Cultural Attitudes and the Treatments of Clinical Depression

This is basically just a silly essay written for school. I got a 5 out of 6 for this one.

          Cultural Attitudes and the Treatments of Clinical Depression                                   by          Tyson M. Haynes

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

                I have a window in my room; not a large one, really, just about the size of a regular billiards table, that I had often stared out of when I was still a stone’s throw away from my teenage years.                        The only things interesting enough to stare at mostly occurred during the afternoons, when I would sit glumly with the window slid halfway open, feeling the warm summer winds kissing my face through the screen, the chirpings of birds and the chattering of territorial squirrels drifting across the unlevel backyards to my ears, the glorious golden light of the mid-afternoon sun dazzling me as it reflected off everything green, the sky a beautiful blue behind the canopies of gnarly oaks.   Now, being the overly imaginative, hyper-active storyteller that I was back then, I would have sat and enjoyed this pleasant experience with a fluttering heart as my mind wandered aimlessly across the fairy-tale avenues that I so often trudged along when I was on restrictions for unnecessary behavior. Heck, I would have felt like God actually existed and He was rewarding me somehow with such a breathtaking view of a rather bleak backyard.                                                             Was I happy?                                 The answer was no.                            The reason being was because I didn’t feel like I normally did. I wasn’t the jolly, friendly, missing-elementary-school-so-much-the-anticipation-is-killing-me kind of kid. I was sullen, never wholly happy with the spoiled life I was living, disregarding nearly all of the generous offerings my parents coaxingly placed under my nose, and I constantly sat like Ronan’s Thinker, thoughts lowly, wondering over and over again why God was being such a bully to me. I stopped reading the tattered, “ultimate-favorite” children’s Bible book the size of a concrete slab and instead turned to the magic of more darker, anti-secular works of fiction.       It was when I started asking my parents, innocently, what God would do to people who killed themselves, that it was decided I be taken to see a professional. Granted, I enjoyed the long rides to the doctor’s office, and I enjoyed even more the fact that they asked me fairly personal questions, to which I answered quickly and without hesitation. These were my favorite parts of the appointments with the doctor, and I was genuinely pleased to be expressing myself on my likes and dislikes.                           As usual, however, I returned to the placid state of mind and continued to feel underappreciated and lowly, until I was forced one morning to swallow a pill the size of a quarter. An hour later, though, I was out in my backyard, chasing around the family dogs and my brother, laughing out loud, perfectly sanguine, thinking pleasant thoughts after living for so long in a pitfall trap of sadness.                                                     I never remembered the name of the drug that cured my depression, but I always remembered my mother telling me that it was a “special happy pill”.       

 

                     

1

 

 

                Have I ever stopped to wonder what other cultures do to treat mental illnesses such as the one I had previously encountered only six years ago?                                Not really, but it wasn’t until two days ago that I had sat quiet in my seat during class and imagined how cultures went about their businesses to fully treat these unfortunate events. Like I said, I possess an active imagination, and what I had imagined was this: a culture, totally un-American under all circumstances, would grind up some smelly, incredibly bitter-tasting concoction of various jungle insects with a mortar and pestle and serve the gray, clumpy goop to a person with depression, who, obviously, would seem entirely repulsed by it, and then some.                                            Or, an unfortunate someone living on the opposite side of the globe who had a similar mental disability would be forced to succumb to horrifying acts of physical and mental torture on account that they be rid of the “demons” that have supposedly housed themselves in the victim’s subconscious.                     This was the one thing that I found I didn’t like so much, and I felt a short stab of sympathy for the poor soul who had to endure being exorcised because he felt lowly or had just a small screw loose somewhere in his brain.                                                Nonetheless, separate cultures provide different treatments in the prevention of clinical depression and rogue mental illnesses, and, while I may consider myself lucky for having to swallow an expensive mood stimulant to boost my deceptive morale instead of having my brains beaten out by an oddball God-fearing exorcist, I should take the time to reflect upon and write about the interesting ways we, as a society, deal with mental health.

