-Since going to see the specialist, I’ve been watching to see just how light-sensitive I seem to be. This just in: I’m very light sensitive. …good sign I guess (in that light therapy should work).
-Keeping busy/doing tonnes/staying active/spending time with people means not having time to feel depressed… yay!
-Not having time to experiance symptoms of depression doesn’t mean being O.K. Your body will always catch up with you.
Add comment December 30th, 2005
….again with the really not having much time to write…but I have a thought or two to share…
Chances are if you talk to me often you’ve heard at least once or twice over the last couple of months how petrified I was at the thought of singing a song in front of my family here in Ireland over the Christmas season. They do this thing here, where everyone prepares a ‘party piece’ (song) and gets up in front of everyone else to preform it. …back in the day, o’ course, this kind of thing was done all the time. Even in rural Canada people didn’t go to pubs to hear bands. Everyone just preformed their own songs… they became immersed in music together. …but these days, where I grew up, that kind of thing just isn’t done. Preforming music is left to the professionals, and very small children.
So anyway, over the past couple of months this fear has been building, made worse by the fact that the family we’re talking about here is comprised entirely of artists to some degree or another (musicians, actors, sculpters, painters…you name it really). …and frankly my talents are much more in the book-reading & essay-writing department.
…right. So to make a long hurdle-filled story short, Christmas eve day was the first time everyone was together singing songs one at a time. Something about how naturally they preformed all together was enough to bring me to tears (but really that just happens easily :P). …Watching them I was just thinking how beautiful it was that they had grown up together doing this…
Anyway yesterday, Christmas day, was the first day people were actually preforming their party pieces. I’d gathered by that stage that I could in fact get away without singing anything, but also joining in seemed like the ‘right’ thing to do somehow. So anyway, that afternoon I racked my brain for a song I knew I knew all the way through and could at least attempt to hit all the notes of and listened to it once or twice. …then when it came around again to ‘Padraigin for a song…’ I actually gave it a shot. It’s funny because in hindsight I’m not sure I actually even care how it went. It was just kinda fun. …and ever since I feel that little bit more relaxed and at home with this family that I’m really only starting to get to know.
My one cousin’s daughter who’s about ten was a little shy to preform her first peice and her dad said softly yet firmly ‘This is family. It’s not your teachers or your peers. It doesn’t matter if you forget the words or the chords. We will help you. This is family.’
…This has been a disjointed compellation of thoughts, but the idea is that I think there’s something really awesome about family getting together and preforming with each other. In this family it’s intimidating because everyone’s so bloody good…but that’s not really the point. The point is to celebrate and enjoy music together. And that’s just beautiful, and liberating…real culture, as it were…
Add comment December 26th, 2005
Soo….quick update from Ireland.
Actually not-so-much an update as an: “I’m officially not writing much right now, but that’s because I’m away in Ireland and not on the computer nearly as often as I am at home”
Have a spectucular Christmas everyone…and a Happy New Year. And I’ll be back to writing regularly come the new year (most likely all about the upcoming election and such nonsense–wahoo!)
Add comment December 23rd, 2005
So in the month preceding another election (second in 17 months) I’ve been finding myself reflecting on Canadian politics quite a bit more than I generally like to. It’s sad really, the state of things here in the wintery north right now. I’m not even sure I know when the last time our government was dissolved, but I know it can’t be a good thing.
In the relatively near future I play to post about my voting debate (Green vs. NDP– given the riding I live in), but for now I’ll keep my comments to this rather sad thought:
Why is it that the beer companies in our country seem to do a better job of promoting culture and nationalism than the government does?
Exhibit A:
Molson’s ‘Sports and Entertainment’ mandate –Molson
Exhibit B:
Labatt and Budwieser organize a train ride for 500 winners all across Canada to attend the Grey Cup in Windsor
Exhibit C:
“I am Canadian” speech (also by Molson)
2 comments December 15th, 2005
So I’m sitting on the floor in my friend’s bedroom, and I’m supposed to be studying for stats. Instead I’m thinking:
1. 10 days until Ireland!
2. 12 days until Oasis in Dublin!
3. 15 days until Christmas!
4. 19 days until I turn 20!
5. 21 days until new years!
