Personal pain is subjective
This postcard from PostSecret made me so mad.
I got so mad when I read this, that my first thought was, “the teacher who wrote this deserves to get punched.”
This reminds me of the “my life is worse than yours so suck it up” contest that I see a lot of people get into. Because you went through a horrible time and made it through, anybody who doesn’t make it through deserves no sympathy.
Except that human beings are all different, and you don’t know exactly why somebody is in pain or how immobilizing their pain is UNLESS YOU ARE THEM. That’s what I mean when I say personal pain is subjective.
People have different strengths and weaknesses, and I really think it is high time that we start believing people when they say they are having trouble or that they are struggling. There is so much stigma around depression – “Just snap out of it!” say so many people – but even more stigma around depressed people who don’t realize that there’s a name for what they have.
The two industrialized countries that I have lived in – The USA and New Zealand – both have many things in common, and one of those things is the propensity to use the word “lazy.” Lazy is possibly (and ironically) the laziest word in the English language. It ignores rationality, cause and effect, and physical reality. Unhappy people stop being active for a reason. Especially given the advances scientists have made in our understanding of human psychology and sociology, we have absolutely no excuse for claiming that the most miserable people in our society put themselves where they are, need to suck it up, or are “taking advantage” of this or that (the welfare system, other people, etc.).
A teacher’s job is to provide an environment conducive to learning. If you are incapable of empathy, then you are a bad teacher; plain and simple. I would not be where I am today if it weren’t for empathic teachers. I also wouldn’t have the problems I have today if I had had MORE empathic teachers.
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I agree with the teacher, everything builds character, choose to embrace it and grow up or do not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
Your teacher doesn’t care about your personal issues for a reason. This is what you go see a shrink for. They will prescribe drugs for you to buy and mess yourself up on. The drug companies are happy, the therapists are happy, and the psychology lecturers are happy.
I have trouble believing that there’s a grand conspiracy to get therapists and psychiatrists more money, and that teachers are in on it.
Really? What about the multinational megamammoth etc drugs companies? Can’t mess up the dosage now! Got to keep taking it!
Drug companies are large and powerful and not very ethical, yes. Does that mean that their drugs never work? No. Psychiatrists frequently overprescribe drugs. Not a conspiracy, just a huge problem in the U.S. with psychiatrists geting pay-offs, pressure, and free meds from drug companies; media hyping up disorders like ADHD; and parents being strongly influenced by advertisements to push psychiatrists even more.
But therapists and teachers? Haha, you’ve come to the wrong place, claiming that therapists and teachers are part of a corporate conspiracy, seeing as I am the daughter of a therapist and a teacher.
So you admit to vested interests.
The capitalist education system wants “bums on seats”. Industries design the courses they want future “graduates” to take. Therapists thrive on depressed people, and if teachers are to blame, well there are some mutual interests, are there not?
What you call vested interest, I call experience. But sure, why don’t you assume that because my parents have two of the most important jobs in society, I must be part of some corporate conspiracy as well?
The capitalist education system wants good workers. Not sure exactly what you mean by “bums on seats.” Teachers are not capitalism. Teachers are people who generally are moved to make a difference in children’s lives. Some of them oppose mainstream public education and promote alternative education systems that focus more on radical learning, and treat every child as a worthy person with a unique mind. Others are pure products of capitalism and never learn to go past it – they, like the one who wrote the above postcard, expect children to be obedient and not bother them with their problems. However, they are not part of a conspiracy either. They are products of a sick system. There’s a difference.
I never said teachers are “to blame.” I said that the above teacher was horrible, and could have an adverse affect on their students. I also pointed out (something you appear to have missed) that I was greatly inspired and have grown as a person due to some of my teachers. Saying that teachers can affect students is not the same as saying they are “the problem.”
I have yet to meet a single therapist who is invested in people’s depression. Many are constantly losing clients due to the fact that they get better faster and faster, as the therapist becomes better at their job. Therapy has been scientifically proven to create healthy attachement styles and mend attachment traumas from early childhood. The people I know who have been in therapy are some of the most thoughtful, self-aware people I know. There are therapists who volunteer and work for little to no pay at women’s shelters, rape crisis clinics, and more.
Seriously, if you want to be wealthy, don’t become a therapist. Unless you’re some wealthy Freudian psychoanalyst in New York (which I assume is the only therapist you think exists), you are not going to even necessarily make the national median income. As poorly paid as public school teachers are, many of them make more than therapists.
