Are You Depressed?

I've been to a lot of doctors in my life.  From the broken toes as a kid to the broken AND dislocated toe as a college student and the high fevers, chest colds, and ear infections in between, I've been a regular in my local physician's office.

My biannual visits transformed into an Odyssey of appointments when I was a senior in high school.  Nerve damage isn't exactly easy to deal with; you can't just splint your foot or take a steroid pack and watch it magically heal.  There were weeks towards the end of my high school experience that saw me in a waiting room more often than a classroom, and I (well, technically my parents) filled out more paperwork during that time than I'd even seen before.

What medicines are you on?

Have you ever had surgery?  If yes, when and why?

Can you tell me the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Those questionnaires were sometimes worse than the actual appointment, or at the very least more interesting.  After all, with every new doctor comes the potential for new medication and the need for your medical history to be passed on, not to mention the distinct possibility that the doctor was confused by his recent viewing of Monty Python.  But still, having to parrot the same details appointment after appointment was tiresome after a while, even if I wasn't the person physically writing everything down.

A few months after graduation, however, I went to a doctor near my college.  This particular office's paperwork was standard, with all the same questions and required personal information as every other doctor I'd seen in the previous six months.  However, there was one question tucked away between "Have you ever had a broken bone? When and where?" and "Have you ever been diagnosed with a heart condition?"

"Are you currently clinically depressed?"

I was eighteen at the time.  The only things I knew about clinical depression I had gleaned from Zoloft commercials and the general definition of depressed.  But I knew that I didn't have use of my right arm, had recently made the heart-wrenching decision to drop out of band, and had yet to make many friends at college.  Who could possibly be living in my situation and not feel sad?  That's what depression is, isn't it?  Being sad?

I asked my mother to check the box next to "Y".

Once the doctor had looked at my arm, expressed his sincerest grief for my circumstances, and told me he could only pass me off to another doctor, he looked down at my chart and nodded.  "Okay, so I'll be extending the prescriptions you're currently taking and adding one for Cymbalta.  We want you to get feeling better."

"Cymbalta?" I blurted out.  I didn't want another pill on top of the twenty I was already taking each day.  "Why do I need that?  What's it for?"

"Oh, your chart shows some symptoms that Cymbalta will help alleviate."  He scribbled something that looked vaguely like English on a few prescription sheets and smiled at me.  "Just be sure to call my office if you get any strange symptoms."

Now that I'm a bit more experienced at dealing with doctors, I recognize that I should have known to ask more questions.  What are the normal symptoms of Cymbalta?  What specifically would it help me with?  When should I call the doctor?  But I was naive at the time, so I just accepted his instructions and bid him a good evening.

I started taking my new medicine the following Sunday, or so I've been told.  I slept through the day, but felt well enough to go to class on Monday, after taking my medication, of course.  I allegedly sat through three classes (in all of which I actively participated, to boot), held a one-on-one meeting with a professor, and ate two meals with my roommate.  I can prove that I completed two inconsequential writing assignments on my computer and typed up some notes on a reading for the following Wednesday, because they were still open on my laptop the next day.

Tuesdays were a sleep-in day for me that first year, and so I slept through my roommate's preparations and the general hubbub in the corridor, only awaking when my roommate returned to collect me for chapel.

"Chapel?" I asked groggily.  "There's no chapel on Sundays."

To this day, I have no memory of that Monday.  I didn't take my Cymbalta that Tuesday.  Or ever again.

When I went for a follow-up to my doctor's office that Friday, I expected to be given yet another address of yet another doctor and told to have a good day.  I was partially right, because I got that address, but then my doctor paused on his way out the door and asked how I was feeling.

"Oh, same as last week, except that Cymbalta was weird."

"Did you stop taking it?" he asked, surprise coloring his voice.

I nodded.  "Is forgetting an entire day a strange symptom for Cymbalta?"

At first he thought I was joking, but when I just looked at him he closed the door to the examination room and sat in his chair again.  "Yes.  Yes, that's a strange symptom.  Do you want to try another one?"

"Another what?" I asked.

"Anti-depressant.  You're clinically depressed, but since you're an adult and don't seem to have gone off the deep end, so to speak, no one can make you take one."

I left that office without a new prescription.  In its place, I held a firm belief that that questionnaire was insane in its presumptions.

Asking a patient if she's "currently clinically depressed" is like asking if one of her arteries has a blockage or if her tibia has a hairline fracture.  How on Earth was I supposed to know if I was clinically depressed?  I'm not a doctor nor a psychologist.  I hardly had a rudimentary understanding of depression at the time, let alone enough experience to diagnose it in myself.

In the years since then, my arm has gotten much better.  My life in general has improved greatly.  But sometimes I'm still a little sad.  I had a bad day at work, my arm froze up for a couple of hours, my heartfelt comment got flamed online.  Those things make me a little sad, kind of throw my whole day into a spin.

But that's not clinical depression.  That's never been depression.  Depression is, as someone in an article I can no longer find describes it, "feeling sad even when everything is fine".

I wasn't clinically depressed in college.  I was going through utter Hell, sure, and it's not always possible to stand with your chin out and shoulders back under such stress, but I should have been sad.  If I had been happy that my arm wasn't working, that college was rough, that I couldn't participate in beloved activities, that would be more concerning than being bummed out.  As it was, I felt happy that very Friday night, when my roommate and I invited a few girls from our floor to our room for a movie night.  I laughed, I smiled, I joked.  I didn't sit amidst the others and cry about my life, nor did I sob my way through my weekend assignments and sniffle myself to sleep every night for no reason.

This post has come out of nothing but my own musings and remembrances, but it still has some messages I'd like to pass on.

First, be careful what you put into your body, regardless of who gives it to you.  Ask questions.  Ask a lot of questions.

