Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2013-10-17 09:46 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2013-10-17 09:46 pm
The unrelenting tedium of mental illness metaphor: why "depressing" is a lazy description
Dear writers of fiction, we need to talk. Specifically, about use of mental illness language in a figurative fashion, such as:
Elly had a depressing job.
More articulate motherfuckers than I have addressed other problems with this at greater length; suffice to say the following:
Using clinical terms with great abandon may be your right as a person whose use of those words is not subject to professional rules, but watering those terms down with hyperbolic use lessens public perception of their gravity when used in a clinical context, and
When your obnoxious friend is acting erratically just to piss you off and you shout "stop being so crazy!!" this has roughly the same shape of problem relating to people with mental illness as when your obnoxious friend is yet again pissing you off and you shout "stop doing that it's gay!!" -- it's not a good thing for LGBTQ* folks when that happens.
But on to the writing problems.
Using mental illness as a shorthand to describe something big in the life of your character can be really really lazy and also less effective than your writing deserves. It's imprecise. There are enough similarities in how people with a given mental illness experience it that symptoms are able to be written down so people can recognize and diagnose it, but everybody's experience of that mental illness is going to be at least slightly different. Your impression of "depressing" isn't going to be necessarily the same as your reader's, and you owe it to your reader to give them a good story.
Don't tell me a job is depressing. You don't need to give me a whole wall of text, but lay out in a few words what aspects of depression it's meant to be evoking. Is Elly's job depressing because it's full of unrelenting tedium with occasional bouts of screaming? Sure, why not? But it could cause Elly crushing desperation. It could be that Elly's supervisor is into nonstop micromanagement with a side order of soul-killing abuse. The workplace could be all noise and chaos such that Elly cannot find a quiet moment to think.
Finding the right phrasing may not be easy. An intermediate step: so Elly's job is depressing. Extend that sentence. Elly's job is depressing because: and fill in the blank. Elly's job is depressing because Elly doesn't like the job. Great. Thanks, Elly, you've given us a lot to work with. Let's try it again: Elly doesn't like the job because: they're all shitheads. Well done Elly, way to use your articulate, polite, grown-up words to describe the situation. Elly's co-workers are all shitheads because: ... oh, my. Elly does not have a good opinion of the general common sense of these people, in this or any universe. Elly is really really tired of looking for versions of this job where the co-workers do not "suck ass" or, um. Comport themselves like fucking loser noobs on the opposing team, I guess is the best translation. Thank you, Elly, for your thoughts.
Sometimes you may have a character who does toss around gratuitous mental illness metaphors with (possibly cheerful, possibly belligerent) abandon. This sort of thing happens, and when it does, you can't always reason with the character or their word choice. If you do encounter this, examine whether that word choice is true to the character, rather than it just being the word that your hand first encountered when rummaging about in the description box.
Go well, good people of the internet, and write on.
Elly had a depressing job.
More articulate motherfuckers than I have addressed other problems with this at greater length; suffice to say the following:
Using clinical terms with great abandon may be your right as a person whose use of those words is not subject to professional rules, but watering those terms down with hyperbolic use lessens public perception of their gravity when used in a clinical context, and
When your obnoxious friend is acting erratically just to piss you off and you shout "stop being so crazy!!" this has roughly the same shape of problem relating to people with mental illness as when your obnoxious friend is yet again pissing you off and you shout "stop doing that it's gay!!" -- it's not a good thing for LGBTQ* folks when that happens.
But on to the writing problems.
Using mental illness as a shorthand to describe something big in the life of your character can be really really lazy and also less effective than your writing deserves. It's imprecise. There are enough similarities in how people with a given mental illness experience it that symptoms are able to be written down so people can recognize and diagnose it, but everybody's experience of that mental illness is going to be at least slightly different. Your impression of "depressing" isn't going to be necessarily the same as your reader's, and you owe it to your reader to give them a good story.