Now, unless you think I’m part of some grand scheme to make my parents more money (honestly, how would that even work?), I suggest you do a little more research.
On the one hand, I agree that we could all use more empathy in the world, but on the other hand, some people are content to let other people work their asses off to support them. I had a friend who was involved with someone, and she worked full time, paid all the bills, and did the housework, and her BF did absolutely nothing…it’s fine to be empathetic and understanding of issues but sometimes that leads you to get taken advantage of.
There are absolutely people who need help, and want to contribute something but cannot. I have had weeks, even months, where just getting out of bed is a freaking chore, and the only thing that propels me to do it is the knowledge that I will get fired if i don’t show up for work. I really hate being that way, because life shouldn’t be something you trudge through, but for many people it is. I am a lot closer to depression than one may think (directly and not)…however…I find the difference is that there are people who wish they could get better but can’t (for whatever reason) and people who just flat out think the world owes them a living and expects a free ride. They don’t want to contribute, they don’t want to do anything. I don’t think it’s right for one person to work their ass off trying to make ends meet and having 100% of the responsibilities on them — expenses, housework, cleaning, cooking, even child rearing when applicable–while their so/family member/what have you just sits at home all day doing nothing. You may as well just live on your own then, you’ll have less to clean that way.
I think that while the teacher is being very dismissive, she (or he?) has a point. It’s never as simple as “snap out of it” when depression gets ahold of you, I’m really not talking out of my ass here, you’ll just have to take my word for it. (when someone is just an asshole who wants to take advantage of you, though, it’s better to just get rid of them, because that won’t change, and that’s very different. No amount of “snap out of it” will help them, either). But that person will eventually have to get some help, because you can’t live your life forever in a funk that way. It just sucks, when you want to help someone, and they won’t help themselves, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You end up feeling so helpless. I know it’s no picnic for them either. It’s a bad situation all around!
There is definitely an attitude of “well i pulled myself up by my bootstraps and so should you”, this is often used as a reason not to support children’s college education (which is generally very detrimental to them) and I don’t really agree with it either for your reasons, everyone’s different. And you never know what someone is dealing with. But you can only put up with having to do everything yourself for two (or three +) people for so long….and I think sometimes people use depression as an excuse to let someone else take care of everything, which only makes it harder for those who really suffer to seek help and get it.
I think that the general idea of “freeloaders” is extremely problematic. Everybody deserves a living – as in security, food, a home, health care, and other basic needs, regardless of how much they work. I’m against the death penalty, but even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t say that people who don’t work deserve to die. And that’s what a lot of people seem to be saying when they don’t support the welfare of people who don’t work.
It is possible for a society to provide all necessities to everybody without anybody taking advantage of anybody. The thing is, most people want to contribute to society, because (as has been shown in studies time and again) people themselves benefit from being an active member of society. Those who don’t wish to participate have serious problems, and you’re right – they need help. What they don’t need is to end up on the streets.
As for the teacher’s postcard, I think you’re reading way too much into it. This has nothing to do with people living off of other people. It has to do with students asking their teacher for help and understanding, as I have done countless times with my own teachers. They are being completely dismissive by saying that just because they have suffered, they have no empathy for others who suffer. It’s frankly quite surprising, since usually the most empathic people out there have experienced great traumas in their own lives.
I have suffered from severe depression and anxiety for most of my life, and I can tell you that the idea of “taking advantage” of other people’s help is more fantasy than fact. What I mean is, while it does happen, it happens far less than most people think, and generally when it does happen, it’s not a simple case of strategic manipulation. Everybody has to set their own boundaries for what they’re willing to give emotionally to somebody else before they burn out, but this teacher hasn’t set a boundary – they’ve set a wall. And just because we need boundaries doesn’t mean that the people who ask for our help don’t genuinely need it from an outside source – not simply from their own self-discipline.
I think that the entire education needs a complete overhaul, frankly. There are students who are having a tough time. Then there are students who use that as an excuse to postpone their homework. Why? Maybe because mainstream schools make learning a chore – and children shouldn’t be blamed for not wanting to be treated like cogs in a machine.
