{"id":972,"date":"2008-02-19T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2008-02-19T10:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html"},"modified":"2008-02-19T10:00:39","modified_gmt":"2008-02-19T10:00:39","slug":"why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html","title":{"rendered":"Why the World Needs Diabetes, Cancer, and Dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wilson200.jpg\"
\nIf I caught your attention with my title, good. That was the point. Because it was absurd (my title, I mean). Let\u2019s celebrate AIDS! Breast Cancer! Dementia! Yeah! They are all ways of embracing our darker sides! Let’s create t-shirts that say “Suffering is Awesome!”
\nWe read those statements as unreasonable and idiotic, and yet we are told (too many times this week, thank you very much!) to treasure our melancholy, like Abraham Lincoln did, because it leads to a path of heroic triumphs.
\nEnglish professor Eric Wilson has penned a polemic entitled \u201cAgainst Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy,\u201d <\/a>which was discussed as part of Sharon Begley\u2019s Newsweek article<\/a>. Now he makes an NPR appearance, in which he says:<\/p>\n

At the behest of well-meaning friends, I have purchased books on how to be happy. I have tried to turn my chronic scowl into a bright smile. I have attempted to become more active, to get away from my dark house and away from my somber books and participate in the world of meaningful action. \u2026 I have contemplated getting a dog. I have started eating salads. I have tried to discipline myself in nodding knowingly. \u2026 I have undertaken yoga. I have stopped yoga and gone into tai chi. I have thought of going to psychiatrists and getting some drugs. I have quit all of this and then started again and then once more quit. Now I plan to stay quit. The road to hell is paved with happy plans.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some days I wouldn\u2019t have a problem with that. Today I do because I\u2019m not dealing with a little boo-hoo here and there. I\u2019m fighting a dangerous and debilitating depression. Hard. Really damn hard. Extra hard because I\u2019m trying to figure out how to work out with a busted hip. And how to fit the prayer and meditation I need into an already jam-packed schedule. Plus some of my recovery tools aren\u2019t working because I\u2019m sick (hold the spinach; crackers and Sprite, please), and I can feel myself getting pulled into that scary Black Hole.<\/p>\n


\nIt\u2019s a delicate dance every day, my depression is. Even if I don\u2019t talk about, I’m working against it almost every minute. I drink one cup of coffee too many, and I feel fragile. I don’t exercise for two days in a row, I\u2019m in trouble. I forget the fish-oil capsules, you bet I can tell. It isn\u2019t something to take lightly, this illness of mine. Every day it demands more time and attention than does anything else in my life.
\nUnlike Wilson\u2019s depression, my Black Hole isn\u2019t a place where I can compose gorgeous lyrics that articulate the world\u2019s sadness. No, my Black Hole tells me how and where I should kill myself. That I should do it as soon as possible, so that I don\u2019t screw up the lives of my children\u2026so that they have a chance to grow up with a good mother (Eric\u2019s next wife).
\nNo poetry there. No beauty either.
\nWison\u2019s depression must have been mild for him to be able to function, for him to APPRECIATE his symptoms. Mine comes over me like a thunderstorm. I run for cover and wait, terrified, to come out into existence again.
\nLike a diabetic who risks going into a coma, my mood disorder can disable me to the point where I have trouble feeding myself, because my shaking hands can\u2019t meet my mouth in one swift movement. I have lost so much weight in depressive cycles that I stop menstruating, which in turn causes bone-mass deficiencies.
\nWhen the worst of my symptoms persist I can\u2019t get anything out of therapy, or cognitive-behavioral techniques, or the other 15 ways I treat my depression.
\nI guess I need to shout this for my own sanity, on a day like today, when I don\u2019t see anything positive in my bipolar disorder, when I\u2019m already fighting it as hard as I can with all the help that’s possible: DRUGS HELP ME STAY ALIVE!!
\nWhich is why I grow weary of articles and radio interviews like this.
\nWilson says he is clear about not \u201cromanticizing\u201d clinical depression and that serious conditions should be treated. But then he focuses on the many wonderful things melancholy can do for you. Here\u2019s the summary of his interview on NPR which you can find my clicking here:<\/a><\/p>\n