Don't tell me a job is depressing. You don't need to give me a whole wall of text, but lay out in a few words what aspects of depression it's meant to be evoking. Is Elly's job depressing because it's full of unrelenting tedium with occasional bouts of screaming? Sure, why not? But it could cause Elly crushing desperation. It could be that Elly's supervisor is into nonstop micromanagement with a side order of soul-killing abuse. The workplace could be all noise and chaos such that Elly cannot find a quiet moment to think.
Finding the right phrasing may not be easy. An intermediate step: so Elly's job is depressing. Extend that sentence. Elly's job is depressing because: and fill in the blank. Elly's job is depressing because Elly doesn't like the job. Great. Thanks, Elly, you've given us a lot to work with. Let's try it again: Elly doesn't like the job because: they're all shitheads. Well done Elly, way to use your articulate, polite, grown-up words to describe the situation. Elly's co-workers are all shitheads because: ... oh, my. Elly does not have a good opinion of the general common sense of these people, in this or any universe. Elly is really really tired of looking for versions of this job where the co-workers do not "suck ass" or, um. Comport themselves like fucking loser noobs on the opposing team, I guess is the best translation. Thank you, Elly, for your thoughts.
Sometimes you may have a character who does toss around gratuitous mental illness metaphors with (possibly cheerful, possibly belligerent) abandon. This sort of thing happens, and when it does, you can't always reason with the character or their word choice. If you do encounter this, examine whether that word choice is true to the character, rather than it just being the word that your hand first encountered when rummaging about in the description box.
Go well, good people of the internet, and write on.
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I'll fight you on different phrasing too. Sometimes detail is good, but sometimes writers go way, way, way overboard: some things need elision, because they're not important. Not everything should or needs to be explained. (Examples include many of the writers in this article, who throw words in your face to over-describe things: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/#comments) If it's about magic and dragons, a short note about Elly's depressing workplace suffices.
No, we should not casually bandy about words that signify and stigmatize mental illness. But hyperbole exists, and I think the word "depression", unqualified by terms like "clinical depression", is still broadly general and indicates the meaning "sadness" more than the clinical definition. (For example, if someone were to say "I'm so depressed", I would take it that they were sad; they would have to qualify the statement with "I'm clinically depressed" or some other wording to bring across that definition.) I don't think it's wrong to use it in this sense. It doesn't have the sharply pejorative sense that "retard" has, for example, nor the pointed categorization it makes. Depression is not a pejorative term.
ETA: On one last thought: I do not think that the fact a term is used precisely, as a technical term, has ever stopped the general population from taking that word and running with it. If I never hear someone misusing the words used in sciences again, it'll be too soon. Take the word--oh, I don't even know, theory. This word means anything from "crackpot idea" to "brilliant idea" and not what it means when you set up a hypothesis, conduct an experiment to reject or fail to reject a null, etc.
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Elly gave me a lot more words about that workplace than I was expecting. If it weren't related to the plot, I'd probably go with something like "Elly worked with a bunch of real jerks," which says a lot more with not too many more words.
I don't quarrel with anyone's choice of "depressing" and its variants, specifically, for situations in their real life that are not clinical depression. I don't think that's the wrong word, and furthermore using imprecise words can be a matter of privacy -- I had a twitter-conversation with someone who knows from depressing jobs; they mentioned that sometimes it's a way of eliding details that nobody cares about.
It aggravates me no end when people muck around with technical terms because then the wrong definition gets in my head aaa.
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An ordinary person can be depressed one day because they're having a bad time, but that doesn't meant that they're _suffering from depression_ - the two are quite different.
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And the fact is, maybe Elly's job is depressogenic. Maybe Elly hasn't figured out what it is about her job that has been slowly corrosive of her mood, and that's why she can't tell you yet.
The other way to address the inadequate writing problem is instead of trying to explain the job, realize that saying the job is depressing is really a description not of the job but of Elly, of how the job affects her, and that's who needs more explication: is she hiding in the bathroom to cry daily? Comfort eating? Drinking? Unable to bring herself to open her mail? Staring out wistfully at the little patch of lawn she can see from her window? Unable to control her temper? Resentful of ever more petty things, able to tell, but unable to stop? Have nightmares about her email inbox?
