I find a lot of things about psychology, therapy, "suicide prevention" in general really tiring.
I mean one is just, do you ever get the feeling of being watched or observed by a therapist? I mean, obviously and objectively, that's exactly what's happening. They're taking their notes and writing about you and looking at you thinking about what to say next and how you'd react to what they say next. They're observing you, and if they're following what their teachers and textbooks tell them they're even looking at things like "do they look like they've showered?" and "are they jittery?". And in many ways it doesn't matter what you say, because that's read into, and what you do say is dissected and made to mean certain things which it doesn't necessarily. It makes me feel like I'm a little bacteria in a petri dish, being watched from under a microscope and prodded. The core problem here for me isn't even really the fact of being observed at all. It's not privacy. It's just that these things also send this dehumanizing message. Like your very personhood isn't recognized.
And another thing? Can we talk about class? Is it possible to talk about class? I think it might be impossible. It might be impossible for a poor/underclass person to talk about socioeconomic status with a therapist. A therapist inherently by their educational and professional credentials is not of the same socioeconomic status. And for non-therapists, it's also most often impossible. My poor friends don't want to talk about it, cuz they're all depressed or stressed whatever or just end up complaining about themselves (not that I can blame them). And my middle and upper class friends are defensive, even though I've hardly ever accused anyone of things, it's just an inherent thing I think. And if they're not defensive, they just don't get it. Couldn't get it.
Sometimes I think it's funny when rich/middle class people try to help me with my (in many ways intractable) life/financial problems (what's the dif between the two?). First, I don't think anyone almost ever sticks with it for more than a week. But it's just so funny. They all think it's so easy. Oh, just try this. Apply here. Go to this school. Call these people and get these benefits. It's so funny, they think I haven't tried these things. Not only that, but they're so thoroughly convinced it will work. No, they're not even convinced it will work. They've never even questioned that it may not work. They have been told that there are resources for the poor. And to question that would bring them into a moral conflict. To really face the reality of poverty when you're comfortable middle/upper class will necessarily bring you into a moral conflict that it's much easier to avoid. It makes you realize that maybe there are people who are made to suffer and denied stable access to the basics of life for no real reason. That the very existence of poverty is dehumanizing, it tells certain people they are less human than you. And a rational, empathetic, compassionate person couldn't be able to deal with that conflict.
So they continue to pedal to me, a poor person, their "solutions". It's funny, again, because I've tried most everything they suggest. And believe it or not, it doesn't work. Or if it does work, it fucking sucks. You can work 80 hours a week and then have to pay someone's bail. Because remember, the rich are allowed to do their drugs and smoke their weed, and they may occasionally get a slap on the wrist, but that's a very bad thing for a poor person to do.
To be clear poverty is far from my only problem. It's just an intractable one, and one without which I feel I may not feel the way I do, and one which infuses every other problem I have. I have all these friends my age who live at home with their parents and haven't got to go to work or anything. People who I think are probably less depressed or whatever than me. Why can't I have that? I feel like I'm expected to grind and grind and awful jobs for stupid owners, for what. Sometimes I feel like at least a part of the whole reason people are so insistent I don't CTB is, you know, then they might be a little sad. Or worse, who's going to make their stupid $12 latte? It's so infuriating, when you live around people who're so oblivious to their money, who believe things are needs when they fully are not. I mean most all people in similar situations as me somehow survive just fine without these "needs". It's so frustrating when people say "it's impossible to live off $X", and $X is twice what you live on, for a brief period you lived on that and saved mad of it and felt like a fucking king. Like, often I feel I live in a different world than so many people. No, it's not frustrating or alienating, it's simply dehumanizing.