6. Dude! This time of year rocks!
7. You should go sign the petition calling for Canada’s Green Party to be included in the televised debates for the upcoming election. Why? A. Because they are cool. 2. Because even the Bloc gets to play–and their platform includes tearing our country apart…so…I mean…come on…
8. The size of the driveway I have to shovel at my new house is infinately more reasonable than the size of driveway I grew up shovelling. If I ever raise kids in an urban setting I know now that one of the horror stories I will share with them from my youth will begin “When I was young, the whole family would spend all day shovelling the driveway…”
9. Actually that’s pretty much it. 
10. Wait wait! Snow rocks.
2 comments December 10th, 2005
1. Steroid vs. exercise analogy
2. Perceptions of ‘normality’
3. Natural selection
In brief, to get everyone up to speed: I’m not O.K. I’m operating on about 6 productive hours a day (9:30am-3:00pm). Outside of those hours, if I can stay awake, I am almost completely incapable of focusing and if stressed in any way am likely to begin to cry. Given that it is exam season at the great and wonderful University of Toronto, this is not boding well.
So, my mom wants me on anti-depressants. I’m not actually frustrated at the suggestion (these days people are going on them for milder situations), I just refuse to do it. And there are 3 main reasons, which I will outline here.
I do this not as some kind of exhibitionist exercise but because these reasons are essential to my beliefs about the mistakes we humans are making in general and that is the kind of thing I wanted to use this blog to explore…
So with no further ado:
1. Steroid vs. Exercise Analogy
The first reason I don’t believe in anti-depressants has a lot to do with the reason I avoid drinking or doing drugs. I believe that our minds are very powerful things that we have not even begun to use to their full potential. Through martial arts, yoga, and meditation (or really any sport or practice pursued at a level reaching meditative states) people are able to fine-tune their mind in all sorts of incredibly powerful ways. I don’t think we need drugs to change the way our brains work (read: the way our brains work (as opposed to minds). As in I believe we can change the real-live grey matter. Our brains are much more plastic than we often realize. Case in point: London cabdrivers have significantly larger hippocampuses than regular people. Why? Because the hippocampus is responsible for temporal knowledge (i.e. location) and London cab drivers must pass a test on the entire layout of the metropolis before getting their license. While they practice, their hippocampus actually grows). I believe we can do that all on our own if we’re willing to pursue other paths (and I worry that consuming drugs in the meantime could hinder that potential).
I bring up the exercise analogy to outline why I would advocate more natural alteration than drugs. I’m sure everyone, without my going in to it, can see the distinction between an athlete who practices rigorously on a daily basis to achieve an optimum performance level and an athlete who uses steroids to achieve a similar effect (or even combines steroids with a rigorous routine, which is often the actual case). One involves learning about and using the natural physiological processes of the human body, and one is about ingesting external chemicals to alter said processes. I don’t like the idea of external chemicals.
Now when fleshing out this idea with my mother she pointed out that there was a very important difference. Mr. Steroid is trying to cheat to get ahead, while Mr. Anti-depressant is generally attempting to alter chemicals in pursuit of a ‘normal’ life. She was completely right. The analogy doesn’t hold true at that level. But that brings me to my second reason…
2. Perceptions of ‘Normality’ (particularly those of a ‘normal life’ in today’s Western societies)
What if our idea of ‘normal’ is all wrong? In fact, I’m quite sure that our idea of normal is all wrong. So why would I ingest chemicals (given my beliefs about drugs) to achieve a life that is currently regarded as normal?
This is where I think it is important that I stress that I have no ill will, or judgement for those who are on antidepressants. For example, my mother, who suffers from a very similar problem to mine (if not exactly the same as mine), went on antidepressants quite a few years ago. She was in her mid-thirties a single-mom not receiving child-support, working fulltime and holding two mortgages. …and she was an awesome mom. My brother and I were raced around South-Western Ontario involved in more extra-curricular activities than most kids could ever dream of. She wanted to be there for her kids, she had responsibilities she needed to take care of, and antidepressants allowing her to ‘lead a normal life’ were the only way she could achieve those tasks and be awake to experience her kids growing up. I have sooooo much respect for her and the things she accomplished during those years all by herself that I can’t even express it. Anyone with goals in the world today that really really matter to them that are being held back by anxiety or mood disorders: there are medications out there that make leading the life you want to live possible. Go for it.
My problem is this: my goal that really really matters to me is seeing us reassess the lives we live and turn to something more natural. I want to see us acknowledge our place as an animal on a suffering planet, wake up to environmental concerns and slip back in tune with nature. I want to see us acknowledge that our material economic concerns are causing us more stress than they are worth, and that we may feel like our lives are easier, but we are dying younger of heart attacks. I want us to slow down. What kind of hypocrite would I be if I went on drugs that went against my body’s natural process to speed myself up to operate in this system I disagree with so completely?
My doctor said maybe it’s about quality, rather than normality…but even still my point stands. My quality of life depends much more on my own peace of mind than on my accomplishments. I would not like to trade good exam marks for a deep feeling of hypocrisy.
