distressedSince then, people have contacted me via email (when they had it), via my old email (which I rarely check), via my contact form, via Facebook, and via my Tumblr, to give me their phone numbers, to tell me not to hurt myself (which I did not threaten to do), to provide crisis hotlines, to make suggestions about medication (which I did not solicit), and in one case, to threaten to report me to the police as a suicide risk if I did not update my blog immediately to show that I was still alive.
Please. Stop. "Comment amnesty" did not mean "work harder to make sure that your words, your well wishes, your specific need to engage with my depression will be heard." I try to keep open dialogs on this blog, and I usually appreciate communication, but right now, this contact is intrusive, and upsetting, and seems to prioritize the needs of the contacting person above mine. Please. Stop.
This is why I do not talk when I am sad.
January 12 2014, 23:38:36 UTC 3 years ago
I read your post, but decided to wait to reply until or if I had something new or useful to say. I actually went to bed thinking you might most like unrelated Tumblr discussion of Prodigy and other new mutants on teams. Empathy can generally be assumed and is probably drowned out among other voices. I'm not in the habit of telling friends (or clients, for that matter) untrue cliches and well-meant generalities like "things will always get better!". I thought of replying with echoing stories of my own life, then thought, "Seanan has enough to read in this thread."
So I went to bed. :)
I'm of the opinion that we all have the right to decide what criteria will lead us to check out of this mortal coil. If one is in control of one's faculties, then death is everyone's right. I'm talking about the existential forms of rational depression, dissatisfaction with life, What things do we require to stay on this planet? But if I talked about this analysis calmly and rationally, many people would call mental health professionals on me or otherwise act like jackasses. Yet Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and the other Stoics would have understood exactly what I was talking about. They would have been astounded that people were not making that analyis. Modern culture has sometimes lost certain perspectives on death that the ancient world of Greeks and Romans possessed.
Mack
P.S. Prodigy is still technically depowered, last time I checked -- his abilities are now skill-related, not memetic-copying as per the disconnected mutant power. More on Tumblr when you feel like it. Have you been reading Kieron Gillen's excellent Young Avengers with Prodigy in it?
January 15 2014, 20:38:16 UTC 3 years ago
(Also, I'm hoping somebody comes up with the next stage of Young Avengers soon, even if it means admitting that they aren't really Young Avengers any more.)