Wilson has embraced his inner gloom, and he wishes more people would do the same.
\nThe English professor at Wake Forest University wants to be clear that he is not “romanticizing” clinical depression and that he believes it is a serious condition that should be treated.
\nBut he worries that today’s cornucopia of antidepressants \u2014 used to treat even what he calls “mild to moderate sadness” \u2014 might make “sweet sorrow” a thing of the past.
\n“And if that happens, I wonder, what will the future hold? Will our culture become less vital? Will it become less creative?” he asks.
\nWilson talks to Melissa Block about why the world needs melancholy \u2014 how it pushes people to think about their relation to the world in new ways and ultimately to relate to the world in a richer, deeper way.
\nHe also explores the link between sadness, artistic creation and depression \u2014 which has led to suicide in many well-known cases: Virginia Woolf, Vincent Van Gogh, Hart Crane and Ernest Hemingway, for instance.
\nWilson says perhaps this is “just part of the tragic nature of existence, that sometimes there’s a great price to be paid for great works or beauty, for truth.”
\n“We can look at the lives of Dylan Thomas, Virginia Woolf, Hart Crane and others and lament the fact that they suffered so. Yet at the same time, we’re buoyed, we’re overjoyed by the works they left behind,” Wilson says.
\nThe husband and father of a young daughter also acknowledges that melancholy is “difficult terrain to negotiate in domestic situations.” He says there are certainly times when his family hoped he would be “happier,” and yet they would not want him to pretend to feel something he doesn’t.
\nWilson says that by taking his melancholy seriously, his family ultimately will get to know him more deeply and develop a more intimate relationship with him.
\n“To get to know your partner, your spouse, your friend fully, you really have to find a way to embrace the dark as well as the light. Only then can you know that person,” he says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, I go to an interview with Peter Kramer, author or \u201cAgainst Depression,\u201d<\/a> for the facts. In \u201cThe Johns Hopkins White Papers, 2006, Depression and Anxiety\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cAgainst Depression\u201d <\/a>grew out of Kramer\u2019s frustration in repeatedly being asked the same question after public speaking engagements, \u201cWhat if Prozac had been available in van Gogh\u2019s time?\u201d The assumption behind this question is that grappling with depression leads to insight, creativity, and depth, ultimately conferring noblility on the sufferer. Kramer attempts to answer and challenge the van Gogh question by breaking it down into two queries: It is truly noble or productive to suffer? And just how harmful to one\u2019s health is depression really?
\nKramer describes his approach in \u201cAgainst Depression\u201d:<\/a> \u201cThis book is about discrepancies between standard medical views of depression on the one hand, and popular or culturally determined views of depression on the other. It offers a way of merging points of view from genetics to cultural history.\u201d
\nKramer does not mince words. From a public health perspective, \u201cdepression is the most devastating disease known to mankind.\u201d Unlike many diseases that occur mainly in later life, depression often robs sufferers of prime years\u2014often decades\u2014of life. It is a chronic stressor that significantly worsens the severity of diabetes, arthritis, pneumonia, cancer, heart attacks, and strokes. \u201cEven if it had no effects on schooling and work and marriage and parenting, if it caused no daily suffering, if it were as invisible as blood pressure, depression would still earn its place among a brutal and elite group of chronic illnesses,\u201d Kramer writes. \u201cbut of course, depression causes significant harm on all those levels.\u201d
\nKramer acknowledges that the research and development of new treatments for depression has been \u201ctreading water\u201d for a decade, but explains that enormous progress has been made in using imaging technology to identify the disease\u2019s pathological devastation in the brain. He provides an overview of research studies that sketch out the effect of stress hormones in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. The amydala and hippocampus regions are shown to suffer significant death and shrinkage, and show diminished capacity for nerve regeneration. This devastation contributes to fragility at the emotional level. Kramer says this evidence has changed attitudes. \u201cPsychiatrists have learned that depression is progressive, and there is widespread agreement that we need to interrupt it very promptly and decisively to prevent further deterioration.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I caught your attention with my title, good. That was the point. Because it was absurd (my title, I mean). Let\u2019s celebrate AIDS! Breast Cancer! Dementia! Yeah! They are all ways of embracing our darker sides! Let’s create t-shirts that say “Suffering is Awesome!” We read those statements as unreasonable and idiotic, and yet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy the World Needs Diabetes, Cancer, and Dementia - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why the World Needs Diabetes, Cancer, and Dementia - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If I caught your attention with my title, good. That was the point. Because it was absurd (my title, I mean). Let\u2019s celebrate AIDS! Breast Cancer! Dementia! Yeah! They are all ways of embracing our darker sides! Let’s create t-shirts that say “Suffering is Awesome!” We read those statements as unreasonable and idiotic, and yet…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-19T10:00:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/wilson200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why the World Needs Diabetes, Cancer, and Dementia - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why the World Needs Diabetes, Cancer, and Dementia - Beyond Blue","og_description":"If I caught your attention with my title, good. That was the point. Because it was absurd (my title, I mean). Let\u2019s celebrate AIDS! Breast Cancer! Dementia! Yeah! They are all ways of embracing our darker sides! Let’s create t-shirts that say “Suffering is Awesome!” We read those statements as unreasonable and idiotic, and yet…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2008-02-19T10:00:39+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/wilson200.jpg"}],"author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html","name":"Why the World Needs Diabetes, Cancer, and Dementia - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/wilson200.jpg","datePublished":"2008-02-19T10:00:39+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-19T10:00:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/wilson200.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/wilson200.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/why-the-world-needs-diabetes-c.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why the World Needs Diabetes, Cancer, and Dementia"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"description":"Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}