Second, don't mistake being sad for being clinically depressed.  Yes, depression is a terrible problem, one that I am not trying to undermine in any way, but the number of people I see claiming to need Zoloft because they had a couple of bad days frighten me.

Third and finally, what exactly is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

xx
'laine

YouBeauty? More Like "YouUgly!"

As a part of some girl's night shindig a while ago, I signed up for a website called "YouBeauty".  The community was supposed to foster a healthier idea of true beauty, one that transcended the traditional ideals of beauty and prettiness and what women are supposed to look like.

What could be so wrong with a site that focused on one's true beauty?  After all, I was and am a firm believer that beauty comes mostly from within, and this website seemed to support that idea at a quick glance.  I plugged in my data and promptly forgot about my new account in the face of a bowl of popcorn and a viewing of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", and hadn't given the website a thought since.

Until last night, that is.

I got an email extolling the virtues of some quiz that I hadn't taken, and some article telling me how to choose the right shade of grey hair for my skin tone, as if a twenty-two year old needs to figure that out.  However, as I was bored and wanting something to occupy my attention at one-thirty in the morning, I decided to make use of this account and discover my true beauty.

It seemed like a wonderful place.  There were all sorts of articles discussing how stress can affect appearance and how to look like you've gotten your full eight hours when you haven't actually slept in two days, and those sorts of articles are always welcomed by a night owl like myself.  There were all sorts of little beauty tips and tricks, and the plethora of quizzes on the site gave me all sorts of advice on how to eat healthily and how to deal with those persistent pimples that crop up during the summer months.

In fact, I didn't have a problem with the site until it asked me to find my "Face Proportion".  I uploaded a picture, arranged the dots in the correct places, and expected the site to tell me what my face said about me or which celebrities I matched up with.

Instead, I was informed that my nose is too big, my eyes aren't close enough together, and my chin isn't prominent enough.  As if that wasn't bad enough, I was offered a set of "action steps" to help resolve these glaring issues in my face, because by golly they needed to be resolved so I could be beautiful.

Shock, insult, and a little confusion all came together to create a strange, sad symphony of emotions in my mind as I read that my forehead-to-nose ratio needed to be corrected through the use of highlighting and shadowing to achieve the "perfect" face, but only if I also parted my hair to the side and made use of straight layers to even out my jawline.  I had thought the site was trying to give helpful tips and boost people's self-image, not conform everyone to some unattainable standard of beauty.

Here's the photo I used for this little endeavor of mine.

(I'm not usually so grumpy, but they said I couldn't be smiling in my photo).

Well, I have a side-part, but I guess I need to straighten my layered hair out to take care of that pesky jawline.  And that smile is so off-kilter.  I guess the fact that I was born without a section of jawbone and a tooth shouldn't affect how evenly my lips sit on my face.

The nose comments made me especially angry.  I inherited a perfectly good schnauz from my dad, all angles and narrow bridge, and I love it.  Even so, this website kindly informed me that because I don't have a "perfect little button nose", as is apparently the standard of beauty, I can't really be pretty without a nose job or five minutes with a makeup brush.  They have science behind them, after all, and science is never wrong.

I think the thing that truly upsets me about this is the fact that the site is so hypocritical.  I looked through a few more articles and quizzes after this quiz, looking for some redeeming quality, and I was honestly disappointed in what I was suddenly able to see: this website was forcing its own image of beauty, rather than celebrating beauty of all shapes, sizes, and kinds.  One article would explain why any one opinion of beauty was stupid, and the linked articles at the end would tell readers how to naturally whiten teeth or make their waist look smaller.  A quiz on hair joyfully informed me that thick curly hair was the best kind of hair, and the suggested reading included an article explaining exactly why everyone needed thinner and straighter hair.  An article discussing lip color said that pale ladies with brown hair should go for purple lipstick, but later explained why purple lipstick washed out pale ladies with brown hair.

There's little advice for women of color.  There's little advice for chunkier women who don't necessarily have hourglass figures.  There's literally no advice for tall women.  In fact, a search for the term "tall" resulted in only two relevant links: one a question from a tall girl who wanted advice on feeling shorter (we've all been there), one a mini-article on why tall women may be prone to cancer.  Thanks, I guess?

I came out of my YouBeauty excursion feeling worse for the wear.  I don't know how to properly taper my face with makeup, most of my attempts at polishing my nails go disastrously awry, my nose is too big, and I'm genetically predisposed to get cancer.  And all this is supposed to make me feel beautiful?

YouBeauty isn't the definitive judge on YOUR beauty, MY beauty, or ANYBODY ELSE'S beauty.  Beauty comes from the soul; if you feel and act beautiful and beautifully, you'll look it.  It doesn't matter if your eyelashes are blonde or you wear size 11 shoes, because those aren't markers of your beauty.  Acting kindly, being polite, showing positivity: that is true beauty.

Don't you dare let anyone tell you otherwise.

-'laine

Welcome To My World

You can call me 'laine.

This blog is primarily meant to give readers a look at society through my eyes, eyes that happen to be set about eight inches above the average American woman.  They're also framed by some pretty sweet glasses which help me clearly see the world around me, and unfortunately that world isn't always the nicest.  My eyes are often occupied by the pages of a good book, so don't be surprised when my bookworm alter-ego takes over for a post.

In short, here's what you can expect to find here:

-the litany of problems tall girls and women have faced, do face, and will probably always face (and how to make the best of our situation)
-book recommendations
-general commentary on the world through my eyes

Updates will probably be sporadic, unless I'm deluged with watchers.  Then I might try to keep a consistent schedule but probably fail because I'm absolutely terrible at updating my posts on time.

Until next time,

-'laine