Author: Theorist
So I’be been thinking about this topic for quite a while now, and I still can’t come to a conclusion. When does depression just become a victim mentality?
I think if you’re a parent, you honestly need to lock the fuck in for your children. I am honestly really tired of seeing people have kids before they get therapy and etcetera for their existing issues. But back to the point…
I think mental illness is heavily romanticised nowadays. There’s literal TikTok edits of it.
The problem is, there’s people with access to help but don’t put in the effort, and there’s people without access to help but want it. If I’m being honest, I really don’t feel much sympathy for a majority of celebrities, such as the ones struggling with eating disorders (like Ariana Grande), most of these celebrities have TONS of fucking money and support but choose to ‘suffer’. But my main reason is that most of them are honestly just bad people.
Whenever I think about this topic, two people I knew growing up spring to my mind. Let’s call the first person Bob and the second person Eve (fake names). Both of them were very clearly struggled mentally, but they both had such insanely different childhoods. Bob grew up upper middle class with a loving family and tons of friends, Eve had the opposite. In their adulthood, I remember Bob was struggling with addiction, and Eve more so with depression but I think she might’ve also been struggling with addiction.
Anyways, although they were both adults now, they still both had pretty similar support systems as to what they had in their childhoods. But I always remember how optimistic Eve was, and how fucking negative Bob was. If I’m being honest, they both annoyed me at times with their extremities, but Bob specifically.
I then lost contact with them, but I recently got back in contact like two years ago. Eve was in a relationship and seemed happy as shit, Bob still had his good life and environment but the dude just NEVER stopped complaining and being negative.
I think at some point you have to realise this is YOUR life. Do you really wanna live your life depressed and miserable?
Depression can become impossible to treat if the perso imbeds it into their identity. Someone who is ill can either base their identity around it in that they are either a victim, or they are a survivor. One is obviously better than the other, but even if you choose the “survivor” way of looking at it, you’re living in an inversion of it. The depression/trauma itself is pivotal to who you are. This is just as much clinging to these thoughts as the Bobs of the world who may actively choose to be miserable because they think’s it’s a part of who they are. When you recognize that you are not your depression and you are not your trauma, that’s only really where you can begin to improve. It’s what makes it all the more impressive that Eve is in a relationship. She not only had to overcome all of that for herself, but she’s even taking on the emotional labor that is a relationship— even happy ones. The ugly truth of all this is that it’s actually really hard to want to get better. I told myself I wanted to get better time and time again. For a while, I really thought I was better. I wasn’t walking around with a victim mentality, I had a survivor’s mentality. I would talk about my trauma an obnoxious amount as a teenager and in my early years of undergrad. Like I was some hero by default for going through what I’ve… Read more »
i’ve struggled with depression and eating disorders for years. i have people in my life who try to help, but the truth is that nobody can save you if a part of you doesn’t want to get better.
as strange as it sounds, i think i’ve become attached to my own misery. it’s familiar. i’ve lived with it for so long that sometimes it’s easier to imagine staying this way than becoming a completely different person. part of me wants to be healthy and happy, but another part feels like i would lose something important in the process.
i also try very hard not to make my problems everyone else’s burden. i grew up in an abusive environment, so i avoid unloading my problems onto other people.
that’s one reason why the romanticization of mental illness bothers me so much. depression isn’t beautiful or profound. it’s exhausting. sometimes i wonder if people romanticize it because they’ve turned it into part of their identity, or because being “different” feels meaningful somehow.
I think depression and victim mentality often go hand in hand, but I can only really speak for myself. At a certain point, I was confident that no matter how my mental health was, I wasn’t going to try killing myself again. Yet every day sucked and I was miserable and I thought I deserved a sort of revenge against the world for some of the stuff I went through. But I hated my life so, so much. One day, I suddenly realized: I could live for eighty more years, and every day could feel just like this. Wouldn’t that be worse than death? I didn’t do therapy (I am anti-therapy save a few specific cases). Went through a period where I partied hard, did lots of drugs and drank heavily, then I was medicated for about two years, THEN had an insane ego death. I was suddenly able to do what I needed to do and I went from atheist to spiritual-ish and was taking care of myself. I stopped drinking, drugs, and all my medications. I became a lot nicer and never really made friends until this time. I had no confidence, but I faked it (for years) until it felt real. I set my life on fire and now I finally feel like I’m recovering. I’ve suffered so much and so long, isn’t the suffering of discipline quite easy in comparison? I’ll admit-I’m kind of an adrenaline junkie and have hurt myself for the rush of it,… Read more »
I probably wouldn’t say this out loud but I honestly can’t stand people like “Bob”. I can’t stand people who have perfect lives, zero trauma, and are still depressed.
Yeah, I know ANYONE can be depressed. But it still pisses me off.
Anyways, I really agree that if you’re a parent it’s time you stop being depressed.
I think if you have tons of support, family, and friends, zero trauma, but still refuse any help, that’s when it becomes a victim mentality IMO.