I believe very strongly that we’re wrong about what is ‘normal’. …and in my life I want to see that changed. …and you have to be the change you want to see. (…this is the bullet I was talking about biting…that I’m not sure I’m ready for.)
3. Natural Selection
My last reason is slightly (but only very slightly) less idealistic than the first two. I do leave room, in my beliefs for the possibility that I’m pretty much wrong about humans. Maybe there is no God. Maybe there is no purpose to life at all. Maybe we’re not here to accomplish anything or to express anything. Maybe nothing at all hinges on the choices we make. It’s possible that we really are just freak happenstances of biology. But if that’s the case we still have to live. And we have to keep doing it even after we’ve all but destroyed the planet and our economies have collapsed (dark: ya. But I mean come on…look around). ….and in such a situation there would be no drugs. And then what? How would we possibly survive after becoming so dependant on medication?
If we really are just biology…then lets leave it to biology shall we? Let’s stop medicating for chronic diseases (physical or mental), because really it’s messing up natural selection pretty badly. My mom asked what I felt about anti-depressants in the case of someone who’s depressed to the point of being suicidal. My dark (but oddly idealistic) answer? Let them commit suicide*. Same reason I don’t believe in hospitalizing people with terminal illnesses. If we’re sick, to the point of death, let’s accept that, and die (..this sounds scary and dark and twisted because we are so afraid of death in the West today, but really: it’s part of life. It should not be scary). And let’s not stay alive (by virtue of medication) and then have more children, and pass on these defective genes. Because what’s gonna happen when we don’t have drugs anymore?
*Hugely important point: Unlike chronic physical illnesses, I believe that in the case of most mental illnesses a change in lifestyle would be enough to cure the person, or that a change in culture would cure a society of suicides; and I would obviously advocate either or both of those options over mass suicides. Normal people get sad because things aren’t right. It is true that there are cases of people who are chronically depressed, and appear to be sad even when things are O.K, but maybe that’s because they are involved in a lifestyle that is chronically not right. (i.e. maybe right now is my body saying: stop what you’re doing: …stop trying to work, while going to school full-time. you’re a 19-year-old female. That’s not what you were designed for(or maybe not. who knows?))
The image above is called “Pharm-Life” and is the work of Luke Chueh. His paintings, although disturbing are quite beautiful and often contain poignant social commentary.
5 comments December 7th, 2005
The University of Toronto Voices to Afghanistan* is a group of students collecting Children’s books to send to schools in Afghanistan.
December 7th, 8th and 9th is our Christmas Book Drive and Holiday Raffle! Look for our book drop-off boxes in Sid Smith, the Bahen Centre and the Medical Science Building on Campus.
Also if you track down Emily Butler, Elizabeth Logan, Dana Allison or Padraigin Murphy (that’s me, that’s me!) in person, we can sell you raffle tickets ($2 each or 3 for $5) for a chance at some awesome prizes. Lululemon certificate anyone??
*For more information about Voices to Afghanistan see the site of the original group in California (we’re just copy-cats honoured to be affiliated with them ;))
Add comment December 7th, 2005
“Before you decide that everyone knows something (or no one does), take a second to realize that you’re wrong.”
–Seth Godin
(click here to see the quotation in context)
2 comments December 6th, 2005
I’m going to have to make some pretty big decisions over the next month or so. When I’m in Ireland I’ll be meeting with a man who may help me find a job there for all or part of next year. Depending on that meeting I’m going to have to make decisions about potential oppurtunities in Ireland not to mention my school, work, volunteer positions, friends, family and house here in Canada…
…and my little secret is that I’m not really sure I’m in the state of mind to handle any of it…
This summer I came home from Ireland bubbly with the thought of moving there, getting to know my family better, learning more about the culture, etc etc.
About a month ago I was genuinely excited about working and studying there for a year, beginning my focus on politics that would probably continue throughout my career…
Now I don’t even care if I worked in a pub for a year…I just want out of here.
(…Not that everyone fancies the idea of picking up and moving country periodically, but among those of us that do I think there is an understanding that there are good reasons and bad reasons to do it. A ‘quick escape’ isn’t one of the good ones.)
Ask me what I want to do right now. Ask me whether I want to study or drop out of school. Ask me whether I’m really willing to bite the bullets I’m thinking about chomping down on. Ask me how I’m going to write my exams. Ask me how worried I am that I’m going to sleep through my winter vacation. Ask me how I’m going to make it through Febuary.
Watch me collapse.
3 comments December 5th, 2005
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