Vacation Day 3 & Saturday (depression, watching notes, garden, cognitive science_

[elainegrey]

Ooof. So, i think i read comics all yesterday because i forgot to take my antidepressant. Today i braved the weather outside and ...wow, am i out of shape. Not only did i melt into a puddle (dew point was 75°F for the high 70s -low 80s temperatures. It wasn't hot but it was terribly muggy) but i think i exerted myself in a way i haven't in ages. In good news i managed to beat back some of the horrible overgrowth so i can get to the garden. But as i dug potatoes i found many with a milky rot, and i didn't find that many (admittedly, i probably didn't find them all because i was not well motivated). I've got a good growth of a new weed that might beat stilt grass. It's native, but i wonder how well we will get along:

Virginia buttonweed (Diodia virginiana) is one of the most difficult-to-control broadleaf weeds in turf. It commonly proliferates in poorly drained areas and can tolerate mowing heights as low as one-half inch. This deep-rooted perennial produces both above- and below-ground flowers. Its prolific seed production, extensive root system and ability to vegetatively reproduce make control extremely difficult.

http://www.tennesseeturfgrassweeds.org/Lists/Fact%20Sheets/Attachments/9/w147updated2015.pdf

And when i was running the wheeled string trimmer i caught some of the fencing and ripped a big hole.

So, i'm sort of bummed, but i can get to the garden now. I also found two of my sweet peppers fruits had rotted. I dunno: it's been wet. I think that the corner where i dug up the potatoes is a little more wet than other areas in the garden (oddly, because it's up hill, but i think it catches the run off.

Last night we watched "Hell or High Water" (2016, "neo-Western heist drama"). I'd seen the trailer some months ago and thought it looked good, but ... ambiguous. How dark would it get? How depressing? There are so many times that what i want from entertainment is comfort and diversion, and i couldn't tell how affecting this would be.

The good about the film: it's well crafted, and it's a story of the part of the United States left out the post 2008 recovery. I wanted to say that the movie presented the events as morally ambiguous, but that's not it. It's the portrayal of desperation in the face of other wrongs, of the layers and layers of wrongs. The film makes it clear with the opening scene graffiti: “3 TOURS IN IRAQ BUT NO BAILOUT FOR PEOPLE LIKE US.” I'm not sure i felt sympathy for anyone in particular, just a great sense of the layers of inequities. The film came out in 2016, at the very end of the Obama administration: i wonder about the sterotypes and wonder about the truth.

The bad? Well, the gendered and racial ruts are pretty deep. One character does things for his sons, and i turn over in my mind why it wasn't for his kids. I could go on with the spoilers.

I only went to one session at today's conference, where a woman talked about the power of storytelling. I split, with one part of me enthusiastic and celebrating: yes, reframe! Yes, shape your reality! And another part distrustful. There's such subtlety, a yes and no. Yes, i do think that some parts of one's lived experience are completely malleable to framing. I also don't believe all people are equally capable of reframing to the same extent.

I could be wrong about that. This research https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095985/ indicates that one's susceptibility to someone else's frame is independent of cognitive style. But the ability to convince oneself of an alternative frame?

I want to believe i am frame-flexible, that i can reframe experiences to be enjoyable more than average. It's something, though, that comes from being raised in a household where my mother was unendingly critical and a perfectionist, along with incredibly anxious.

... ...

and then discussions were hard and there were tears and i just don't know but keeping one breath after another, one heart beat after another, and trust that some how i'll do more good than harm on this planet.

Comments

[sonia]

I hear you about the yes and no about reframing and storytelling. I think it's another one of those tools that works up to a point, and the problem is that past that point people tend to say, "Try harder!" rather than "Maybe the frame isn't the issue here." I've been thinking about this a lot with the Untangling class I'm taking, that has a similar problem assuming everything is internal (and therefore malleable to their method) while ignoring external factors.

[elainegrey]

YES, to your description of the problem: "assuming everything is internal (and therefore malleable to their method) while ignoring external factors."

I think there may also be something i'm sensing along the lines of hearing an exuberant "tell yourself any story you want!" and questioning whether that's the right story. One of the people who spoke told of her journey from feeling her voice wasn't valuable to writing: she passed through the trial of breast cancer. "I learned to stop saying 'my cancer' and moved to fighting the diagnosis." And... worked for her, sure ... but the story of dominance and enforcing borders -- i know cancer and depression are very different, but i'm willing to claim my depression as a friend. Not a pleasant friend, but a presence that takes hold when i've been ignoring important things. That's a story i tell myself that feels so much more compassionate than battling depression.

[sonia]

Yes, the story of depression as a friend resonates as more compassionate to me, too.

I don't like the "battling cancer" metaphor either. With the caveat that I haven't been there, but I have thought about it a lot. Those are still our own cells. I want cancer treatments that support the whole body, rather than attacking "the cancer" (and incidentally everything else). And also societal changes so we're not exposed to so many carcinogens and destructive stress.

And also urgh to "fighting the diagnosis." If we could cure cancer by not believing in it there would be a lot fewer deaths.

[amaebi]

Wow, this resonates for me in so many ways.

So just waving from here, and trying.

[elainegrey]

I am going to assume you are spared the high humidity.

Economics and ministry seem to be powerful practices for story telling.