 

 

 

                      2                          

 

 

                When someone develops a certain illness, their first initial response (or from the suggestion of a friend or family member) is to gain an immediate cure so that you’re instantly feeling like you could blissfully take a stroll down a gorgeous beach, chasing a couple broads if necessary. So while you are sitting with your head hung low and negative internal thoughts sluggishly creeping about, you wait, feeling stupid.              When you finally see the shrink, and after you told him your reasons for being here, he merely clasps his hands across his lap, leans back in that imitation-leather office chair you envy so much, looks you straight in the eye and says that it’s nothing a little Focalin or Ambien CR wouldn’t cure.           You’re left leaving the office feeling like your wallet has just dropped thirteen pounds in the last sixty minutes you spent there at the doctor’s; an event expected but not really looked forward to.                    Just be thankful you’re not like other people.                                          Take Alexander Osmond, a seventeen year old honor student from Liverpool, for example. A few years ago he was unknowingly diagnosed with a mental illness called saddenista depresso clinicala, an unusual but rather common form of psychological put-down.                                  He went to talk to his father at the steel mill over in Alabaster County after school one day,  ambling along the dirt road, his eyes invariably drawn to the ground and his red Schwinn placed adjacent to his side, unused. It was lunchtime over at Jenson Steel and Ironworks, Inc. when Alexander finally arrived and Quentin Osmond was, as usual, a little bit drunk. He sat on one of the beams, a can of Budweiser in one hand, entertaining the crew with a rather lascivious story about him and his ex-wife. His eyes were glazed over and he and his comrades were laughing uncontrollably.                                                    When Alexander reached the group and asked his father if it were possible to visit the local head shrink and maybe ask for some mood stimulants, Quentin hopped down from the beam, walked past the posse to his son, boxed him a good one over the ear with a clenched fist and forcibly removed him from the mill, cursing and calling his own son a measly, unworthy coward.                     Alexander left, crying, speeding down the sloping hill on his Schwinn. He rode over to his girlfriend Sherry’s house and pleaded that she give him some anti-depressants before he kills himself, and Sherry did, reluctantly, returning from the bathroom with a bottle of Nyquil, a pack of Camels and a case of Coors.                  

 

 

 

                      3

 

               

Okay, maybe liquor, a deck of smokes and some flu medicine isn’t the best way to knock out saddenista depresso clinicala.                                                As I said prior, some cultures are different than others.                          If you lived in Liverpool like my good friend Alexander Osmond (who is currently training to be a brain surgeon in London), you might be surrounded by people who sometimes refuse to treat such illnesses, turning around and walking away, shaking their heads in disbelief. Alexander was lucky he had a somewhat supportive person to lean on in his six months of recovering from deep depression.                                   Here’s another example: Xanga Ishuo from the Huang He province in China suffered from a serious bout of clinical sadness primarily known as depressinga mentalia noticero. Being of a fearful and fidgety type, Xanga decided not to approach her father’s obstinate views on practically everything; besides, he was distraught, always stressed and had an unbearable temper. Her mother, being deathly sick with some sort of rare form of malaria, was quarantined and could not be of any significant help.            Xanga sought out her best girlfriends in high school, but they only offered her drugs that she knew she would get punished severely for by her father if caught. The thought of Hishu thwacking his thick bamboo rod across her neck and back with incredible force frightened her so much that she decided against the whole idea and went home. She was thankful Hishu was currently working at his silk firm in Yu Zhen Xi and her mother sound asleep in another room, undisturbed by her maids.       She decided she couldn’t take the uniform sadness any longer. Locking herself in the bathroom, she undressed, filled the claw-foot bathtub all the way with warm water, grabbed the blade her father used to shave with, and slid into the calming waters.                                                  One of the maids discovered her lifeless body three hours later, the tub filled with runny, dark-red blood and Xanga’s hand hanging limply over the side of the tub, black liquid oozing from a deep slit in her wrist, dripping down from her cold fingers and creating a small, creeping pool on the previously spotless linoleum floor.

 

 

 

                           Conclusion

 

 

                See? Almost all cultures deal differently with these illnesses, and it’s not just doctors that are there to treat and cure them. Sure, you might feel a little blue for a week or so and pop some Zoloft in your mouth before heading off for a nap. Or if it is much more serious, consult someone of higher authority and expertise to deal with the matter.                                         Plus, you have to be thankful that you were prescribed a “special happy pill” instead of having to bear the humiliation of getting slapped in the face with a Bible and sprinkled with fake holy water by a Reverend Goodfellow.                                    Or getting punched over the side of the face, embarrassed and sent to your girlfriend’s house to smoke, drink and sleep your unfortunate consciousness away.                                  And believe me when I say that no one wants an adamant, abusive father and sickly mother when trying to survive a battle being won by a serious form of depression.                                   Cultural attitudes towards depression and some forms of mental illness is something that I wouldn’t have considered if it weren’t for a little prompt placed before me one cheerful morning during class, and I certainly would not have thought twice about a serious topic such as the one I have discussed.                                                       Thankfully, I live in a time and place where all I need to do if I’m feeling wretched is take a pill and drift off into a comfortable slumber, forgetting my troubles for the time being.

Author's Note

Y'know what? Whenever your see the word 'story' under the title, just remember that it will almost always look like what you just got through reading. True that.