Sadness is not depression.
Let’s play a game.
I want you to think of two words. Any two words will do.
The only requirement is that they not be the same word. They have to be different words. If you are an English speaker, this should not be too difficult, as you have 170,000 or so to choose from.
So, like, you can pick “dog” and “perfidy”, for example. But you can’t pick “dog” and “dog”.
Got it? You with me?
Good. Now pick your words.
I chose “window” and “barbecue”.
If you picked two entirely separate words, words that are in no way the same word at all, you are smarter than the internet. Or possibly Google. Or perhaps they are the same thing now.
I probably shouldn’t write when I’m angry.
So I was googling something today. Because it’s relevant to the discussion, I will tell you that I was googling “what to do when your wife is sad”. Since I am not currently in possession of a wife, this might be considered an odd thing to be googling, but how we got here doesn’t matter.
I am a firm and devout believer in the “fucking google it” school of problem solving, so this sort of thing happens a lot. I have googled why barns are red. I have googled how to take a shower. I have googled what to do when your oven is on fire, how to store dill, and the rules for Harry Potter UNO.
Since I had success in all these ventures and more, I thought that maybe “what to do when your wife is sad” would produce similar results. Perhaps they would be vacuous, yes. Perhaps they would be trite, sure. Perhaps they would be sexist and patriarchal and condescending. But I naively assumed that they would… well… be.
You can start laughing now. It’s fine. I’ll wait.
This is what I got.
There were pages of this. PAGES. I am so angry I could spit.
Should I be? Probably not. Anger at robots is not productive. But I am. I’m angry because some sweet, clueless husband out there is trying to take some initiative and googling how to support his wife when she’s crying in the bathroom and this is what he’s getting. He’s getting told she’s mentally ill.
Here she goes.
When I was small, I was lactose intolerant. Lactaid wasn’t available until I was a bit older, so when I was very tiny, I couldn’t eat ice cream. When I found myself in situations in which other kids were getting ice cream, my father’s solution was to get me an ice cream cone full of sliced bananas. It wasn’t ideal, but it was 1985. The world did what the world could do.
One time, we were at some event or another, and the other kids were getting ice cream. I liked it when the other kids got ice cream. It was a chance to live vicariously. Somewhere, in some recess of my intuition, I understood that one day I would get to eat ice cream, so I used the opportunity to observe ice cream – and its eaters – from a distance. Like an ice cream anthropologist. It was actually quite thrilling to see what ice creams were available and internally debate their relative merits. Even today I take an absurd level of interest in ice cream flavors, and I eat the stuff maybe twice a year.
Anyway, this time we went to get ice cream and there were no bananas, and I was sad.
Super sad.
Sad-a-rino. Sad-a-rama. Sad-tastic.
Even though we had bananas all the time…
Even though dry ice cream cones are nobody’s idea of a birthday party waiting to happen…
Even though I still got to be an ice cream anthropologist…
I was still sad. It sucked. I had tiny child ADHD – we should probably all assume I would not have passed the marshmallow test– and sitting there doing nothing, not fidgeting, not crying, not eating carbohydrates while all the other kids got ice cream? It sucked. I was sad.
However.
However, however, however…
You REALLY need to pay attention to this part because this part is the part that matters…
Are you ready?
I was not depressed.
Sadness is a feeling. Depression is a mood disorder.
Prior to my arrival at the ice cream shop, I would say that my mental health rated fairly well. And if I had to guess, I’d say that the next day, I was probably aces.
I was sad, see? Because something sad happened? I had been looking forward to my sliced bananas and I didn’t get them and that sucked and therefore I was sad?
But I wasn’t depressed, see? Because I didn’t have a mood disorder?
Sadness is not depression. If we start acting like it is, we’re going to get the entire sentient world on Prozac and benzos for no. good. reason.
For some reason I do not understand, I am not depressed right now. I have certainly spent my time in Depression Land. I will undoubtedly go there again. But for some reason only understood by God and Jimmy Buffett, I’m not depressed now.
But I am sad.
I’m sad that Barbara Sher is dead. I’m sad that the woman whose mission was to “save as many geniuses as she could before she left the planet” HAS left the planet and I’m crying as I type this because I was one of those geniuses and I’m sad.
I’m sad that someone I know, who was younger than me and crazy, stupid-town in love with his fiancé, died of COVID five goddamn days after he filled out the paperwork to adopt their baby daughter.
I’m sad that while my Prime Minister is offering to help kids with their homework, my neighbors to the south are teetering on the brink of civil war.
I’m guessing there are a lot of people out there who are sad about things like this, and many, many, many more…
… and they haven’t all spontaneously developed mood disorders.
Someday I will be wiser and more articulate and hopefully less furious, so I can say something useful about this. Since that day is not going to be today, and since I really, really, REALLY shouldn’t write when I’m angry, I will close with this.
If you are sad, I’m sorry, and I love you. You didn’t deserve this.
If you are depressed, I’m sorry, and I love you. You didn’t deserve this.
And if you are one of those and EVERYBODY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD INCLUDING GOOGLE’S ROBOTS seems to insist you are the other?
I’m really sorry, and I really love you, and you really didn’t deserve this, and when this is all over we can go to Bali together and drink coconut milk and I will promise not to say anything stupid that just makes it worse.
xx
Naomi