And the desire to die. Are we allowed to talk about it? I mean like I said, I don't feel like I can be open with really anyone. I'm well aware of the risk ranking scales. And if you're aware of those scales, and know that certain scores or things lead to certain outcomes (ie hospital) is it even possible to be honest? I'm not saying I definitely plan to CTB, I don't think I would, but it's certainly something I'd like to do. And that's not something I'd want to say to anyone. Or even if I could say it to someone, I'd be so worried. Like looking over my shoulder. Like I'm a little bacteria in a petri dish, but now I'm a potentially unstable bacteria that needs to be monitored, and maybe stuck in some kind of incubator with a bunch of other bacteria if I let anyone see. I mean yea, maybe I would be best off if I CTB, I couldn't say. But I just really feel like I can't tell anyone at all that when I wake up every morning I really just wish I hadn't. That I'm late to everything because I don't want to do anything, because I lie in bed and just think about how little I want to be there or anywhere, how little I want to go anywhere or do anything.
And see, here's the other thing. I can't stand when people talk about the desire to CTB as a pathological thing. People talk of brain chemicals and neurotransmitters in a way that's totally decontextualized. By the same "depression is just a chemical imbalance" reduction, so is love! So is every feeling! So is the grief someone might feel if I die! And it's such a weird random totally-biological-not-at-all-politically-socially-influenced thing in that it happens disproportionately to, say, impoverished single mothers. Hmmm. That whole attitude and angle? It's yet one more way to blame the poor for their experiences and to buy into the false belief that there's a solution. Oh, these people who happen to be poor are only sad because of a brain chemical. If they just take the right SSRI and pop on over to a therapist, that problem's solved! It's so easy!
And it's not just that I can't stand when people talk about it as a pathological thing. That also ties in with when people talk about it in a way where it's not permissible. Like it must always be prevented, like it could never possibly be a rational choice that someone weighs out.
I'm just tired and frustrated and feel like I'm under a gag order over talking about these things. To clarify the title: I think ethically, yes, us poor and sad and socially disconnected are as fully human as anyone else. But that comes into such conflict with how we are treated. We are not treated that way. In the way we experience systems, social situations, everything, we are sent the message that we are not human. We are not equally worthy. We don't have the same personhood as the middle/upper class. If they don't see me as a human, who are they to say or care what I do with my less-than-human life? But of course they think they know best.
I mean one is just, do you ever get the feeling of being watched or observed by a therapist? I mean, obviously and objectively, that's exactly what's happening. They're taking their notes and writing about you and looking at you thinking about what to say next and how you'd react to what they say next. They're observing you, and if they're following what their teachers and textbooks tell them they're even looking at things like "do they look like they've showered?" and "are they jittery?". And in many ways it doesn't matter what you say, because that's read into, and what you do say is dissected and made to mean certain things which it doesn't necessarily. It makes me feel like I'm a little bacteria in a petri dish, being watched from under a microscope and prodded. The core problem here for me isn't even really the fact of being observed at all. It's not privacy. It's just that these things also send this dehumanizing message. Like your very personhood isn't recognized.
And another thing? Can we talk about class? Is it possible to talk about class? I think it might be impossible. It might be impossible for a poor/underclass person to talk about socioeconomic status with a therapist. A therapist inherently by their educational and professional credentials is not of the same socioeconomic status. And for non-therapists, it's also most often impossible. My poor friends don't want to talk about it, cuz they're all depressed or stressed whatever or just end up complaining about themselves (not that I can blame them). And my middle and upper class friends are defensive, even though I've hardly ever accused anyone of things, it's just an inherent thing I think. And if they're not defensive, they just don't get it. Couldn't get it.
Sometimes I think it's funny when rich/middle class people try to help me with my (in many ways intractable) life/financial problems (what's the dif between the two?). First, I don't think anyone almost ever sticks with it for more than a week. But it's just so funny. They all think it's so easy. Oh, just try this. Apply here. Go to this school. Call these people and get these benefits. It's so funny, they think I haven't tried these things. Not only that, but they're so thoroughly convinced it will work. No, they're not even convinced it will work. They've never even questioned that it may not work. They have been told that there are resources for the poor. And to question that would bring them into a moral conflict. To really face the reality of poverty when you're comfortable middle/upper class will necessarily bring you into a moral conflict that it's much easier to avoid. It makes you realize that maybe there are people who are made to suffer and denied stable access to the basics of life for no real reason. That the very existence of poverty is dehumanizing, it tells certain people they are less human than you. And a rational, empathetic, compassionate person couldn't be able to deal with that conflict.
