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lotesseMSNBC recreates the same tiresome linkage of internet use and depression. I hate the way this gets talked about - I had so many struggles with my mother, as a kid, over my internet use. I was a lonely socially-isolated kid in the middle of nowhere, and yeah, slash fandom felt like a better place to be than all the high school social events.
There's something profoundly irritating in being treated as if, by simply being a depressive, you've lost the capacity to make choices and fulfill your own needs. If I'm having a depressed day, I can decide how I want to handle it. I can examine myself and make the call as to whether I need to be firm and get myself out into the world, or if I just really need a day to puddle and nest and re-center and recover. Because of the social and time/space structures online, it's pretty much always going to feel safer and easier to me than face-to-face interaction. That doesn't mean that the internet is hurting me!
There's something profoundly irritating in being treated as if, by simply being a depressive, you've lost the capacity to make choices and fulfill your own needs. If I'm having a depressed day, I can decide how I want to handle it. I can examine myself and make the call as to whether I need to be firm and get myself out into the world, or if I just really need a day to puddle and nest and re-center and recover. Because of the social and time/space structures online, it's pretty much always going to feel safer and easier to me than face-to-face interaction. That doesn't mean that the internet is hurting me!
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Date: 2010-02-03 11:33 pm (UTC)when i was a kid i lived in the library. i lived in the school library every spare minute of the day (i had my own pass- recess, lunch, any time i finished my work early). i lived in the old Carnegie library in santa monica down in the children's section on Saturday (i had my own pair of white cotton gloves for handling the really old books), and in the library of Friends' Meeting on Sunday.
and thank GOD i did- i learned a lot about myself and about dealing with the ever so awkward world.
i saw my first psychiatrist when i was nine, but it sure wasn't because i could read.