ramble and muse..

I just had an interesting question/thought.

Since my "depressive period" three years ago, I have had to make a continual and active effort to never return there, to never indulge in those lines of thinking that I know can lead me there. In times of crisis it is necessarily a more concentrated effort, and that is where I find myself now, with my lovely big health insurance nightmare.

Anyway, my tendencies (or I think that's actually too strong of a word...but I can't think of a lesser one for now) being something I'm more conscious of these days, I've had the subject of depression on my mind more - well, because of that and also just because it's a subject that kind of fascinates me, as a matter of psychology and sociology.

ANYway, just now in the midst of one of said musings, it struck me how there would be so many more healthy and happy people (or at least, perhaps, healthier and happier) were it not for shame. When I look back on my own experiences, finally learning to be open with others about my hardship was hands down the first and biggest movement toward a recovery. The thing that prevented this step for nearly half a year was, quite irrefutably, shame. People thought I had things together. I didn't want anyone to know I was broken.

And then it struck me how so many women involved in some kind of abuse or trafficking or exploitation don't seek help because of shame, because the pain they live in somehow seems better than the pain of being exposed. Some cultures actually even hold to the belief that, for example, a woman who is raped has been shamed and she should rather die than be exposed and bring shame to her family. As if it was her choice to start with.

And so my question is, WHY? If our culture(s) didn't denigrate people who have fallen victim to depression, abuse, mental illness etc., I truly believe many individuals would feel so much freer to seek the help they need, be it medical, legal, or maybe just a conversation with a friend.

The real shame is how people respond to the broken. Brokenness in certain forms is disturbing to "non-broken" people who don't know how to deal with with it, and so they don't want to hear about it. And that's the sentiment that our society has built itself on (maybe it's better than 50 years ago, but there's still a long way to go), and those who are broken know this, they feel it, and so they keep quiet in their own little mental dungeons.

And the funny thing is, I don't actually believe that "non-broken" people exist. I'm not sure why over time, certain things got singled out to have shame attached to them, why there are some things that people just don't like to talk about. It took me over a year, I think, to be able to talk freely about depression, and now it's no big deal - to me. But I still get the feeling that for someone to speak freely about something like that, to someone who has never experienced anything similar, it is a bit shocking and uncomfortable. And I think that's a problem.