So they continue to pedal to me, a poor person, their "solutions". It's funny, again, because I've tried most everything they suggest. And believe it or not, it doesn't work. Or if it does work, it fucking sucks. You can work 80 hours a week and then have to pay someone's bail. Because remember, the rich are allowed to do their drugs and smoke their weed, and they may occasionally get a slap on the wrist, but that's a very bad thing for a poor person to do.
To be clear poverty is far from my only problem. It's just an intractable one, and one without which I feel I may not feel the way I do, and one which infuses every other problem I have. I have all these friends my age who live at home with their parents and haven't got to go to work or anything. People who I think are probably less depressed or whatever than me. Why can't I have that? I feel like I'm expected to grind and grind and awful jobs for stupid owners, for what. Sometimes I feel like at least a part of the whole reason people are so insistent I don't CTB is, you know, then they might be a little sad. Or worse, who's going to make their stupid $12 latte? It's so infuriating, when you live around people who're so oblivious to their money, who believe things are needs when they fully are not. I mean most all people in similar situations as me somehow survive just fine without these "needs". It's so frustrating when people say "it's impossible to live off $X", and $X is twice what you live on, for a brief period you lived on that and saved mad of it and felt like a fucking king. Like, often I feel I live in a different world than so many people. No, it's not frustrating or alienating, it's simply dehumanizing.
And the desire to die. Are we allowed to talk about it? I mean like I said, I don't feel like I can be open with really anyone. I'm well aware of the risk ranking scales. And if you're aware of those scales, and know that certain scores or things lead to certain outcomes (ie hospital) is it even possible to be honest? I'm not saying I definitely plan to CTB, I don't think I would, but it's certainly something I'd like to do. And that's not something I'd want to say to anyone. Or even if I could say it to someone, I'd be so worried. Like looking over my shoulder. Like I'm a little bacteria in a petri dish, but now I'm a potentially unstable bacteria that needs to be monitored, and maybe stuck in some kind of incubator with a bunch of other bacteria if I let anyone see. I mean yea, maybe I would be best off if I CTB, I couldn't say. But I just really feel like I can't tell anyone at all that when I wake up every morning I really just wish I hadn't. That I'm late to everything because I don't want to do anything, because I lie in bed and just think about how little I want to be there or anywhere, how little I want to go anywhere or do anything.
And see, here's the other thing. I can't stand when people talk about the desire to CTB as a pathological thing. People talk of brain chemicals and neurotransmitters in a way that's totally decontextualized. By the same "depression is just a chemical imbalance" reduction, so is love! So is every feeling! So is the grief someone might feel if I die! And it's such a weird random totally-biological-not-at-all-politically-socially-influenced thing in that it happens disproportionately to, say, impoverished single mothers. Hmmm. That whole attitude and angle? It's yet one more way to blame the poor for their experiences and to buy into the false belief that there's a solution. Oh, these people who happen to be poor are only sad because of a brain chemical. If they just take the right SSRI and pop on over to a therapist, that problem's solved! It's so easy!
And it's not just that I can't stand when people talk about it as a pathological thing. That also ties in with when people talk about it in a way where it's not permissible. Like it must always be prevented, like it could never possibly be a rational choice that someone weighs out.
I'm just tired and frustrated and feel like I'm under a gag order over talking about these things. To clarify the title: I think ethically, yes, us poor and sad and socially disconnected are as fully human as anyone else. But that comes into such conflict with how we are treated. We are not treated that way. In the way we experience systems, social situations, everything, we are sent the message that we are not human. We are not equally worthy. We don't have the same personhood as the middle/upper class. If they don't see me as a human, who are they to say or care what I do with my less-than-human life? But of course they think they know best.
