-health tests, sexual attraction tests, and even marital-compatibility tests.” (p. 93)

 The group I joined was a pretty supportive group of people. Really supportive actually, and, flatteringly enough, some had already read my book and said it was a good honest account of my life 15 years ago, some said they got something out of it. So I was kind of instantly accepted by them, but soon felt sort of sick to my stomach reading about so many people who wanted to share their information and the details of their lives and medical history. I was new blood, someone to latch onto, and depressed people do latch on to any floating timber in an ocean of loneliness. It’s hard to be powerless to help people who are hurting and it’s hard to tell them (or not tell them), that even after years and years, the system still has nothing for them. 
 Reading through some of the Depression Group’s old posts, I could see how they dealt with people who got out of line in the community. Many accounts are shut down or suspended until people can calm down and promise to behave. With a depression group they tend to focus on the nuance of people’s words and often get offended or really genuinely upset if they perceive someone is poking fun at them in any way. However, the main disagreement in the Depression Tribe isn’t with each other, the group mainly has a conflict with the medical community and getting access to the right treatment. 

Even in our modern times, it’s good to remember people were still being treated with shock therapy and lobotomies just a few short years ago. “What is clear is that, to date, computer technology has served… to make people believe tha technological innovation is synonymous with human progress.” (p. 117)

 

Have a great weekend!
Sam (not depressed at the moment) Paul

Interesting thoughts you have here about the University system...
I think it is all about jumping through hoops. THEY create the hoops and YOU do the jumping.
I earned my first degree in 2000, but I was not allowed to graduate until I took gym. Seriously - GYM. Currently, I store that diploma in a tube behind a stack of books in my closet. I honestly learned more from the customer service jobs which I concurrently worked to pay for my schooling than I did from the schooling itself. Go figure.
On a lighter note... I've also read some of the posts on Depression Tribe. That place is... well... depressing. The imagery of people grabbing onto floating timber seems too familiar. Depressed or not, people tend to reach out for things that make sense according to their current state of mind. The formal education system is supposedly developed to teach us how to navigate along a reasonable path so that perhaps someday, we can be more creatively productive in the society in which we live. Ironically, I find that I suffer more with depressive symptoms BECAUSE of school than anything else. This in turn hinders my own creative process. What a fascinating system!

" So because I am in a few sobriety communities already, the Depression Tribe was an excellent and natural offshoot to join for the two-week duration of this assignment."

Your blog was really interesting. I found it fascinating the way you reached out to people who suffered from similar ailments and emotions. Do you feel like through this process you found any further solice? I know we read about therapy online and I was just wondering if joining a community like this was theraputic for you? Do you think this is something you would continue? Thanks for sharing your heart and your experiences with us.