Other people’s stories

I never read (or I don’t remember reading) anything by Heather Armstrong. Nevertheless, the fact I still write in a couple of blogs suggests she had some indirect influence. Something out there made blogging seem to me like a normal, even desirable, activity. Somebody found an audience of women which spun off into smaller audiences for people like me.

Heather Armstrong died by suicide this week, and the social media/news world discussed it enough that it came to my attention, first through an algorithm on a news page (which usually pushes articles about the royal family) and then through a couple of blogs I still sometimes read.

I didn’t know much about her so I chose to read 

this Vox article. I got about halfway through, then I’d had enough*. My conclusion? The internet probably killed Heather Armstrong. There was a lot of wealth and fame and drama and other stuff along the way, of course. But that’s my takeaway. We will never know, but it seems to me there is a decent chance she still would be alive if not for the internet. What about having your life struggles out there as entertainment for people is remotely healthy? I’m sure there’s room for debate but from my point of view, that is the conclusion to draw.

Now I’m still here blogging for my audience of dunno, five people, so isn’t that hypocrisy? All I can say that is if the five people suddenly became millions, or goodness, even hundreds it would change things a lot. I guess I blog in hope of a few good people reading, but more is not better. And none might be best of all. Having no audience is not ruining my life, anyway.

Having not been an audience, I don’t want to rush to judge Armstrong’s writing.  Based on some excerpts I read however, I’m not sure it presented a very helpful picture of motherhood. For sure it’s good to laugh at the trials and absurdity, but the struggles can be overemphasized, making parenthood sound like a constant horror show. It’s not. People need to be able to laugh at themselves and their problems, but we also need a sense of the sublime and a higher purpose in life. I think this can be lost with constant hot takes, over focus on detail and making a priority of being funny/ironic/sarcastic.  Some of us need to rediscover the art of being serious and dutiful and a bit boring.

Apparently Armstrong cursed a lot too, and this is presented as authentic/funny. I must disagree with that. I think cursing is extremely negative and people who do that a lot should be thinking about why and asking if they can be doing something else. 

But it’s hard to speak conclusively of cultural trends. Enough to say I seek support and guidance elsewhere than the confessional blogging/social media world that Armstrong inhabited and where I once had a presence on the margins. And I’m sorry this fellow woman’s story ended this way. 

*I did go back later and read the article to the end.

Psychiatric medications

I sometimes feel like the odd one out these days because I don’t take and have never taken psychiatric drugs. No anti anxiety, no antidepressants. I consider myself an anxious person and I think at certain times of my life I was depressed, though it was more episodic and circumstance based than constant. I have seen doctors and counsellors at various points in my life for mental health reasons. But nobody has ever handed me a prescription for anything. I haven’t thought a lot about that over the years, but as I get older and learn more, I am increasingly grateful for my doctors’ forbearance.

Most recently I listened to 

this podcast, The Dangers of Psychiatric Medication.

It was a bit shocking, though not a surprise. Among the issues raised:

• Psychiatric drugs are tested on a short term basis, a month to three months, but most often prescribed indefinitely. Therefore there is little or no evidence they are safe long term;
• Dependency is essentially a given with all drugs, with some leading to dependency quicker. This means that when dosage is reduced or stopped, there are withdrawal symptoms. These symptoms often lead people to believe that they “need” the drug, not realizing they are experiencing withdrawal not their original problem;
• Many people still believe that they have a “chemical imbalance” in their brain, and that taking drugs fixes it. With the possible exception of a few rare conditions, this is simply not true. Brains are highly complex systems and there is no way to simply add a chemical and fix a problem without affecting other parts of the system. Plus mental health problems are usually caused by circumstances, not chemistry. Drugs may be effective if they are used short term to help the person deal with the problem, but this is not often what happens: instead the drug is taken  long term.
• The “chemical imbalance” idea is specifically promoted by commercial interests as it leads to a perceived need for the product

Psychiatric medications are not an area of personal expertise for me (again I am grateful to not have personal experience to add to this discussion!) Nevertheless I see the need to understand better what is going on with the frequent prescribing of these drugs, the fact that an awful lot of people are taking them, and to identify and correct any fallacies that I find.

It also makes more urgent that question: what do you do when life is really tough and you truly struggle to cope? Because life is tough! If I continue to choose not to take any drugs (and this is my plan) I definitely need to keep learning about alternative ways to approach life and its challenges.