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I just - no, no, no, fucking no, I absolutely fucking refuse to
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Content note for obvious stuff
I resent the idea that I and friends should have to say "I am having an episode of clinical depression" or whatever when every word is a choice, and every choice is hard; casual use of "I'm depressed" gets me geared up on adrenaline, in can-I-offer-support-or-do-I-need-to-get-out-to-be-safe mode, and if I'm teetering it drags me in.
I just - no, no, no, fucking no, I absolutely point-blank refuse to give the comforting anodyne ascetic spin on this. I refuse to say that "I am clinically depressed" or "I have clinical depression" when what I mean is "I can't remember the last time I had a day when I didn't think about killing myself" or "I'm absolutely certain that 'happiness' is an entirely abstract concept dreamed up by sadists, because I have never experienced it and never will again because it isn't real" or "I can't concentrate on this conversation because my inner forearms are screaming too loudly."
I won't. I simply will not.
I might not say all of that to you, because even - especially - when I am bad, I do not want people to know about it, but I am not going to make it cool and gowned and well-read and polite, because this black dog is not housetrained.
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No, this is specifically about comparative and flippant use in fiction. Particularly fiction written by people who have not experienced clinical depression.
I am of the general position that people talking about things from their actual life shouldn't be policed on phrasing unless there is something going amazingly wrong.
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I have some sort of nuance about it in my own head: I think that using more descriptive language with a broader vocabularity is good - things can be more than "crazy" or "cute" or "cool". I think that using words referring to deep and tragic human conditions in a casual & flippant sense trivializes them and makes the important of non-import. But I try to stake out what I really care about. Lots of things... don't matter that much... and it's better IMO to be at peace with others than to try to change them about those unimportant things. "As much as lies within you, be at peace with all" is a quote I try to live by about language.
Oy, if that makes sense, I'm glad... if not... it's late... if I'm an ass, pin the tail on me... :-)
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It doesn't really bother me when people say stuff like "work is driving me crazy" or "work is depressing" if only because work and weather can have a significant effect on someone's mental health.
It's when a writer uses it in place of an even slightly more nuanced description. I think it's a rule of writing that can and should be broken when the time is right, but I see "depressing" in particular like a cook who has only one spice and dadgum it will get used.
I write. I kind of have to care about stuff like this. And happily, once I articulate what bothers me, I generally stop fretting.
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/rant
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Turns out I really don't deal well with predatory business models, and I really don't cope well with lying to customers. Apparently, to the point where being told to lie will trigger a major depressive episode if it goes on for long enough.
I don't usually say that job was depressing tho. I usually say I had ethical issues with the business. For some people, the job clearly wasn't depressing. They loved it. Very few of my coworkers had the same ethical issues I did if they stuck around. Not all people perceive things in the same way.
Perhaps more important, that's a *really* atypical way for my major depressive episodes to present. I don't do clouds of gloom usually. I'm not usually the depressed person who doesn't want to get out of bed. I'm the depressed person who bounces cheerily out of bed 3 hours before everyone else, silently takes care of all her morning rituals, and finds a nice quiet corner to hide from everyone else and will snarl and take your head off if you try to provide human interaction. Ever. Humans interacting with me are generally seen as a dangerous threat that must be fought off. You can tell the difference between the mentally healthy version and the depressed version by how much art is produced. Mentally healthy me makes art while it hides from the world. Depressed me has no art and no making things at all.
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Speaking as a migraineur.
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Thea had a depressing job, but she didn't quite feel like dealing with a worker's comp settlement over the mental health bills.
(Apparently worker's comp for depression is a thing, so that might not even be sarcastic. I just looked it up. In an incognito window, since while "worker's comp laws" are a legitimate thing for me to look up for work related reasons (job related to clinical industry), I don't want someone worrying unnecessarily.)