I definitely think that sometimes when people are able to get themselves out of bad situations there tends to be this attitude like, “I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and SO CAN YOU” even though no two situation is the same. Especially since they rarely do things 100% themselves, but that seems to get forgotten. I just used college tuition as an example, it happens with many different things.
as for taking advantage…we are clearly approaching this from opposite ends of this. I would never assume that someone is just taking advantage of me if they fall on hard times or they are struggling simply because I’ve been burned in the past. But the fact is that I absolutely have been burned by manipulative people who did, in fact, expect to indefinitely take advantage of me (and my BF too) who have deep seeded issues far beyond what I can help with, and they will never seek help because they believe the problem lies with everyone else rather than inside themselves. So yeah, I have a wall up when it comes to people like that, but it’s more of a retroactive wall than a proactive one. It goes up after I see what sort of a person they are. And I’m really not just talking about monetary contributions. There is much involved with keeping up a household that isn’t necessarily related to working outside the home. I feel like you are taking what I say personally as something against you, like I’m accusing you of being that type of advantage-taking person (that’s why I said opposite ends) but I’m really not. I understand depression better than you think. I know what it does to you. I know it can make you basically immobile and makes it impossible to get out of bed for days on end. (again, not you personally, just you generally) It makes it that much harder to seek help because it just takes so much effort to even walk across the room much less make some phone calls or leave the house….and people like my former roomie cheapen these issues and make them get taken a whole lot less seriously. It actually pisses me off.
Oh, and no arguments for the educational system. “Kids, you are but cogs in the machine, and this will prepare you for your careers as you continue to be cogs in the machine the rest of your life. have fun and stay in school!” Yeah, real motivating!
No, I never thought you were accusing me of taking advantage of people. I am fully aware that there are manipulative people out there, I was talking about people who put up the wall proactively, as you stated. Regarding the post card, it seems to me that not only is the teacher putting up a wall proactively (stating “I have no sympathy for students who are ‘having a tough time’” seems like a seriously judgmental attitude), but it didn’t seem that the teacher was worried about students manipulating them – that’s why they stated that they have had tough times too. It seems pretty obvious to me that they were having exactly the attitude you described: “I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, so can you.” Hence: “My time at university was littered with illnesses, deaths, fires and depression. Get over yourself.” I don’t think they could have made themselves clearer. Seriously, it’s as if the teacher is playing some kind of game, like a hardship Olympics.
Funny that you should mention flatmates. I recently moved out of a flat where I did fewer chores than I would have desired (and one of my flatmates was not pleased about the situation). I don’t think she felt I was manipulating her, but it’s one of those situations where depression takes on the appearance of “laziness” and it looks like I just can’t be bothered. I don’t know if that’s what happened with your flatmate, but sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between somebody who is being selfish and taking advantage of others, and somebody who is completely lacking in energy and motivation.
I can’t reply to your comment for some reason….
my ex roommate went wayyyy beyond “doing fewer chores than I’d have liked”, I could seriously write a novel about her. That alone wouldn’t bother me. I’m not a great housekeeper either, my bf is much better about that than I am. I’m guessing that you didn’t expect your roommate to foot all your bills, spending the money you did have on things for yourself like wine and fancy groceries (and god help your roommates if they touched your food, while their food was totally fair game), or expect them to drive you all over creation while never giving them gas money and having zero regard for it taking 2+ hours to get back home after dropping you off (freakin traffic), pay your way when you went out every single time, or expect them to forgo sleep because you have opposite schedules and you need rides/someone to hang out with (we do have public transit here, it may not be great, but it exists), or pitch a screaming fit when you didn’t get your way….or throw yourself at your roommate’s boyfriend at every chance you got…or the roommate herself…you and her are not even on the same planet….and that’s what I mean when I say take advantage. I can’t excuse that behavior from someone. I just can’t believe I put up with it for as long as I did (about 6 weeks give or take) and that’s not even going into the way she acted after she left….oh my god…I learned a big lesson after all that! I’m just thankful it wasn’t an expensive lesson!
Also hardship olympics is hilarious, that’s totally what I was thinking too. I know teachers generally have pretty thankless jobs (at least over here) but most kids who actually bother to ask for help genuinely need it. The ones who are manipulative little shits that don’t care are the ones who don’t ask and expect straight A’s because reasons. But you had a point a few comments back, about how school in general isn’t really motivating, it’s just prepping kids to be cogs in the machine when they grow up (since they more than likely will be, most jobs are that way, they work you til you can’t give anymore and then cast you aside and replace you). Depressing as hell isn’t it?
Oh! Sorry to spam your blog so much but I also wanted to say that despite all that, I still don’t put up proactive walls. I don’t like to do that. I used to, actually, but it’s such a lonely way to live. If someone burns me, then I can put up the wall.