Depression

Depression is not sadness. Sadness is an emotion. Depression is the absence of emotion. It is emptiness. When you're depressed, you care about nothing, feel nothing, and do nothing. Even getting out of bed in the morning is an ordeal. Since it can come as a way of coping with sadness, depression is like suicide of the soul. Rather than feel the sadness brought on by life events, just kill all emotion and be a zombie.

One deals with sadness by getting out of the sad situations. Anti-depressants do nothing to help this. Depression is a physical ailment that requires medication to alleviate. The drugs don't help you feel better. They just help you feel.

Dante

Dante's Inferno is considered a medieval view of the afterlife. But one aspect of this version of life in hell that few people realize is that there are no chains. The demons do not have pitchforks pushing people back into their respective eternal tortures and Lucifer is not at the gate of hell deciding which torture you deserve to suffer. Newly arrived damned souls just sort of wander around until they come to where they feel they belong.

For Dante, the after-life is a continuation of the fore-life. If you were buffeted by metaphorical winds and storms of sexual passion while you were alive, you would find yourself buffeted by actual winds and storms after you died. If you were immersed in the ice of an absence of love or compassion, you would find nothing changed in the great beyond.

Dante was saying that people make their own heaven or hell on earth. One does not acquire heaven or hell based on what they believed but where they feel most at home. Someone who was devout when they were alive but nevertheless managed to screw themselves into a tiny bubble of anger and hatred would feel uncomfortable and out of place in heaven. Eventually, they would leave for more infernal climes.

Eternity then is just a reflection of the temporal life. If hell is eternal, it is because for some people there is no hope of ever pulling out of their suffering. They dwell on their hate and nurture it, angrily throwing off any attempt by others to get them to stop. It's not that the damned SHOULD abandon all hope; it is that they have ALREADY abandoned hope and will never know anything but anger and suffering in their lives.

Purgatorio is for those who recognize negativity of their lives and seek to free themselves from it. Those whose lives are filled with love or are victorious over suffering and achieved a happy and loving life know that they are already in Paradiso.

Mass is over. Go home now.

Sprained Wrists

If someone has a sprained wrist such that handshaking is painful, shaking their hand anyway because they should “toughen up” is being a jerk.  One should not feel ashamed by having an overly sensitive hand shaker.  Sprains happen.  One does not choose to be hurt by shaking hands.

Many people have the emotional equivalent of a sprained wrist.  Things said that would give others a chuckle insults and hurts them.  They lash out   They seek to humiliate in retribution.  Because they have been so shamed for their over-sensitivity, because they’ve told they are weak because of their thin skins, just pointing out their sensitivity often hurts as much as the original insult.  But, as with the sprained muscle, there is no shame in having triggers.  One cannot heal by simply “toughening up” or “chilling out.”  Healing, especially emotional healing, takes time.

It is the responsibility of others to be aware of these tender points and to be as careful with their words as one would take care not to vigorously shake the hand of sprain victim.  It’s not about walking on eggshells.  It’s about not adding to the hurt.  It’s about not being a jerk.  If they post weepy pictures on Facebook or call you “horribly vile,” one should not be angered, complain about “political correctness,” or call them a “pussy.”  Take that yelp of pain for what it is, an invitation to shut the fuck up. 

Just as those with sprained wrists should not attend hand-shaking parties, those with triggers should not attend events where those triggers are likely to be…um…triggered.   To go to event where jerks are likely to be jerks in order to righteously lash out at them is itself a jerky thing to do.  

Those with emotional sensitive spots should also recognize that, outside of comedians, most people aren’t assholes and don’t want to hurt you.  They’re just people…people who make mistakes.   And unlike computers, people can’t be simply programmed to change their speech, especially if insensitivity to your trigger is (pun warning) a “gag reflex.”  They have to be trained not to worsen your injury…sort of like puppies.